He forced a chuckle, hoping it sounded more sincere than it felt. “Off with your oblique flattery, Miss Stanton. I’m no hero. Though I might wish to be the gallant knight who saves the day astride a white charger, ’tis my lot to be the peg-legged, blundering squire.”
Miss Stanton’s dark brows knit together. “When was the last time you slept?”
His grin wobbled. “At night. That’s usually when people sleep, so I’m told. Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve the look of a mouse that’s been taunted by the cat all night. And because I’ve heard your cries through the hotel wall betwixt our rooms. You’re having nightmares again, aren’t you?”
So much for hiding his torment. The chiming of Drosselmeyer’s pocket watch offered a well-timed distraction. Shading his eyes, Theodore surveyed the lake. “I’d wager Drosselmeyer’s fashioned an automaton waterfowl this time. Perhaps another stork or a mallard duck or a regal swan. Think I spotted a few of the latter nesting near the lake. See anything, Miss Stanton?”
“Just a man drowning in a sea of denial.”
Despite the lack of waves, the boat seemed to rock. He slipped, almost losing an oar to the lake. Pulling the wooden paddles out of the water, he tucked them into the bottom of the boat beside his crutch. The pocket watch’s metallic notes faded into silence, revoking his excuse to avoid Miss Stanton’s gaze.
The woman observed him from the bow, gray eyes void of disparagement. Black ringlets swaying in the warm, languid breeze. Defined contours of her face softened by a rosy bloom. The pretty little grump, having retired her murder of ravens, was now all beauty and kindness. Each night sincethe carousel incident, she’d had a poultice sent to his room to soothe his injured leg, and each night when it arrived, he nearly came undone. For she had seen him—the pain, the tears, the brokenness—and she had not thrown him away.
“You know, Mr. Arthur, since all of London believes my bloodline to be riddled with madness, I’m the perfect person to entrust with the keeping of secrets. For even if I should give up my honor and betray a confidence, not a soul would ever take me at my word.”
Theodore slouched forward, propping an elbow on either knee. “It is not your honor I question, but mine.”
“People are often poor judges of their own character, esteeming themselves either too highly or too little. Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you—who you really are—and let me determine whether your estimation of yourself is accurate? If my honor isn’t in question, then I should be able to come to a fair verdict, for good or ill.”
She made an excellent case. One he’d not the strength or inclination to argue. Perhaps if he finally spoke of the past ... of the nightmares ... they might lose their power over him. In any case, after she’d found the courage to entrust him with her history, how could he refuse to share his own?
Theodore ran a hand over his beard. “I admit, Judge Stanton, I don’t quite know where to begin.”
“Begin at the beginning and conclude at the conclusion. I’ve nowhere else to be, so by all means, take your time.”
He sighed. “My name isn’t Arthur.”
“I’m all astonishment.” She smirked, but a gleam of tenderness in her eyes softened the expression.
Like the turning of a silver key, those eyes unlocked the hidden crypt wherein Theodore had buried himself alive. For that was truly what his carefully constructed mental encasement had become. A crypt bearing a false name. One that could no longer conceal the pain and brokenness within. Atleast not from one pair of perceptive silver eyes. Dare he let Miss Stanton see the whole of him—the faulty pieces as well as the humor and smiles? Dare he resurrect his former life?
If he didn’t do so now, he never would.
He cleared his throat and slowly opened the door long shut to his past. “Theodore was the name given me by the mother who didn’t survive my birth. From the father who resented my existence, I received daily reassurance that I could never be worthy of it.”
Miss Stanton’s lips parted. “Your father ... he’s the person in your nightmares? The one you beg for mercy?”
Theodore shifted his gaze to the lake’s dark green water. “Throughout my childhood, Father’s disdain of me festered. He disapproved of my interest in clocks and preoccupation with tinkering. Compared me to my seven elder brothers, who—unlike me—met his every expectation. I was admonished to be like them. To keep my hands clean by pursuing academia instead of a trade. Achieve high marks. Adhere to tradition.” Live up to the esteemed Kingsley lineage.
“Father instructed our tutor to use the switch if I fidgeted, daydreamed, or made a mess. That’s what he called my disassembling clocks to figure out how they worked ... making a mess.” He tugged at his constricting shirt collar, finger grazing a raised scar on his chest. “To avoid the switch, I learned to hide my mess. To shove the unacceptable parts of myself deep inside and lock them away so no one could see. And I pulled it off for years. Until one day Father discovered I’d been secretly learning from an estate clock-winder, and for the first time, struck me with his own hand.”
He ground his teeth, still feeling the heat of that slap biting across his cheek. Splitting his lip. The nightmares wouldn’t let him forget.
Miss Stanton’s voice reached out gingerly. “Is that what you relive in the dreams?”
He sucked in a breath. “In part. The rest involves the consequences of the decision I made that night. When Father hit me, I determined to adhere to tradition and join the army. I thought if I could prove myself heroic on a field of battle, I might finally garner his respect. Make myself worthy of my mother’s name. Make myself good enough to be called his son.”
His gaze drifted to the crutch lying beside his metal boot, carved from handle to tip with name upon name. “But on October 25, 1854, Father was proven right once and for all.”
Silence joined them in the boat, a heavy companion that weighed their tiny vessel.
At last Miss Stanton spoke, her whisper half reverence, half horror. “You were there ... at the Light Brigade’s charge?”
“Aye.” Theodore ground his jaw. No longer seeing the crutch. No longer feeling the breeze. “I was the dispatch sent to relay Lord Raglan’s order to ‘advance rapidly to the front’ and ‘prevent the enemy from carrying away the guns.’ I’m the one who was uncertain as to which guns his order referred. I was the one who sent the Light Brigade galloping through batteries of shell and shot into the Valley of Death. Because of my ineptitude, two hundred and sixty men were killed or gravely wounded. Good men—brave men—slain. And I had the audacity to survive.
“A friend of Father’s, a Colonel Chicanery, found me unconscious amid the carnage. Knowing I’d bungled Lord Raglan’s order and suspecting the battle would become infamous once word got back to London, the colonel had me transported to my father in secret.”
