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“Sounds like Bea with the children,” William interjected with a smile.
She laughed lightly, but when she looked over at him to share in the moment, she realized anew how fraught with danger such an everyday interaction was. His almost boyish smile reminded her a great deal of Benjamin, who, in the last months, had changed from babe to young boy. Given her boundless love for her child, it made sense that she would feel affection toward the man who looked so similar.
The reassurance fell flat. Looking across the table at her husband, her feelings were far from maternal.
Clearing her throat, she shifted her attention back to Augustus. “What is the situation now with these soldiers? Do they resist still?”
“It has taken time and”—he raised an eyebrow—“no small amount of grief. But now, some of those men are my best soldiers.”
“Well done, Captain.” Bea smiled warmly. This matter had weighed heavily on him during his last visits over the past year and a half, and he appeared not only more philosophical about it, but greatly eased. “What turned the tide, would you say?”
“In part, routine and discipline. That’s what every regiment needs to thrive. But in greater part, I had to grow as their officer for them to respond as my soldiers. I’d thought I would earn their respect by showing my prowess during exercises. Besting them with my saber. Outmaneuvering them. Teaching them better tactics.”
“But that’s not what did it,” William said, frowning pensively. “What did, then?”
“No battlefield treatise was helping me reach these soldiers. But one night, staring into a fire after a long and wretched day, thinking I would never understand those men, I realized they were indeed testing me, but not in the way I thought. They needed to learn through experience alone, not words, that I was not like the other officers they had known before. Yes, I maintain discipline. I expect a great deal from them and won’t lower those expectations. But I have been generous when I can be. Have defended these men in a way no one else has before.”
Though Augustus’s visits were not frequent, she had always found them refreshing. In the beginning, she had not believed she and a military man could have much in common, and perhaps they didn’t, but they had quickly reached an understanding and enjoyed a good rapport. Though he and William were so different, their own affection was clear as well.
Whatever his tough exterior, she had come to know him as a man of deep contemplation, so she wasn’t entirely surprised by the turn of events with his soldiers. “You earned their loyalty,” she observed.
Augustus nodded curtly. “As any officer can attest, obedience to the chain of command is essential. Loyalty, however—that cannot be ordered. It can only be earned. Yes, they are baseborn and lower in rank. But in other ways that count, we are no different from each other. You’ve met our mother, Bea.”
His words were spoken quietly, but he might as well have pulled the tablecloth from the table and sent dishes and goblets flying. All three of them were beset by bad memories.
“What does she have to do with your men?” William asked tensely.
Bea searched William’s gaze, focused wholly on his brother. He didn’t seem angry, only heartsick.
Augustus’s expression was fierce, but his voice was quiet. “So little time Mother spent with us, trulywithus. But you know very well the impact she had. The grip she kept on us here at Candleton Hall, even from afar. It’s a natural thing for a child to need his mother. What happens to him when he never quite receives what he needs? Well, it’s a natural thing for a soldier to need guidance and support from his commanding officer. Seeing these men who didn’t receive that, I can tell you what has happened to them.”
“What?” William asked.
“They craved my approval; Iknewit. Yet, even when I bestowed it, some pretended to ignore it. Some rejected it. Others went out of their way to show disdain for it, as if they didn’t want it. That’s when I knew. When I recognized it for the horse”—Augustus sent a look of apology to Bea—“erm, nonsense it was.”
Crestfallen, William looked from Augustus to Bea. “They wanted that approval more than anything. But they didn’t know what to do with it when they received it. They—they didn’t trust it to be real. The poor idiots nearly destroyed the very thing they had wished for all along.”
Under the table, out of sight, Bea clasped her hands tightly, trying to hold herself in place against the wave of emotion washing over her and William. His words, spoken with the authenticity of his own experience, resonated powerfully.
No one at the china-, silver-, and crystal-laden table was a child anymore, but there they sat, vessels for the pain they carried since their youths. They weren’t soldiers staggering off a battlefield of war, but survivors of life, and still struggling to find their way.
Even as an eighteen-year-old bride, Bea had been an awkward combination of naïve, yet wounded. When she had met William, she saw beyond the obvious charms her competition drooled over. His parliamentary ambitions had impressed her, but not because of the power he could wield if successful. His ideals and his vision had captivated her. Behind his reserve, she had recognized some hidden pain, one she could relate to.
Bea had believed that by sharing the goal of giving their children a childhood unlike their own, she would find peace. She had, to a large degree. Oh, she hadn’t been like William or the soldiers Augustus described, defeating themselves by destroying what they prized most. No. For too long, she had sabotaged herself from having what she wanted by simply believing it wasn’t possible. Believing someone so lacking in anything special could deserve the extraordinary.
Augustus rapped the table with his knuckles a few times. “Onwards through the fog!” He raised his goblet, followed by William and Bea. “To learning lessons and moving on. To the power of forgiveness and redemption.”
Bea looked from one brother to another, wondering what she had just witnessed and whether she was part of their ploy. Augustus, however, looked nothing more than sincere, and William, as exposed and affected as she felt. She stared into her blood-red claret. Was accepting the toast tantamount to a promise to forgive William?
Shrugging inwardly, she decided it was not. No longer the eighteen-year-old who depended on her husband for a sense of safety; she would decide with time what was right for her.
“Admirable sentiments,” Bea said before sipping.
The men followed suit, and the conversation lightened, though they all seemed lost in thought. Pleading fatigue after a day of carriage travel, Augustus excused himself after the meal.
“You must be tired as well, my lord,” Bea said as William escorted her out of the dining room.
Her hint was less than subtle, but William’s only reaction was…nervousness?
