Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(23)

“But something is going on.”

Glyde picked up his drink. He looked suddenly very tired. “Plenty of things, one way and another. It never stops, does it? ‘It isn’t the fighting that fucks you up—’”

“‘It’s the fucking fucking around,’” Saul completed automatically. Their eyes met again. Saul knew the expression Glyde wore; he wore it himself, as so many men did. “Where were you?”

“Flanders.”

“Doing what?” He could imagine this lean, superior man mud-covered and yelling. Glyde would, he thought, have been a good commander. A commander to whom a man could come in trouble; one who might well head trouble off for you.

“Special battalion.”

That knocked the wind out of Saul’s sails. It sounded hush-hush, and if it was—

Glyde evidently saw something on Saul’s face, because he shook his head. “I’m not a spy. I repeat, I don’t work for the Government. Let me put it this way: if I had any reason to think you’re playing a part in something you shouldn’t, I would say so. If I learn any such thing in the future, I will say so. I believe that you do not want to do harm, to England or to others; I shan’t let you be tricked into it if I can avoid it.”

Saul stared at him, speechless. Glyde looked, for once, quite serious, no trace of the habitual faintly mocking half-smile, and what he’d said...

I believe that you do not want to do harm; I shan’t let you be tricked into it.

Saul wanted to clutch the words to him, to curl round them, to write them down and keep them pressed between the pages of a book. He wanted to believe them, and he hated the small scarred part of his mind that pointed out, He knows your story. He knows what will bring you to your knees. If he wanted to manipulate you, how better?

“I think you’re a decent man,” Glyde went on. “I think, if I warned you off, you would take the warning, rather than risk another mistake.”

“Another villainy,” Saul said, stifled, because Glyde might as well have kicked his chair from under him. He was habituated to contempt or abuse; he couldn’t take this.

“Mistake. You aren’t the only one who made a hash of things in the War; many of us have the wrong sort of blood on our hands. If I find reason to be concerned, I will tell you. And—if you have concerns, will you tell me?”

“But what concerns?” Saul asked hopelessly. “I don’t understand why any of this should be more than Major Peabody’s demented rambling.”

“I hope it isn’t. If it begins to seem meaningful, or if you should find yourself out of your depth, come to me.” Glyde extracted a silver case from his pocket and handed Saul a card. Engraved, expensive. Randolph Glyde, it read, with the address of a flat in the Albany and a telephone number. “I don’t promise I’ll be able to help, but I can try.”

“Why would you? Why do you think—?” His voice cracked, and he clamped his lips shut before he betrayed himself utterly.

Glyde looked at him for just a second with an expression appallingly close to sympathy, then his face smoothed into the habitually mocking look and he tilted a brow. “I’d like to say, because I’m an impeccable judge of character,” he drawled. “It’s not true, naturally, but feel free to give me that credit anyway: I do like a bit of unearned credit. I should have been a general, really. I’m quite cut out for the role.”

“This cryptic posture of yours could become trying,” Saul returned in his best stab at the same light tone, profoundly grateful for the respite. “Do you always speak in double talk?”

“Habitually. It’s terribly vulgar to say what one means.” Glyde’s eyes met Saul’s for a second. “Despite which, I meant what I said. Call on me. Any time.”

The edges of the card were hard against Saul’s fingers. He wanted this to be an invitation, an approach; he hoped or feared it was something far less familiar, for which he longed even more. He wanted it to be kindness.

And maybe also an approach. Could he imagine himself going to an expensive address, ringing a doorbell, giving his name to a porter? Walking through marble halls and taking a brass-fitted lift to Glyde’s door and saying...

He couldn’t imagine what he would say to this sophisticated, superior man. He’d have had the confidence once, and the desire, but he wanted something else now, something far harder to find than a quick suck in a back alley. He wanted his belief back. He wanted to know the things he’d thought he had—love, liking, companionship, and trust—could be real. He wasn’t going to get any of that from a man he didn’t know who seemed constitutionally incapable of giving a direct answer, but he wanted them so much the longing clawed at his insides.

Glyde was watching him, face unreadable. He didn’t speak for a moment, as if he knew Saul had been struck dumb, and then he said, gravely, “You’ve had a hell of a time, haven’t you?”

“Others worse,” Saul managed.

“That is the most specious form of consolation possible. One can always find someone who has it worse. If I’m having my fingernails torn out with pincers, it is unhelpful to observe that my neighbour has been hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

“Well, yes. But if one has brought one’s trouble on oneself—”

“You had your nature turned against you,” Glyde said. “That is not a condition to be envied.”