After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(108)

And, oh Christ. He suddenly realized that he’d heard of this man. His friend Marcelo had mentioned something about encountering him before. British officer. Tall. Meaty. Blond. He’d chalked the tale up to campfire boasting. When he’d heard there was a madman who couldn’t stop talking, John had imagined something along the lines of a berserker, frothing at the mouth. He hadn’t expected a mere prattle-basket.

“I think it’s better me than you,” John said, frowning down at the man. “You can’t possibly agree.”

A flare from the battle reflected in the other man’s eyes, temporarily illuminating him. John didn’t want to see his face. He didn’t want to see the haunted expression in his eyes. He didn’t want to remember him as a person. He should never have let the clamor of battle give way to the sound of conversation, because he suspected that the tone of this man’s voice—all gravel and regret—would stay with him all the rest of his days.

“Don’t make me go back,” the man said, so at odds with his cheery conversation on politics. “I can’t go back to England. Dying is not my preferred form of non-return, but for the past months it’s the only one I’ve been able to think of.”

John tightened his grip on the musket. He couldn’t listen. He couldn’t think. In battle, he could only allow himself to be a husk, an automaton. Fight. Survive. Killing was a necessary part of war. He’d learned not to look too hard at his enemies, not to ask too many questions. He’d learned not to let himself dwell too much on the men who perished at the other end of his musket.

It was always a mistake to listen during battle. Here he was, hesitating, when it was either John or the man who’d asked him about books and the weather. He could make it painless—as painless as death by bayonet ever was.

The man gave him a sad smile. “It’s nice weather for dying, isn’t it?”

He was lying. He had to be lying. This was the sort of thing for a lying officer to do—to converse politely, as if manners meant a damned thing on the battlefield. John pushed his bayonet down a quarter inch.

“Go on,” the man said.

His permission made it even harder. John didn’t want to do it, but it was John or the prattle-basket, John or the prattle-basket, and John had come too far to perish now.

A bugle sounded.

John looked up into chaos. He could hear cheers, could see the lieutenant colonel in charge of this attack—Hamilton, was it not?—clapping one of the soldiers on the back. Ah, the idiot in command had survived storming the parapet after all. While John had been fighting, his fellow soldiers had stormed the redoubt and taken it.

It was done. They’d won.

He eased up on the bayonet. “It’s your lucky day. You’re a prisoner now, instead of a dead man.”

“No.” The man’s hand clasped around the musket barrel, holding the bayonet in place. “No. You have to do it.”

“What?” John stared at him.

“You have to do it,” the man instructed. “Do you understand? If you Americans take the redoubt, Yorktown falls. If Yorktown falls, the war is over. If you don’t kill me now, they’ll make me go back to Britain, and I can’t go back.”

“Can’t?” John swallowed and looked down.

“Can’t.” The man shut his eyes.

They’d called him a madman, and John had imagined a demon on the battlefield, not a man who talked of politics.

Perhaps it was mad to prefer death to a return to a place that could never be called home, but if that was madness, it was a madness John knew. He’d once been enslaved. He knew what it was like to yearn for freedom, to prefer death to a return to a state that robbed him of choice, of freedom, of humanity. The fellow was obviously given to dramatics. John doubted anything so horrid waited for him back in England. Still… He understood.

He didn’t want to have anything in common with a blond British officer…but he did.

He should take the man prisoner. Should call for reinforcements. Who knew what this man would do if John gave him the opportunity?

“I can’t go back,” the man said again.

John should never have listened. Damn it, damn it, damn it. He swore and threw down his weapon.

The man struggled, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Then don’t.” John took off his coat. “Here.” He held the garment out.

It wasn’t much—a bit tattered, and God knew what it smelled like; John couldn’t detect the stench any longer.

The man stared at it.

“It’s not red.” John shook the coat. “It’s a mess out there as it is. Get muddy enough and nobody will know who you are. If you don’t want to go back to Britain, turn into an American. You talk enough; I’m sure you can come up with a believable lie. Get out of here. Don’t go back.”

The man stared at him. “Why would you let me go? I’m the enemy.”

“Enemy?” John rolled his eyes. “Take a good look at me. I have little love for…what did you call them? The colonial brand of imperialist scum. I have no enemies, just people I fight on a battlefield.”

The officer sat up. Looked at John. John knew what he was seeing—not the broad shoulders, not the determination John knew flashed in his own eyes, nor the set of his square jaw. No, this blond prattler who talked of manners and politics would see only the brown of his skin.