Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride (Scandalous Seasons #1)(93)

Drake folded his hands in his lap and looked down at the intertwined digits. “What made you decide to go on?” Did that raspy, barely there whisper belong to him?

MacGregor swallowed and replied on a near whisper. “It was Her Ladyship. It was the first time she visited the hospital. She was so young. She was with the Duke of Mallen. I’d just learned they were going to take my arm. She saw me arguing with the sawbones and rushed over.” His lips twitched with remembered amusement. “She yelled at the doctor, cursed the bloody bastard. Oh, he was just doing his job. I know that now…but I’d never heard that in my life. A lady yelling at someone over me. I shut my mouth after that and allowed them to take the arm.”

Drake visualized Emmaline at that moment in her life. She would have been seventeen, a girl on the cusp of womanhood. She’d been an avenging angel even then. He could reconcile this story with the brave woman who’d thrown herself between a whip and a peddler woman.

MacGregor interrupted Drake’s musings. “You’re a lucky man, Cap’n.”

“Yes, I certainly am.” For whatever reason, the Lord had deemed him worthy of Emmaline. Drake certainly didn’t understand it. He’d fought it with everything he was worth. He was, nonetheless, aware of his, for wont of a better word, good fortune.

MacGregor nodded down the hall. Drake followed the movement. “Jones was under your command, too, Cap’n. Her Ladyship’s very kind to Jones.”

Drake took to his feet and patted MacGregor on the shoulder. “It was good seeing you, MacGregor.” Surprisingly, he found he meant those words.

“Likewise, Cap’n.”

Drake turned down the hall, offering greetings to the men who now watched him with far less suspicion. He heard the murmurs.

“That’s Cap’n Drake.”

Some of the whispers almost reverent.

Drake wanted to shout that he did not deserve their admiration and praise. He’d been no hero. In truth, they had been far braver, far more courageous, as was evidenced by their stalwart strength even lying in this miserable hospital, forever physically scarred.

He paused by the last bed in the room, neatly situated beside a long column of windows. The man, Lieutenant Jones, who occupied the space stared out the window, at the passersby below on the London streets. In that, Jones surely couldn’t help but be confronted by memories of what kept him separated from the world beyond that window pane. Drake suspected he himself would have wanted to be as far away from the window as possible.

Jones shot Drake a sideways glance. “So you married her, finally.” There was a reprimand there.

Drake blinked. He’d have to be deaf to not detect the hard edge in Jones’ tone. Emmaline certainly did not lack for protectors. She’d done much to earn the respect, admiration, and loyalty of these men.

“Unfortunately for her lady, yes.”

A rusty laugh escaped the other man. He motioned to the chair by his bed. Drake slid into it.

“I’ve been telling her to bring you by.” Jones gave him a knowing look.

“Have you?” Drake drummed his fingertips along the edge of his seat. Emmaline hadn’t mentioned that. She’d only told him she’d thought it would do him good to see the men who’d fought Boney’s forces. He was coming to find, that just like in many other regards, Emmaline had been right.

Jones held out a hand. “It’s good seeing you again, Captain.”

Drake stared at it a long moment and then shook it.

Why in the world would Jones or MacGregor or any one of them ever want to see him? He’d been no different than any other man on that field…with the exception of the fact he’d at one point been made captain. He therefore could claim the distinction of being responsible for many of them being in the bloody spot they now rested.

Jones must have seen something in Drake, something he perhaps recognized in himself. “It isn’t your fault, Captain.”

The breath left Drake, and for a moment, a blinding curtain fell across his eyes. He’d seen too much. Taken too many lives. Cost too many men their lives.

His voice came out hoarse when he finally spoke. “How can you forgive me?” He made a slashing gesture with his hand to the spot Jones’ leg should have been. “How is this not my fault?”

“It isn’t your fault a bloody madman took it to his head to try and conquer this world. You were no different than so many of us, Cap’n. You decided to fight for our country. Some of us were luckier than others.”

A bark of laughter devoid of mirth escaped Drake. It was hallow and guilt-ridden. “Are any of us really lucky, Jones?” The question burned in his soul.

Jones shook his head slowly. “No, that’s a fair point. We’ve all been touched by that damn war and I suspect it’ll always be with us.”

Unbidden, Drake’s mind went to the nightmares that frequently plagued him. He thought of Emmaline, who’d been leveled by his own hand, the bruise upon her cheek. In his mind he saw the tears wetting his normally unflappable father’s cheeks. Would there ever be a time he was not plagued by the hellish memories of those years? He’d hoped that as the months passed, he would begin to forget, that the reminders would fall into the background. Oh, even now there were days when the remembrances were not with him, or were less vivid and gripping. Then suddenly something would happen; a face that reminded him of a fellow soldier, or an unexpected sound, and then his hellish time on the Peninsula would come rushing back.