Prologue
Devonshire, England.
June 1806
Crushed strawberries and tangy apples mixed with a healthy dose of desperation; Jace touched Anne’s lips with his. She knew he was tasting her to remember. His tongue sought solace within the confines of her mouth, entwined with her tongue, and they tangled in a feverish kiss.
Jace weaved his fingers into the wildness of her hair, and deepened the kiss, spurred on by her soft moans, the shallow rise and fall of her chest. Behind them, the ocean crashed against the Devon cliffs in a wild frenzy that echoed Anne’s turbulent mood.
We sail at dawn.
Anne pushed those damning words from her mind and leaned into him, breathing in his scent, in a desperate bid to memorize it. Her fingers clung to the front of his shirt as she buried her face into his shoulder, and he wrapped his arms around her, his head dipping so his lips rested on the crown of her head. Anne craved everything. She wanted the moment to last forever.
“Don’t go, don’t go,” Anne whispered against his chest.
It was small, but she felt Jace tremble.
“I can’t lose you,” she mumbled, her heart splintering as her mind ran to the worst possible outcomes. She raised her head, going up onto her toes so her lips could find his. She poured her anguish and hunger into that kiss, then raked her hands through his brown curls. Jace groaned into her mouth.
“I wish I didn’t have to,” he whispered.
Blinking back furious tears, she released him and sat facing the vast waters with her feet pulled up, her toes digging into the sand.
Jace threw his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“I must sound like a selfish oaf,” Anne mumbled.
“Annie, don’t say that,” he soothed, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
She’d wanted to be brave for him, for this moment, but she could not stop the spill of words. “Our life now . . . I thought it was perfect. I thought you were happy.”
“I am. With you, I am happy. But—”
“But?”
Jace let out a frustrated breath. It had always been hard for him to explain his true feelings, his brows contorting as he considered his words. “Anne,” he said gently, holding her face and staring deep into her eyes, his voice raw with honesty, “you know what I am, and you know I cannot live off my brother’s largesse forever. I do not have the brains for a career in the law, and do you think I would make a successful clergyman?”
That surprised a laugh out of her, even if every part of her wanted to argue with him.
“See? Even you, who have always believed I can do anything, admit I’m not cut out for a career in the church or the courts. But the military, my love? Don’t you think I will look dashing in my regimentals?”
Anne’s gaze scoured every inch of his face. “I wish I didn’t understand you,” she sighed. “I wish you could stay here with me.”
Their stares collided, and for a breathless second, his face flickered in doubt, and Anne realized he was struggling just as much as she, despite his bravado. He drew in a ragged breath and placed a feathery kiss on her forehead.
“Your father would be proud of you for following in his steps,” she said.
“I’d like to think that.”
Jace’s hands slid down her arms until they reached her fingers, which he clutched tightly. Anne looked out at the sea, imagining what it would be like when he was on the other side of the waves.
“I know you have to go, Jace, and I know I’m being selfish asking you to stay, but I keep thinking of all the dangers, of all the things that could happen to you . . .” She trailed off. She remembered her father’s reaction to learning Jace had purchased a commission in the army, as well as his dark comments about the state of the war on the Continent.
Jace pressed her closer to him. He placed his fingers gently on her cheek and guided her to look back at him.
“Come now, Annie; don’t think like that. Of course, I will return; look who I have waiting for me.” He tickled her, and she laughed at the unexpected sensation. His lips crinkled into the mischievous grin she loved so much, and it was the most beautiful thing she’d seen all day. So he tickled her again.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!” she shrieked between giggles. Then, she gave his chest a light shove and sprang to her feet. Off she went, in a staggering run down the bank of the beach, with Jace hot on her heels.
A few stumbling steps in, he caught her by the waist and twirled her around. When the laughter stopped, he stood behind her and held her about the waist. Together, they looked out over the brooding ocean as the torturingly brief moment of levity faded before their impending separation.
“What did Sidney say?” she asked, breaking the heavy silence.
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, “You know my brother. He gave his support, but adventures like these have never been a part of him.”
Anne groaned, leaning into him. “I chose the wrong twin.”
Jace grinned into her hair. “That could be awkward, considering he’s married to your best friend. Besides, I’m not sure you’d hardly last a day with Sidney, as you’d die of sheer, mind-numbing boredom. Trust me, you have the right man.”
“The right man with a giant, swollen, arrogant head.”
Jace shifted, nudging some locks of hair aside from her neck and placed a kiss on its graceful line. “Yes,” he whispered on her skin.
“You’re making it harder to let you go,” she said, feeling goosebumps cover her body at the contact.
Jace turned her to face him. “I’m going to miss these emerald eyes staring at me. How will I know if I’m in trouble if I can’t see this pert little nose wrinkled up in annoyance? And this rosebud mouth of yours; my God, how will I stay sane without being able to kiss these lips again?”
Anne looked away. She knew what he was doing; memorizing her face as though he would never see her again. She almost hated him for it.
“Don’t let me go,” he said, bringing up her hand and placing it on her chest, “keep me alive here, and I promise, I’ll return to claim you wholly.”
She smiled but could not make it reach her eyes. “For a second, I thought you’d changed your mind.”
She shrugged out of his arms, ignoring the questioning glance he threw at her, and began to root around in the deep pockets of her skirts.
“Anne?”
“I have something for you,” she muttered and then smiled in triumph as her hand closed on the small ebony box.
“You’re not allowed to forget me,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him as she passed him the box. Jace opened it, and his gaze softened as his eyes fell on the delicate miniature inside. It had cost all of her pin money to commission her portrait to be painted, but his expression made it worth it.
“I couldn’t even if I tried, Annie,” Jace said in a hoarse voice. He tucked the portrait into his coat, his eyes bright.
“You are not allowed to forget your promise to come home to me, either. Because if you don’t, I will march straight to the Continent to find you and give you a real piece of my mind.”
“You’ll scare the men half to death,” Jace said with a chuckle. He averted his gaze, blinking several times. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Anne felt her throat clog. “I mean it.”
Drops of tears slid down his cheeks, and Anne leaned in and kissed him. It was tender, belying the raging, longing passion between them. When they came apart, Jace regaled her with stories about everything they would do together upon his return. Anne wanted to share his enthusiasm, but she could not dredge it up.
He had been a part of her life longer than she could remember. Now, faster than either of them wanted, the hours slid by, and it was soon time to go.
Anne felt a cold that had nothing to do with the weather. Arm in arm, they traipsed back in silence, her anxiety growing with each step. She kept stealing glances at his profile, at his ruffled curly brown hair and strong cheekbones that tapered to a wide, arrogant mouth; his thick brows, beneath which lay twinkling brown eyes and a slightly broken nose.
Inside, she’d always known he’d leave one day. She had no idea how badly it would hurt her all over. He was a part of her, and she was unwilling to bid him goodbye.
Jace took a longing look at her and turned away with his back to her. Before she could question him, he pointed at the starry sky. “Annie, if you’re ever lonely or scared, all you have to do is look up. We’ll be looking at the same pretty stars, at the same sky, and I’ll be thinking of you.”
“Oh, Jace.” Anne felt a hitch in her throat as prickles of tears burned behind her eyes. Jace had never been one to get sentimental. It made it all the worse to bear.
He faced her, his eyes darkened with hurt. Then, he reached up to his collar and withdrew a golden chain with a ring dangling from it, pulling it over his head. Anne gasped. Jace never took off that ring.
“My father’s ring,” he said. Silently, she lifted her hair. He slipped it onto her neck. “Will you keep it safe for me?”
“Yes,” Anne replied fervently.
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Thank you.” He stroked a finger down her wet cheeks and wiped the trail of tears, “Don’t cry, Annie . . .”
Dusk had fallen. Her maid was waiting on the path, looking nervously around the corner to accompany her home. She uttered the last words: “I should go.”
He locked his eyes on Anne for another long moment before throwing caution and propriety to the wind and luring her into his arms, kissing her with a depth and passion that took her breath away. She only paused for a second before kissing him back, pouring all her fear, love, desperation, and hope into it.
Then she veered away, afraid to look back at him or watch him leave, afraid that if she stayed any longer, she would start crying and never stop. She turned and ran away, her maid hurrying to keep up with her.
Nothing would ever be the same. Even if he returned in a matter of months safe and in perfect health, Anne knew the trajectory of their lives was forever altered. Nothing could stay the same, no matter how desperately she wished it.
CHAPTER ONE
Six years later
It was always her beautiful smile that dazzled Jace. The wash of sunlight on her gorgeous body. The swirl of her white dress as she twirled around, filling his nostrils with the scent of lilies woven into her riotous dark curls.
Heaven.
There was no other explanation. He dashed toward her, seeking to embed himself within her pure warmth. She swept up her dress and ran, her hair flowing behind her. Then, her tingling laughter rang out. His heart gave the tightest of squeezes when the sound of it reached him.
It broke and healed something in him. How he’d missed hearing it. He lengthened his stride. Soon, he caught up with her, wrapped his arms around her slender waist and faced her.
The smile was gone from her lips. Her eyes drooped, heavy with sadness, thrusting Jace into confusion.
“Fight it,” she said, reaching up to caress the sides of his face.
“You have to fight, please. You promised.”
Jace’s heart started to pound. A rapid burning began in his gut as her eyes flashed with conviction.
“You have to hold on, Jace!”
Jace tried to cover the space between them, but she pushed him back. “Wake up!” Her eyes were pleading. “Wake up!” she shrieked.
A peculiar heat surged through him. He did not want to be anywhere else. He needed to be with her. All of him craved to be in that moment.
“Wake up!” she screamed and slammed her palms into his chest.
Jace’s eyes popped open, jolted by excruciating pain all over his body. Breathing hurt, the rancid smoke of gunpowder and burning buildings clogged his lungs like ground glass. He wiped his dirty hands across his eyes, blinking several times to clear his vision.
A high-pitched ringing noise had invaded his ears, refusing to go away no matter how hard he shook his head. He attempted to get back to his feet but fell back to his knees due to dizziness.
Sound slowly began to creep back in. Musket balls whipped through the air around him, burying themselves into bodies and sandbags without distinction between the two. Drumming, screaming, shouting, and the relentless sound of battle rose up and filled the world until he almost hoped for the ringing noise to come back and drown it out.
His head pounded as though the entire canon brigade had taken up residence in his brain, and the urge to vomit was strong. His mouth already tasted of blood and ashes, and he longed for silence, for sleep, and the absence of pain. In sleep, he could get away from this, and return home, back to her arms.
“Damn it, man, get to your feet! We have to move!” he heard someone shout.
“Leave me,” he murmured, his eyes closed tight as the pounding in his brain grew stronger.
“We have to move, Major! They’re rallying, and we can’t hold them here!”
“Leave me,” he repeated. He could hear screaming. It wasn’t just the sound of soldiers; there were citizens inside the citadel’s walls as well, and the Spanish were their allies.
They were supposed to fight for glory and honor. It was not supposed to be this kind of butcher’s yard.
“Jace! Wake up! Damn you, I need you to wake up!” he heard.
“Annie?” he croaked. He struggled to push past the pain, eager to turn his head in the direction of her voice.
“Not bloody likely in this hell hole. Now get up!”
His mind snapped to minor clarity. This voice was male and familiar. Captain Willis, or possibly Denny. One of the captains, at any rate. That was good. That meant they weren’t all dead.
Jace braced his hands on the ground, attempting to rise. They felt as though they were made of pins and needles and failed to hold him up. He fell back. From behind, a pair of hands slid into his underarms. They attempted to drag him to a sitting position. Jace opened his mouth to scream in pain. The Captain was relentless, forcing him to his feet and talking incessantly as he compelled him to take step after laborious step toward God knew what or where. When he stumbled and asked to be left alone to sleep, the Captain called him something coarse and rather rude.
“That’s insubordination,” he slurred. “Want to see Annie.”
“Aye, and that’s why I’m trying to save you, you ungrateful idiot. Keep walking, and I’ll get you back to your Annie.”
“Get back to Annie,” he repeated, but when he tried to nod in agreement a fresh scream of pain cut through his skull.
He kept walking, but his vision blurred and the ringing returned, and he must have succumbed to the darkness at some point during his walk, because the next thing he was aware of was the thin material of the pack he was lying on, and the flapping of the tent above him. The air smelled like blood, gin, and smoke. There were still battle sounds in the distance, as well as cries of pain and quiet sobs from much closer by.
The moans of the wounded sent a moment of panic through him. He balled each hand into a fist and opened his palm, raised and folded both legs, then brought them down. Relief poured into him. Though they were sore, all his limbs were intact, and he retained control over them. If only the pain in his head would subside, he would be able to return to his men in no time.
He cleared his throat and tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry, and his gums cracked. He risked opening his eyes long enough to see if there was someone he could ask to bring him water. But he quickly realized he was surrounded by injured men, many in far worse condition than he, and that the ragtag collection of women which always followed in the wake of the army was busy making the wounded and dying as comfortable as they could under the circumstances.
He put his head back down, trying to recall who had rescued him. He closed his eyes and searched through the darkness in his mind for the memory, but his ears started to ring, and the headache tripled.
“Not dead, are you?” came a gruff voice.
Jace opened his eyes slowly and smiled.
“Colonel Hayworth,” he said in acknowledgement of his superior officer. “Excuse me if I don’t get up, but I have a devil of a bad head.”
The large-framed man dropped to sit on the ground beside him. His scarlet regimentals were caked in dirt and blood, none of it appearing to be his own, and he looked exhausted.
“Captain Willis said you took half the wall to your head and were then staggering around without any cover. It’s a damned miracle they didn’t pick you off, but I suppose you had your angel with you again.”
Jace smiled, even though it hurt to do so. All the officers knew he carried Annie’s portrait into battle and had long ago begun to attribute his seeming immortality to her influence.
Hayworth frowned at him, and then called to one of the nearby women to bring Jace some water.
“No, don’t talk yet, Jace. Wait until you’ve had some water. You look terrible, by the way. They assure me you’ll survive with some recuperation, but they made no promises about your wits being intact. I laughed at that, and asked if they’d heard of Crazy Jace, for if you’d ever had wit in the first place then you’d likely have been dead four years ago.”
The Colonel paused as a middle-aged woman Jace vaguely recognized as a serjeant’s wife approached with some water. She held his head and placed the cup to his lips, scolded him like a schoolboy for attempting to sit up, and then ordered the colonel to move him to more appropriate quarters as soon as it was safe to do so. Hayworth meekly agreed to her demands, only to be met with an annoyed huff from the woman before she moved on to assist another unfortunate soul.
“Backbone of the army,” he murmured.
“Who?” asked Jace, his brain still feeling thick and heavy.
“The camp followers,” replied the Colonel. “It takes a strong woman to follow the drum, and whatever the old men at Horseguards think of them, it’s after every battle that I’m reminded how much the soldiers’ wives do to keep us alive.”
Jace’s mind wandered to Anne, and for the thousandth time, he caught himself wondering whether she would willingly follow the drum if he asked her to. He dismissed the thought like he always did; it was a hard life the camp followers undertook, even those married to officers and noblemen, and her silence had made her thoughts on the matter clear.
“So, how are you feeling?” asked Colonel Hayworth, running an appraising eye over Jace.
“About as good as you look, I suspect,” he replied. “Give me an hour or so, and I’ll be ready to rejoin the push on the walls again.”
The Colonel gave a grim smile. “I’m afraid you’ve missed the action, old chap, for you’ve been out cold for almost an entire day. The walls are breached, and the French garrison has surrendered to us.”
Jace struggled to prop himself up on his elbows, ignoring both the protests of his commanding officer and the wave of nausea that accompanied the movement.
“It’s over? My head must be worse than I thought, for I can still hear the sounds of battle.”
Colonel Hayworth’s expression grew dark. “That, I am afraid, is our own men. Whether it’s the alcohol they found or the pent-up rage of having seen so many comrades die in the ditches outside the city walls, they are taking out their frustrations on Badajoz, and will not listen to any officer or authority as they sack the place.”
“Sack the place . . . my God, Colonel, the people of Badajoz are our allies!”
“We know,” sighed Hayworth, rubbing at his temples. “We’ve been ordered to stand back and let them rampage, if only because Wellington is convinced the men will shoot their officers before they obey. He’ll hang the ring leaders later, but I’ll be damned if I can be proud of our achievements here when they are paired with such behavior.”
“My men . . .” Jace began, something like rage beginning to well up in his chest. “Surely, Willis and Denny would not allow them—”
“Willis and Denny are both dead,” said the Colonel flatly. “Denny was taken out by the same French grenade that addled your senses, along with most of his boys. Willis got you back to safety, but then rejoined the fight. Took a bayonet to the chest when on the walls after Colonel Ridge’s men made a breach. Ridge is dead, too. His regiment isn’t taking it well.”
The room was spinning again, the desire to vomit was almost overwhelming, and he could barely fathom what he was hearing.
“Willis and Denny? My God. And my men? How many made it out? What about Ensign Smith? He turned sixteen last week, and I told him to stick close to me. I promised I’d keep him safe.”
Colonel Hayworth didn’t say anything, but he reached over and, with a heavy hand, eased Jace back down onto the makeshift bed.
“I will see about finding you somewhere better than this to recuperate, Jace, but there’s no need for you to be here any longer than necessary, at least, not until we know what will become of the regiment now we’ve lost so many.”
“But my men . . .” Jace said weakly, not wanting to understand the implication being made by his superior officer.
They could not all be dead. Not Willis, whom he considered a friend, nor young Smith, who had stared up at him with something akin to hero worship.
“They don’t need you where they’ve gone, Major. I’m ordering you to return to England to convalesce for a while, for I’ll be damned if I see another one of my officers dead before the end of summer.” The older man’s voice cracked for just a moment, but he quickly recovered his austere mask.
“I can be of help,” said Jace, although, even to his own ears, it sounded like he was pleading.
Colonel Hayworth’s expression softened. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Jace, however, I must decline your request. Besides, it’s been six years since you went home. Don’t you wish to see that angel of yours?”
Jace swallowed. It hurt more than he expected.
“I’m not sure she will want to see me,” he admitted. He’d received no letters, no word at all from her in almost two years. He knew she was alive and well, which left only one explanation for her silence.
Hayworth gave him a pitying smile. “Six years is a long time, at war and in London. People change in both, but battles like this one . . . they take the best of you and spit you out. Major, you fought valiantly, but your angel will have faced her own battles, for I’d rather fight a whole brigade of Frenchies alone than face the judgement of the London ton at a single ball. You will not find your answers in Portugal or Spain, Jace. Go home. The war isn’t going anywhere soon, and I’ll welcome you back once you are fit and ready.”
All the Colonel’s words did was cause a rising disquiet in Jace, but he knew better than to argue with the older man.
“Let me help finish this mess, then I promise to return to England,” he said. “If what you are saying about the troops rampaging is true, then I owe it to the memory of my officers to ensure that order and justice are established.”
The Colonel stared at him for a long moment before nodding his agreement.
“Very well, but by the end of the week I expect you to be on your way back to England,” he said gruffly, before turning and walking away.
Jace reached into his scarlet, dirt-stained jacket to find the comforting presence of the miniature portrait against his chest. The ivory had cracked on the bottom edge and the gilding was chipped off the frame, but he knew without looking at it that his Annie’s beautiful face smiled out from it regardless.
Why had she stopped writing to him all those years ago? He had been gone much longer than he’d intended, but there had been no hint of anger in her letters, no suggestion she had grown bored of him.
But then he’d told her about his plan to return, to ask for her hand in marriage if she was willing to become an officer’s wife, and despite his pleas, he’d never heard from her again. He hadn’t sent her anything in over a year, despite his heart’s stubborn refusal to give up hope.
But he was certain it was Anne who had saved him on the battlefield. Anne, whose voice had told him to wake up, fight, and survive.
Hope flared again as he tightened his hand around the miniature. Surely, that had been a sign, had it not? Surely, he had been spared at the walls of Badajoz so he could return to his angel.
He was not aware that Colonel Hayworth was watching him from the tent entrance until the older man spoke.
“Go and be with her, you damned fool, and that’s an order,” he said in a stern voice, and then left.
* * *
Anne’s own scream woke her as she sat bolt upright in her bed. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and her body was drenched in sweat, even as the nightmarish visions of the siege of Badajoz faded from her memory.
Her maid Eleanor scrambled up from the truckle bed she had been sleeping on, looking harried.
“Another nightmare, Miss?” she asked, reaching out a comforting hand. Anne had never asked her maid to sleep in the room with her, but Eleanor had chosen to do so ever since the first time her father had read out an account of the siege in the papers, and she was grateful for her presence.
“I’m fine,” she lied quietly. “It was not so bad this time.”
Eleanor did not seem convinced, and Anne realized she must have screamed quite loudly to wake the young woman from her slumber.
“I will fetch you some tea, Miss,” said Eleanor as she climbed out of her bed. “It will help calm your nerves.”
The moment her maid was gone, Anne slid out from the covers and padded across the cold floor to her window. She pushed the sash open to allow the cool night air to wipe the last of the dream’s cobwebs from her mind. It was strange how the descriptions of the siege had taken ahold of her imagination in a way no other account of the war had. Perhaps it was because of the losses, or the despicable behavior of the soldiers afterwards, but for a solid month now she had been awoken by nightmares of a place she had never seen or visited.
She did not even know for sure if Jace had been there, only that his regiment had. The Gazette had not listed his name among the casualties, nor the honors lists, but in her heart, she was sure he had been at Badajoz.
“Where are you, Jace?” she murmured into the darkness. “Why won’t you write to me?”
Stuffed away in the back of her writing desk was a pile of unsent letters. After the abrupt end to his correspondence almost two years ago, she had sent many more, just in case there was good reason for his silence. But after twelve months she no longer asked her father to frank her mail for her and send out her letters. The pity in his eyes had been too much to bear.
She kept writing, though. Even when it felt foolish to do so. Even when she learned he no longer wrote to his brother, and that no one had heard from him directly since that last letter she’d received. Even though she never sent a single one.
He was alive, according to word Sidney had received from Horseguards, or at least, he had been some five months earlier. The news had been both comforting and devastating when Sidney and his Amelia came around to deliver it, and Anne had found herself unable to face her oldest friends and neighbors ever since.
But then, her father had read out the descriptions of Badajoz in the papers, and an overwhelming sense of dread had made a home in her heart.
“Here’s your tea, Miss,” Eleanor said, stepping back into the room. Anne closed the window and returned to her bed, forcing herself to ignore her wild flights of fancy.
“You are too good to me,” she told Eleanor as the maid set down the tray and poured her a cup of steaming tea. The maid hesitated, and Anne knew immediately that the second cup was not for Eleanor.
“Annie, my darling,” said her mother as she floated into the room in a cloud of muslin and lace sleepwear, her arms outstretched. “I thought we were past these terrible nightmares.”
As her mother wrapped her slim arms about her, Anne threw an accusing look at her maid. Eleanor simply shrugged and mouthed sorry at her.
“It is nothing, Mama, I am quite recovered,” she said, untangling herself from her mother’s embrace. “Eleanor’s tea has done wonders for me.”
“But it does not change the fact you are still having these horrible dreams, dearest,” said her mother in a tone that made it clear that Anne was not getting out of this easily.
She sighed. Her mother had a reputation for being formidable when she wished, no matter how ethereal she may appear. Helen Fitzroy, the Countess Fitzroy, had married an earl of long but penniless pedigree and was widely credited as being the brains behind her husband’s reversal of fortune, thanks to a clever mind and impeccable social manners. Lord and Lady Fitzroy were welcomed warmly in every home of the Ton, for more than one haughty duchess or lady had learned the hard way that to make an enemy of the Countess was to destroy one’s standing in the Ton. It was a mistake to believe that Lady Fitzroy’s sweet exterior did not mask a will of iron beneath it, and Anne knew better than to think she could fool her mother for more than a few minutes at a time.
Not that it stopped her from trying.
“It was just a dream, Mama. A bad one, I admit, but just a dream.”
Her mother was evidently not convinced. There was a moment of silence between them as Eleanor passed Lady Fitzroy a cup of fresh tea, and then retired from the room.
“You must stop punishing yourself, Annie,” said her mother the moment they were alone.
Anne was aware of a flare of annoyance. “I am doing nothing of the sort, Mama. I hardly have control over my dreams.”
“You have been crying again, and it breaks my heart.”
A familiar tightness gripped Anne’s chest as her mother spoke. She wanted her to stop.
“It was only a nightmare,” she said through gritted teeth.
Her mother was having none of it.
“Don’t try to bamboozle me, dearest. You’ve never succeeded before, and you aren’t going to magically succeed now. This is about Jace again, isn’t it?”
Anne glared at her half-empty cup, not quite brave enough to turn such an expression directly on the infamous Lady Fitzroy.
“I was dreaming about Badajoz again,” she muttered.
“So, Jace,” sighed her mother. She took the cup from Anne’s hand and placed it beside her own on the silver tray. “Darling, I think perhaps it is time to accept he is not going to return.”
Anne tried to hide it, but her breathing grew choppier with each of her mother’s words.
“Let go,” her mother’s soft voice urged.
“I sh-should have stopped him. I should have fought harder to keep him here,” Anne gulped, a knot the size of an apple forming in her throat.
Her mother pulled her into her arms.
“Oh, my poor lamb, you know very well you could not have kept that boy from adventure. Had he stayed, any affection between you would have soon festered into resentment on his part, and you would have lost him.”
“I’ve lost him anyway,” said Anne bitterly. “If only I knew he was safe and alive, not . . . not . . .”
“Not dead in a ditch on some Spanish battlefield,” said her mother matter-of-factly. “No, do not gasp at me like that, Annie! I am only giving a voice to your fear, not stating what I believe is the truth. But my darling, and I truly do not wish to cause you pain by saying this, but my darling girl, have you considered what it means if he has been alive and well this last year?”
“Of course, I know,” she whispered into the crook of her mother’s arm. Lady Fitzroy did not belabor the point, at least, and allowed Anne to take comfort from her embrace in silence.
They both knew full well what it meant if Jace was alive. It meant he had chosen to cut all contact with Anne and had lacked the courage to tell her that his heart had found a new direction. It meant that everything she had believed in, held on to, and sacrificed her future prospects for had been for nothing.
And the result was that, while half of her desperately hoped he was alive and well, another, darker place secretly needed to believe that something terrible had happened to prevent him from reaching her. Hence the nightmares.
Nothing appealed to her anymore, especially when her imagination veered wildly from imagining him safe and happy with another woman to the dark realities of the war in Portugal and Spain. Her father did not help matters. He told horrifying tales of what could happen to the men fighting the French, and the poor families that followed them, and often spoke of the permanently injured soldiers who returned to England, never quite the same. He seemed oblivious to the pain he caused, as though he assumed any affection that had once lain between Jace and Anne was nothing but a calf-love long forgotten.
At least her mother knew better, even if she insisted that Anne be honest and practical about the situation.
“Hearts heal, my darling, if you give them time. I know it does not seem that way to you right now, but it is the truth. Now, lie back down and get some sleep. Everything seems better in the morning, I find.”
Anne did as she was told, closing her eyes as her mother kissed her on the cheek. She yearned for sleep so she could spend a few hours without Jace interfering with her thoughts or her own inner voice chastising her for acting like an inept schoolgirl. She clutched the gold ring she wore on a chain around her neck, and while her dreams were still of him, they were pleasant memories rather than terrifying nightmares about the present.
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