Page 75

Oh, poor William.

“It was supposed to be a simple mission. Rescue some civilians. We had left in the early hours of the day, and the mission should have been over by noon.”

“What happened?”

“Since we were going to their domain, it would only be foolish to launch an attack. After all, they outnumbered us. Instead, we infiltrated the enemy’s camp and successfully freed the captives.”

“What went wrong, then?” Eveline asked.

“One of the captives was a toddler, and as we tried to help them escape, she cried for her toy.”

“Oh no. And her cries alerted the enemies?”

William nodded. “It was a bloodbath,” he sighed.

“Did the little girl live?” Eveline asked, even though she could already imagine the answer.

“I was the only survivor. And I was only spared because they thought I had died. Multiple bullets had hit me when they opened fire, and when I awoke later, it was in pitch darkness. I had been dumped, along with other dead bodies, in a ditch.”

Eveline gasped as she realized yet again that her husband had survived unimaginable terrors.

“I had to crawl out of the ditch, weary and tired, while half of my face was badly mangled,” he said.

“Oh no.”

Eveline could picture it. Her poor husband, crawling through dead bodies out of the ditch, holding onto the torn flesh of his face.

She felt sick to her stomach.

“I did not make it back to camp before I collapsed. Fortunately, I was found and nursed back to health. I awoke only two weeks later, but my recovery took months. Aside from the bad scar that now disfigures my face, I was a changed man from that very day. I was a shell of the man I used to be, and I lost interest in everything.”

“Only one as strong as strong as you could survive what you have,” Eveline told him.

“Every time I slept, I would see all those bodies in the ditch, and I would remember how cold it felt while I tried to make my way out. The images of the eyes never left me—the eyes of children and adults alike, wide with horror, their last moment captured in that single stare. A few months later, I was still recovering when I received the letter. My father was dead.”

“Finally, some good news.”

“I wished I could see it as good news at the time. However, I was numb with pain, so I simply could not rejoice at my freedom. I returned home and took over the dukedom on the same day I returned.”

“I can imagine how joyous your reunion with your friends must have been,” Eveline said, trying to hold onto any form of positivity at that moment.

“I was too numb to reach out to them,” William admitted.

Eveline was surprised. “You did not contact them?”

“I did not. And even when they caught wind of my arrival and wrote to me, I did not respond.”

“Why?”

“I was a different person than who I was when the last of them left,” he said. “Not only because of my scars but even in my head I had changed. The war had changed me in more ways than one.”

“But they never gave up, I presume?”

William shook his head. “Oh, they never did. They invited me to their estates ever so often, and Theo made it his duty to write to me every fortnight. He never asked why I chose to ignore them.Rather, his letters would be filled with the latest gossip in the ton and simple reports of what he was doing.”

“They never tried to come to your house?”

“They understood that I needed time to myself,” he replied simply. “And they respected my choice not to respond. I secluded myself from everyone. I simply did not want to see anyone or socialize. I never stepped out of the house, and even when I had business meetings, I sent representatives. I simply wanted to disappear. I wanted to cease to exist.”