Page 28 of His Stolen Duchess (Stolen by the Duke #7)

Chapter Twenty-Two

S moke clung to his flesh like a second, suffocating skin.

The air was thick with the iron tang of blood and gunpowder, screams and gunfire indistinguishable in the gray murk.

A boy barely old enough to shave stared at him with death in his eyes. Lysander gripped his shoulders only to step into nothing, and fell into the icy black water.

The cold struck him like a cannonball, the weight of his soaked uniform dragging him down, down ? —

Lysander woke gasping, soaked in sweat, the dream still clinging like mud to his chest.

He gasped for air a couple of times, the feeling of water in his lungs as he tried to calm himself.

The creak sounded like a gunshot, and his eyes snapped to the door as someone entered.

Georgina had been asleep when she heard the scream, and it woke her at once.

She sat bolt upright in bed, the echo of the scream still ringing in her ears.

She knew exactly where it came from. It was not the high-pitched scream of a woman in trouble; it was a tormented howl that could only have come from Lysander.

She hadn’t mentioned it to him before, even though it was not the first time she had heard noises coming from his room. He grunted and called out in his sleep; the noises were never pleasant. This one had been far worse than any other, and it drove her from her bed.

Georgina grabbed her robe from beside the door and crept out of her room. She wondered if the staff ever heard his noises and what they thought about it.

She moved slowly down the hall.

It’s now of little surprise to me that he’s become who he is, with the past hounding him so mercilessly each night that even sleep offers no respite from his pain.

Georgina reached Lysander’s door and hesitated for a moment. Should she knock? Call out to him? Something else?

Georgina simply took hold of the handle and entered the room.

Lysander looked surprised to see her in his doorway, but not entirely shocked. He looked sickly, pale, and sweaty, his breathing coming in short, sharp rasps.

He stared across at her with wide eyes. He was not the commanding presence he normally was.

“I heard you scream,” Georgina explained.

He remained silent. The room itself was dark and peaceful, the curtains drawn against the full moon, the fire in his room now only faintly glowing embers. She walked over to the bed and sat in the chair beside it.

He didn’t order her away from him.

She reached out and placed her hand on his, and it seemed to stir him from his daydream after the nightmare—he turned and looked at her.

“You were dreaming again,” she said. “Awful dreams.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

He looked at her, some of his composure returning, but there was something akin to fear deep within them. A fear that came from the past and still haunted him to this day.

“You want to know about the war?” he asked, surprised.

So, it is the war that haunts you.

“I want to know more about what troubles you,” she said.

“There were horrors,” he whispered.

Georgina didn’t let go of his hand, holding it tighter as he spoke.

She didn’t vocalize it, but her grip on him announced, “I can bear it to help you bear it better.

“War is a thing no man or woman should have to see.

I saved so many men when I was overseas, but it was never enough.

I brought men home, back to their families.

I pushed men and boys out of the way of cannon fire, I held cloths to wounds to stop soldiers from bleeding out, and I kept the company going when they thought all was lost. You can die from a wound, but you can also die from a loss of hope.

“And the blood. There was so much blood, far too much blood.” He stared down at his hands as if some of the blood might still be there. “Rivers of blood on the battlefield. It’s surprising how much blood can come out of a man, and they are still able to stand.”

Lysander shook his head and looked at Georgina. Some of the initial horror on his face had diminished, replaced by a sliver of compassion. “I apologize. You don’t need to hear about all of this.”

“You didn’t need to go through it, but you did.

I need to hear about it, and you need to share it with me.

I don’t know much about war, but you said it yourself that you brought men home to their families.

You will always think of the ones you lost, about how you should have done more, but it’s far harder to acknowledge that you could have done far less.

I’m sure that you have saved far more men than most.”

“I tried,” he said. “I did all I could to bring boys home, soldiers no more than fourteen or fifteen. They should have been swimming in streams or climbing trees, but they were far from home, trying to kill other boys who should have been doing other things. All because we as humans want more. More land, more money, more power. We have an insatiable desire for what others have. We have a bloodlust.”

Georgina gently squeezed and then released his hand.

“There are hundreds of families who stayed alive because of what you did over there. Not only the ones you saved, but all of us who would have had our lives shaken up or destroyed if the enemy had won. Defeat would have affected our children, and their children, and down and down through the bloodlines. Perhaps the difference you made was a ripple, but that ripple continues to grow and grow long after it was created. You brought back what you could.”

“I fear that I mainly brought back ghosts,” he admitted.

“They sit with me at night, waiting for me to fall asleep, and they haunt me. They come to me in my dreams, figures I don’t know and have never met, and torment me.

They are the ghosts of those I couldn’t save, and I don’t believe they will ever leave me.

I’m not strong enough to fight them… I don’t know how. ”

“If you can’t get rid of them, then you’ll have to learn to live with them.”

When Lysander looked at her again, the ghosts seemed to reside in his eyes. He looked hollow for a moment, a shell of himself in the darkness of night.

“How do I learn to live with them?” he asked.

The dynamic had shifted. In all other things, he was the one in control, and she gladly followed him. Now, he was looking to her for answers.

“I don’t know how you do that, but we can figure it out together. You have already helped me, so let me help you,” she said. “For now, just talking about it is enough. You haven’t ever spoken about this before, have you?”

“No one needs to hear about the horrors of war.” Lysander inhaled a deep breath and took her hand in his. “When people want to talk about war, then I know they haven’t actually experienced it. We carry around the past so others don’t have to.”

“And you have done that for so long. You don’t have to do it anymore.”

“Come here.” Lysander grasped her hand, lifting her from the chair, pulling her closer to the bed.

He was back in control again, and she followed his lead.

He let go of her hand to lift the blankets, and she slipped into the bed with him.

He stretched his arm out, beckoning her, and she nestled into the crook of his shoulder.

Lysander curled his arm around her and gently drew her toward his sleep-warmed body.

Georgina placed her hand on his chest. She could feel his heart within, still beating quickly. She pushed her fingers through the tufts of hair, running her fingertips over his taut muscles, and discovered his scars.

She knew he had at least one, but her fingertips quickly found several more upon his chest and shoulder.

She traced them with her forefinger. They felt a part of him, the scars of his past. They didn’t feel like what they were—wounds that had been viciously inflicted and were meant to end his life.

They were physical manifestations of the ghosts that haunted him.

She traced them for a while, then lay her hand still over his heart. She nuzzled her head into his neck as the thought of sleep came to her. As they lay entwined together, it felt again that they were one instead of two separate people lying together.

“Thank you for coming to me tonight,” he whispered as she fell asleep.