Page 6 of The Governess and the Rogue (Somerset Stories #6)

Bea gave an unladylike snort as the two of them hurried toward the dining saloon. “This is a fine change. Aren’t you the one who’s always advising me to bite my tongue?”

“There’s a time for remaining silent and a time for speaking out,” Pearl replied sagely. “And when one’s betters start striking one in the face, one had best speak up before they get struck again.”

* * *

Jack rapped once more on the cabin door. There was still no answer. “Stubborn fool,” he muttered.

He knew Captain Thornhill was in there. The man’s valet had emerged only moments before Jack’s arrival, ostensibly to fetch his master’s dinner tray. Thornhill had shouted something to him as he’d exited the cabin.

Not that it guaranteed the infernal fellow would willingly talk to anyone else. During the course of their voyage, he’d proven himself to be more of a hermit than Jack was.

It didn’t dissuade Jack from his course. Indeed, over the past several days, Thornhill’s plight had been weighing on Jack’s mind with increasing frequency.

He may not be one of Jack’s men, but Thornhill was still a soldier. One who, since departing Egypt, had yet to emerge from his cabin even once. At this stage, he must be half-mad with boredom. Either that or melancholy.

Jack rapped a final time, purely as a courtesy, before taking matters into his own hands. “I’m coming in,” he warned.

Opening the door, he found Thornhill sprawled in a chair in the corner of the darkened cabin, a glass of spirits dangling from his fingers.

He was only partially dressed, clad in dark trousers and a shirt with the collar gaping open to reveal the angry red burn scars that traveled from his face all the way down to his chest.

A gruesome sight. But no more gruesome than the countless other terrible injuries Jack had seen during his years in the army.

Thornhill leveled an unreadable look at Jack as Jack entered. The two of them had met briefly on the docks in Alexandria. They’d both been boarding the ship well in advance of the other passengers, eager to avoid company, though not, Jack suspected, for the same reasons.

“Colonel Beresford,” Thornhill said flatly. “I don’t recall inviting you in.”

“Didn’t you?” Jack closed the door behind him, consigning them both to the shadows. “My mistake.”

Thornhill took a drink from his glass. The pungent smell of the medicinal salve used to treat his burns permeated the room. “What do you want?”

Jack limped across the cabin to take an uninvited seat on the edge of the lower berth. “To see how you’re doing in here,” he said. “And to urge you to trade your solitude for a breath of fresh air.”

Thornhill made no reply.

“You’ve not left your cabin since we set out,” Jack said.

“I have,” Thornhill informed him.

“I haven’t seen you above deck.”

“I go below deck,” Thornhill said. “To see my horse.”

Jack shouldn’t be surprised. Maberly had said that Thornhill’s horse was an exceptionally fine specimen.

“You might try coming topside too,” Jack suggested. “There’s no one around after dark, save for an impetuous soul or two staring at the stars. It’s when I go out for some air. You’re more than welcome?—”

“No thank you.” Thornhill resumed drinking. “If that’s all?”

Jack’s jaw tightened. Drat the man and his obstinacy! Didn’t he want to be helped?

But Jack already knew the answer. He could see it in Thornhill’s eyes. He was a captive to his own misfortune. A lost soul who had already given up.

Looking at him, Jack saw the distorted mirror image of his own misery. The way he’d felt after the events at Mohammerah. As though his identity had been stripped from him, leaving nothing behind but the pain and difficulty of an existence that had been thrust upon him without his consent.

In the aftermath, Jack had become someone he didn’t recognize anymore.

An earthbound old man, shackled to his limitations.

One who was no longer free to behave rashly.

To accept a wager or levy a challenge. To feel his blood pumping in his veins as he rode too hard, swam too far, and dared too much.

He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m going mad in my own cabin,” he confessed. “And that’s with my evening rambles to offset my confinement. I can only imagine how much worse it must be for you, hidden away in here all day, even if you are venturing belowdecks after dark.”

“I have no complaints,” Thornhill said. “Compared to a sepoy prison, this cabin is a paradise.”

Jack winced at the reminder of what Thornhill had suffered. “You’ve been through a great deal, I don’t doubt. But if you mean to see your way out of this?—”

“ This, ” Thornhill repeated. “And what might this be?”

“Your experience,” Jack said. “These wounds. Whatever it was that happened to you during your imprisonment. If you have any hope?—”

“I don’t,” Thornhill said. “And I’ve no interest in fresh air, or mingling with the other passengers, or your company.”

“My company is negotiable. But as to air?—”

“I’ll have plenty of air in Devon.”

Jack’s brows lifted. “Devon? Is that where you’re bound for?”

“It is,” Thornhill said.

Jack refrained from asking if he had anyone waiting for him there. He’d learned his lesson with Miss Layton. Not everyone had a big, boisterous family eager to welcome them back into the fold. There were many in the world who walked alone. Some by choice. Others, less so.

“To rest and heal, I presume,” he said instead.

“Something like that.”

“Under the care of…?”

“My attorney.” Thornhill lifted his glass back to his lips. “If that’s all, Colonel?”

Jack rose from the berth with the aid of his cane.

He had no illusions about how differently this conversation would be playing out if he didn’t outrank the captain.

That Thornhill had tolerated his high-handed interference thus far was entirely owing to Jack’s superior position in the hierarchy to which they’d both pledged their lives.

But even rank had its limits.

“Very well,” Jack said. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

Thornhill didn’t respond. He merely resumed drinking, retreating into whatever grim reflection had been occupying his mind when Jack had first burst in on him.

Frowning, Jack exited the cabin. Returning to his own, he was struck by a harrowing realization.

This was what his future held for him if he didn’t alter his course.

A future as an old soldier consumed by former miseries and present suffering.

One who could never again hope to reclaim the identity he’d lost on the field of battle.

Jack couldn’t accept it.

He refused to accept it.

Something was going to have to change.

The only question was what.