Page 7 of The Lady of the Lamps (Vows in Vauxhall Gardens #1)

S pencer spent a week trying to put the fireworks from his mind, and another trying to forget his embarrassing behavior.

He had thought, once he was home from France, that the nightmares would stop. That loud noises wouldn’t make him jump out of his skin. That life could return to at least a semblance of normality—albeit without his father or his brother around anymore.

But no. The first evening for months where he had actually felt like himself, and those damned fireworks had sent him running for his home.

James and Timothy had turned up at his townhouse an hour after the fireworks, hammering on the door and demanding entrance to see that he was well—which only made everything worse.

Each pound of their fists on the door only brought the images of the soldiers scattered across the battlefield more sharply into his mind.

His butler had tried and failed to send them away, and it was only after a shaking Spencer asked his valet, Allan, to plead with them to leave, that they finally did.

And Spencer slept fitfully for the next thirteen hours, reliving the horrors of war and the terror he had felt so frequently over the last seven years.

He hadn’t wanted society to see how broken he was. Perhaps he should have kept himself locked away, and not listened to his friends telling him that he needed to spend some time around others.

And he definitely shouldn’t have asked Lady Beatrix to dance.

If he hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have witnessed him fleeing from the loud bangs.

He didn’t want to look weak in front of anyone, but especially her.

It made no sense, really. She was a woman he’d danced with once, long ago.

She did not know him, and he did not know her, aside from a few pleasantries.

And yet the image of her, glowing beneath those lamps, that smile that made his heart feel like it was glowing too…it was hard to get it out of his mind.

He agreed to a drink at the club with Timothy and James a fortnight after the debacle, mainly to stop them from knocking on the door and his butler from having to turn them away.

There was a knot in his stomach as he walked into the dimly lit room. The candles had only recently been lit, and there wasn’t really enough light coming from them or the dusky sky outside. Not for the first time, he wished he could feel as at ease around his friends as he always had done.

Every evening they had spent together back then had been full of laughter, good-natured teasing, and light hearts.

Not anymore.

Spotting them at a table in the corner of the room, he forced himself to approach.

“Good evening.” He knew he was being far more formal than he would normally be, but it was hard to dispel the awkwardness he felt after the evening at Vauxhall Gardens.

“Good to see you,” James said with a broad grin.

“Are you— uh… feeling better?” Timothy asked.

His fragile mental state was not something for discussion with anyone, let alone his boyhood friends, but he had to give them some sort of explanation for the erratic behavior they had witnessed from him.

“Yes. Thank you.” He signaled for a whisky. Was his answer the truth? He wasn’t sure. He was definitely better than he had been that night, but would he ever be fully healed? “The fireworks…took my mind back to France.”

Dear God, he hoped that would be enough for them.

He didn’t want to answer any questions or explain further.

The simple admission that he could not hear the explosions of fireworks without his mind spiraling into panic was hard enough.

He took a large swig of his whisky the second it was brought, and prayed the conversation would move on.

“I don’t believe you are the only one so afflicted…” Timothy said cautiously.

Spencer pressed his eyes closed momentarily. He knew others who were just as damaged. More so, even—and in body, as well as in mind.

“It will pass,” he insisted sharply, as if he did not spend every day terrified that it never would.

“Of course,” James agreed.

They sipped whisky in awkward silence for a few minutes, and Spencer wondered if this was worse than the fireworks or his reaction to them.

“I heard there’s to be a high-stakes card game at the Pollark Ball tomorrow night,” Timothy finally said. Relief washed over Spencer at the chance to talk about anything but his bloody weakness when it came to loud noises.

“Oh? How high stakes are we talking?” James asked.

Timothy leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Scandalously high stakes, so I heard.”

Spencer frowned. “I thought the Pollark Ball was the sort that débutantes frequented?” He hadn’t intended to attend, but he was sure he remembered seeing the name on an invitation in the pile of invitations that had stacked up since he had returned home from France.

“Well.” James leaned back in his chair with a smug smirk upon his face. “It always was. And it will still attract that crowd. But with all the Pollark girls married off, it seems Mr. Pollark is keen to make things a bit more interesting at his yearly ball!”

“Well, you’ll be in the ballroom lining up dances, won’t you, since you need to think about wedding soon,” Timothy teased him.

James rolled his eyes. “Have I missed the date of the wedding between you and the delightful Miss Catherine Bollington? ‘Betrothed’ is not the same as wed, you know Timothy.”

Timothy groaned. “Don’t I know it. None of the privileges, eh?”

The three men laughed, and ordered more whisky, and it almost felt like old times.

Almost.

But Spencer could never quite rid his mind of his woes.

That he was not the man meant to be the Marquess of Leighton.

That his brother ought to be sitting here, wed and settling down to the task of producing the heir.

Or perhaps he’d even have an heir already, since it had been seven years since they left for France.

Spencer couldn’t imagine ever tying a woman to a life with a man who jumped at his own shadow.

It wouldn’t be right. He had to be the marquess, because people were relying on him to manage the estates and provide jobs—but he had made his peace with the fact that once he was gone, the title would pass to some distant cousin.

He had a vague idea who it would be, but he hadn’t bothered to look up his lineage in his father’s records to be sure. After all, what would it matter? He would be dead and buried.

In his most morbid moments, he thought he ought to be already. That he should have joined Jack in dying in a trench in France—or died instead, so his brother would be in England, fulfilling the role he was born to inherit.

And yet…

As Timothy and James joked about half-dressed singers and winning favors in a game of cards, Spencer could not get the ethereal Lady Beatrix from his mind.

He could never imagine tying some woman to him for life. But when he had briefly imagined marriage, there was only one woman who danced through his thoughts. Even if he was only torturing himself by picturing how magical she had looked under those lamps…