The Rakehell Regency Romance Collection Volume 2(32)

"I see. And have you seen a doctor recently?"



"I saw the Army surgeon who discharged me, signed my papers and so on to ship me back to England."



"What was his opinion?"



"He said I had obviously had a severe blow to the head, and that my memory or my sight could come back. But since it had been so long, two years, he wasn't optimistic."



"There are of course many other doctors, and ones better qualified than he might have been," she said with a thoughtful air. "Not that I'm disparaging him in any way. I'm sure he's seen his fair share of these cases. But it's always good to get another opinion. Besides, even a few months can mean a marked improvement of your condition. We shall get a second, even a third opinion when you're feeling up to it."



"When you say marked improvement, you mean like learning how to walk again last year?"



"Exactly. You were badly injured, bruised. There would have been swelling. When the swelling went down, there was less pressure, and you began to be able to use your legs again," she reasoned.



He nodded. "But what about my being unconscious for so long, and losing my memory?"



"It had to be a very powerful blow to the head. I also recall my brother and his friends speaking of men who were so appalled by what they saw on the battlefield that they could not function. Some ran, some were reduced to incoherent babbling wrecks of their former selves. Other men became more cruel and vicious, were infected with the savagery."



"If you don't mind me asking, how were your brother and his friends affected?" he inquired quietly.



Sarah gazed at his handsome face, so vibrant and yet so haunted, and told him the story of Jonathan's battlefield conversion.



Alexander listened in silence until the end and then asked earnestly, "And were they really dead, do you think?"



"So far as they can recall, they believe they were. Thomas has said since that he could see Jonathan pulling him back by the hand. I believe in miracles. We see them every day. A child being born, a flower blossoming, a rainbow. I'd like to think that God heard Jonathan's prayers."



"And his conversion, so to speak. Do you think it will last? That it's permanent?"



Sarah considered this carefully for a moment. "I believe it was not so much a conversion as an opening of the mind to new possibilities. Or a letting go of a reluctance to travel down a different path. He was always a good man, with strong faith. I think perhaps he felt up until that point that he was not worthy. Was tempted by more worldly concerns and pursuits.



"When Clifford and the Duke survived, he felt he owed God. He had so much to be grateful for as well. He came through three years of brutal warfare with barely a scratch. And he was no coward, hanging back. He was always in this thick of the fighting. They all were. I'm not saying that they wouldn't have been wounded anyway, sooner or later. By all accounts a siege is always a terrible thing. He was in the thick of the fight at both Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz.



"But the fact is that he and his friends were betrayed by a person in a position of trust at Rodrigo. They were told the breach was clear, safe to go through. You heard what happened. They were supposed to have all been killed."



Alexander reached out for her hand and took it. "But to what end?"



She returned the warm pressure of his fingers. "Something to do with money, power, I don't know. We've never fully discovered all their reasons."



He stroked his hand up her arm gently, perilously close to her breast. "So you did find out some of them?"



"Ah, the coffee," she said in relief as Caleb entered.



Her hands trembled like wind-blown leaves as she tried to pour. Her skin was crawling talking about all of this again. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. And Alexander had enough troubles of his own without telling him all about the horrible Herbert Paxton and the Earl of Ferncliffe.



"Can we talk about this some other time? It's too beautiful a day for such gloomy thoughts," she said with a shaky laugh as she approached the divan and handed him a cup.



"You're right. And I am rather tired again," he admitted.



"Please lie back down. Don't be shy. While you rest, I'm going to work on my letter to my brother, letting him know you're here and giving him a description of you. Perhaps something will jog his memory and he will be able to give us some information about your identity."



"Thank you, Sarah. You've been so good to me."



"Don't mention it."



"When I wake up, do you suppose we can go out for a walk? If I rest too much, I tend to stiffen up."