Page 61 of The Duke's Return
“No. No, I shall take myself to bed. Thank you.” He gave a short nod to his butler and the other two servants standing there before going down the hall with an offered candle.
Tonight showcased their talents as well as their knack for pretending to be peaceable. Julian told himself that was all. Most of the time they argued if they didn’t have company. Clearly not compatible, not really. The two of them had too much heart.
It was best he would be leaving soon. Perhaps he could even leave sooner if all went well. They only had a little over a week to survive together. So long as they kept their distance, then they would survive.
I suppose I should have told Genevieve that when she tried talking to me in the carriage. Can’t she see how risky it is? I can’t be a proper husband. I wouldn’t know where to start. And she wants her peace, I know she must.
Justifying every reason why he had to be more careful and more distant around his wife, Julian prepared for bed and slipped beneath the coverlet.
One moment he was closing his eyes. In the next, he opened them to see the cloudy night sky. He looked down and saw a soldier he knew at his knees, struggling to breathe as blood dripped down from an injury.
Shouts followed. The alarm rang across their group in the form of a shrill whistle that made his ears hurt. He scrambled to the soldier to help, panicking and forgetting what it meant to secure an injury to prevent blood loss.
The soldier, gasping for breath, gave the orders.
“I’m trying. I’m trying,” Julian said while gagging on the metallic scent of blood as it spilled over his hands.
Then the soldier appeared now faceless, still turning to him. “Why are you leaving me behind?”
“I’m not! I’m not leaving you behind!”
Julian woke shouting these words, gasping and heaving for breath.
He froze. Sitting in the middle of his large bed, with the canopy curtains partially closed, he found himself alone. Safe. Dawn was breaking over the horizon so splinters of light were beginning to spread across the room.
Falling back onto the pillows, Julian groaned. It felt like he had just fallen asleep. His eyes ached. There was a throbbing in his head. Setting aside the sheets also soaked in his sweat, he forced himself to his feet.
“What was the war like for you?” he had asked Tristan the other afternoon when they’d spun the conversation from wives and marriage. He’d worked hard to pose the question as casually as possible.
But his friend still knew. “It is still with you, isn’t it?”
“I never saw the front lines. The little action I did see is hardly worth noting. Especially compared to anything you might have faced,” Julian had said in reply.
Raising an eyebrow, Tristan just gave him a look. “There is nothing small or simple about war. The battles live on within us always. Through dreams, through fractured moments of the day, it isn’t particular, and we cannot control it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t move on.”
“How?”
“Time. You learn to live with it. To endure it. And to move on.”
That was the most Tristan-type of answer he had ever heard in all his life. He would have laughed if it didn’t annoy him so. “That’s all you have to say?”
Moving closer, his friend had offered a shrug. “We are only human. None of us are perfect. I think we should have compassion for ourselves. Our experiences, the pain we’ve put away, our failures, all of it.”
“That’s hardly medicinal.”
“There isn’t medicine for our heads or our memories unless you intend to numb yourself forever. But we have a future. If you want that future, then you must do what you can to lead yourself there.”
The future. That was an old washed-up idea of his father’s, Julian recalled. The previous duke once had countless plans for him and his future. None of them had come to pass, of course, not that the man ever saw that for himself.
My only future is in the Royal Navy now.
“You are a married man. A duke. You can have anything you desire,” Julian had listened to his friend say. “Travel the world if you like. Or stay here. It’s a beautiful property. Make new and better memories. That’s what Verity and I have decided upon, after all. A life that is fitting for what we desire. A comfortable home with plenty of sunshine. A fresh nursery for the children we have since decided we wish to have, and so on. You could have all of that too, Julian.”
Having turned toward the open window, Julian had dared to let himself dream.
Southwick was beautiful. It produced a complicated past for him, but there was the innate beauty that could not be denied.
I always thought I would end up here for more of my time. The land here is fruitful, the people are good, and truthfully this has felt more like home than any other place. What would it be like to stay here? To look into a future? I don’t even know what that would include. If it would be anything like Tristan’s, the only happily married man I know. Could I have the contentment in my marriage like he does? To look forward to children?
