Page 30 of A Gentleman Never Surrenders
Milly swallowed the lump in her throat and looked at him. Stark pain laced his features and her bleeding heart quivered in response.
“I shall write to you. Every day. Please at least do me the courtesy of reading my letters.” His shoulders slumped and he exited the room.
She glanced back at the fire and noticed the telegram had fallen short of the flames. It rested on gray ashes, unburned. She used a poker to extricate the slip of paper and smothered it flat on the ground so she could read the message.
Jack drinking again. Need you to come at once. Only you can stop him. Hampton.
Jack? Was this Jack Watson, Owen’s friend that went to war with him? Milly stared into the fire for a long while, the bit of the note still grasped in her hands. Who was Owen really? The rakish man who seduced women and left them in a state of trouble? Or was he a good man who dropped everything to help a friend? She wasn’t sure what to think and she could only pray what she hoped in her heart was true. That Owen was the man she’d started to fall in love with. Her heart gave a shuddering few beats out of sync and she tried to catch her breath.
Please don’t deceive me, Owen. Be that man I so wish you to be…
Her bedroom door opened and Constance entered, her eyes wide with worry.
“Milady? Is everything all right?”
Milly summoned up her courage and put on a brave face. “Yes. I should like to retire now.”
She let Constance help her undress and then she crawled under the covers, shivering from more than just the cold. She missed Owen’s warm bed, but she missed Owen even more. A hundred thoughts fluttered through her mind and she couldn’t sort any of them out.
It was going to be a long, cold, sleepless night.
Chapter 11
Owen felt like hell and knew he must have looked even worse when Leo’s eyes widened at the sight of him. They were outside a rather awful little hovel of a place near White Chapel.
“I’m glad you arrived so quickly, but…” Leo brushed blond hair out of his eyes. “Is Milly making married life difficult?” He worded the question carefully.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Where the bloody hell is Jack?” Owen brushed the travel dust off his sleeves and stared coldly at the pub house’s wooden door. It was a nameless little hole in the wall, in utter shambles.
“He’s inside. He refused to come out when I asked him to. He asked for you.” Leo’s eyes were heavy with sorrow.
“Very well, let’s fetch him.” Owen shouldered his way into the dingy little pub and found Jack at once. He was slumped over a bar, his eyes glassy, an empty bottle loosely held in one hand, humming an old tune. At first the notes weren’t recognizable, and off-key. Then Jack straightened a little and put more gusto into the sound and the tune changed, becoming a song Owen remembered. A song etched into his bones. It was a tune they’d sung during their days in Africa. A tune that froze Owen in his tracks for a few seconds. It was “Goodbye, Dolly Gray,” a song he and Jack had sung the night before half of their regiment had perished.
Blinding sun, decaying flesh, the cries of vultures, and the silence.
I can do this. He reminded himself the war was over, that he wasn’t stranded in a foreign country surrounded by blood and death, not anymore.
“Jack,” he said, his tone gentle but firm as he approached his friend. It had been months since he’d seen Jack Watson, and the days had not been kind to him. He was too thin, his cheeks too hollow, his once-muscled body weak from lack of food and exercise. At the sound of Owen’s voice, Jack lifted his head, his eyes clearing a bit.
“Hadley,” he sighed, and smiled. “Hampton said you’d come. I wanted to wait for you.” His speech was thick with drink.
“And here I am. Why don’t you take supper with Hampton and me?” Owen leaned against the bar, blocking some rows of liquor bottles from Jack’s view. The pub was empty except for an ancient man at the far end of the bar, wiping pint glasses with a gray rag.
“Come on, Jack. Supper would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Leo shared a worried glance with Owen; then when Jack turned to him, fire in his eyes, Leo backed up a step.
Owen hated this. He, Jack, and Leo had been friends—great friends—so long ago. Three mischievous lads at Eton sneaking out at night to get into mischief the way only boys could. They’d gone to Cambridge together, too, their bonds even tighter than before. But the war had eaten away at their boyhood ties. Leo had tended to his estate, while Jack and Owen had rushed off to Africa to fight the Boers. None of them could have known what awaited them on the shores of Africa—and even Jack, who had once been optimistic and carefree, was reduced to this most basic of beings. Jack had been unable to sleep, to eat; he curled up inside a bottle, ready to die. Leo had become the enemy to Jack, because he hadn’t served; he couldn’t understand the horrors, the sacrifices, the tragedy of war. Only Owen had held the three of them together by a grasp as tenuous as a fine thread.
“Jack, what if you come to Wesden Heath and spend some time with me?” Owen offered. As it was, it couldn’t make things worse. Milly had run from him. She’d gotten hurt and withdrawn, just as he’d feared she would. He had no damned clue how to convince her he wasn’t a blaggard. If only he hadn’t run into William Brandon, the damned ignorant fool. He’d told Milly the truth about Scarlett but it hadn’t seemed to matter. The damage was done. She thought the worst of him. Spending some time with Jack couldn’t be nearly as bad as being so close to his wife and having no way to touch her or hold her. She needed a reprieve from him to settle and he needed time enough to figure out how to win her back and return his home to the peace and comfort he’d been working toward.
“Come with you?” Jack blinked through bleary eyes.
“Yes. To Wesden Heath. It would do you good to spend time in the country.” Owen shared a look with Leo and the other man gave a subtle nod.
“I suppose,” Jack grumbled, and tried to stand. He made it two feet before the glass bottle he held slipped from his lax grip, shattering on the floor even as Leo and Owen swept in and grabbed Jack around the arms, supporting his dead weight.
“Do you need a cab back to Wesden?” Leo asked.
“No, I have one waiting for me at the corner. I’ll bring him back to Wesden after he’s had a week or so to sleep off the drink at a hotel,” Owen explained. It would be easier to let Jack dry up in a hotel with Owen to watch over him and then bring him home to Wesden Heath, where he would have an easier chance of stealing liquor from cabinets and hiding it away for later consumption. If Owen could keep Jack confined in a small room without access to anything but food and water, he might be able to get him through the worst of his withdrawal.
