Page 63 of The Soldier's Scoundrel
Oliver was wondering the same thing.
Instead, he looked carefully at his sister’s companion. He didn’t see evil or lawlessness. He saw a woman who had done a damned hard thing to save her friend’s life. She didn’t need the gallows. She needed understanding. And Oliver might be the only person in the room who could give it to her.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter terribly whether you were technically acting in self-defense,” Oliver said, hearing his voice echo uncomfortably in his ears. “You acted in defense of someone—if not yourself, then certainly my sister and nephew, and for that I have to thank you. And while I’m no expert, I believe the law requires more, ah, immediacy in the threat, but morality can perhaps abide by a more generous standard.” His mouth went dry. “I might have done the same thing in that situation.”
No, no, that was not enough. Such a statement omitted so much that it was nearly a lie. “To be quite fair, I suppose I did do the same thing once. In Badajoz.” He kept his eyes on his teacup and spoke quickly to get the confession out before he thought better of it, but he wanted Miss Sutherland to know that she wasn’t alone. “You know what happened in the battle. We won, but not before there were thousands of British dead, bodies piled as high as this ceiling.” This conversation was truly unsuitable for a lady’s drawing room and it was only going to get worse. “Afterward, some of our soldiers unleashed hell on the local people in retaliation. For three days, even after Wellington ordered them to stop. Three days of pillaging and raping, not to put too fine a point on it. Some men killed officers who tried to stop them. It was the closest thing to a mutiny I’ve ever seen. One of my own men was amongst the worst. I shot him in between his bouts of depravity.”
Nobody said anything, God damn it, so he kept talking. “Of course, the rules of war aren’t well defined but it was a dashed nasty business. Since then, I’ve felt that if you’re lucky enough to live in a place and time with rules and laws and people able to enforce them, the least you can do is abide by them. But there weren’t any laws to protect Charlotte. Instead, she had you, Miss Sutherland, and I’m glad for it.”
Well, Oliver had done it. He had confessed the worst sin of his life in front of Charlotte and Jack, the two people he cared the most for. And now they might well despise him. He felt Jack’s eyes boring into him. With what? Disgust for Oliver’s hypocrisy?
Oliver made a feeble excuse and limped blindly from the room.
Jack followed Oliver out, not even bothering to take his leave. That was one of the advantages to being outside good society. You can behave as boorishly as you like and nobody expects anything different.
He caught up with Oliver before they reached the end of the block. “Walk with me this way, will you?” He indicated a quiet side street, gray with shadows.
If Oliver was dismayed to see Jack here, he didn’t betray it. But then he wouldn’t, would he? Always so calm, so unruffled, so very much the picture of a gentleman. Jack knew he ought to be put off and hated that he wasn’t.
Oliver had looked like he belonged in Lady Montbray’s drawing room, the gold of his hair and the blue of his eyes matching the room’s furnishings, as if he had been ordered as part of a suite of furniture. Jack should have been revolted that the thought even crossed his mind.
Instead he was touched, he was smitten, he was foolishly adoring. He loved this man, loved him despite being abandoned in the wilds of the English countryside. He loved that Oliver had exposed something ugly about himself in order to help that Sutherland woman. He loved that he now understood why Oliver was so opposed to taking the law into one’s own hands—he was haunted by the memory of having done so himself.
In short, he loved Oliver. The good, the bad, the confusing, and the misguided.
And none of it mattered. Now was the time for a proper good-bye.
“That was decent of you to say all that to Miss Sutherland,” Jack said as soon as he was certain they wouldn’t be overheard. He had come today because he suspected Lady Montbray would be a terrible confidante for a woman who had taken another person’s life. Miss Sutherland would need a better confessor, and Jack had come to fill that role. He hadn’t dreamt that Oliver would take it upon himself. But Oliver’s confession had done what’s Jack’s understanding never could—Oliver was a proper gentleman, and if he approved of Miss Sutherland’s actions, then that would likely ease the lady’s mind.
Oliver shrugged. “And it’s decent of you to say so after I left you in Kent yesterday. I’m sorry about that. I behaved badly. Your arm . . .” His voice trailed off miserably.
Jack ought to be angry about that, but he wasn’t. Today his brain was working counter to all reasonable expectations. “No worries,” he heard himself saying.
“I’m sorry about the money, too. I didn’t mean for . . . oh, the devil take it. I only wanted you to get back to London safely. I didn’t mean to imply . . .”
“It’s all right,” Jack said, his voice gruff. “So, that was what your father had to tell you so urgently,” he guessed.
Oliver nodded. For a moment, their silence was only broken by the sound of their footsteps and the clack of Oliver’s walking stick. “There has to be a way forward, a way for this”—he gestured vaguely between the two of them—“to work.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said gently.
“Why the devil not?” Oliver stopped and turned to face Jack. “If it’s more of that gammon about how a gentleman can’t be seen consorting with a . . . whatever you think you are, then I don’t have to be a gentleman anymore.”
“Like hell you don’t.” Christ, just look at him. Even in the shadows, he fairly radiated birth and breeding.
“This city is filled with gently born people who have fallen on hard times.” Oliver took a step closer to Jack. “I can be one of them,” he said, his voice low.
Jack retreated a step. “There are no sons of earls who keep company with former servants.” He wouldn’t point out that Oliver, with his matched horses and fine curricle, his expert tailoring and glossy boots, would be even more conspicuous in low company. It was bred in the bone, whatever it was that made Oliver the golden, perfect specimen of English aristocracy.
“It’s high time there is, then.” Oliver edged forward, and when Jack stepped back he found he had been maneuvered into a doorway. “I could give my money away.”
“It has nothing to do with money.” Jack could almost laugh at the idea that this was a problem money could solve. “It’s not about who your father is, either. It’s about what your life is. White’s and balls and the queen’s bloody drawing room,” he said. “Tea parties and soirees and—”
“I get the idea.” When Oliver spoke Jack could feel the breath on his forehead.
“I don’t think you do. You’re welcome everywhere you go.” He lowered his voice even further. “Your good name is enough to make a woman feel that she’s been absolved of a capital offense.”
Oliver shook his head, as if to dismiss Jack’s words. “My father is going to disown me, so any good name I have will be quite shot through anyway.”
