by Emily Larkin
He turned around and watched Cuthbertson roll painfully over and push up to sit. The colonel fingered his gory nose, and spat blood. “You son of a bitch. Don’t think I won’t lay charges—”
“Do,” Icarus said, his voice harsh. “Because I intend to lay charges against you. You’re going to face a court-martial. For Pereira and my three scouts, you’re going to hang.” He crossed to Cuthbertson. “On your feet.”
“Must we take him with us?” Miss Trentham asked. Her voice was neutral, but his ears caught the undertone of distaste.
Icarus hesitated, and glanced at her, and then down at the colonel. Revulsion rose in his throat like bile. Letty Trentham deserved many things, but an hour spent in Cuthbertson’s company in the close confines of a carriage definitely wasn’t one of them.
He crouched, so he was eye to eye with Cuthbertson. “I’ll be back for you this afternoon. You’d better be here. Understood?”
Cuthbertson inhaled a wheezing breath and spat at him. The bloody spittle landed on the man’s own waistcoat.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Icarus showed his teeth in a smile. “It would be useless to run; you’ve got no money.”
He stood and crossed to the door, pulling the key from his pocket. His fingers were shaking so badly he couldn’t insert it in the lock.
Miss Trentham wordlessly took the key and unlocked the door.
Chapter Forty-Four
Icarus had blood on his gloves. Cuthbertson’s blood. He stripped them off and balled them up and climbed into the carriage. He didn’t speak. Neither did Miss Trentham. He sat, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, his eyes squeezed shut. Thoughts lurched in his head, disjointed and fragmented. He felt almost drunk, felt almost like vomiting. Cuthbertson had betrayed them for the sake of a five-minute fuck?
The trembling stopped after the first mile. His thoughts became less fragmented. Icarus lifted his head and looked at Letty Trentham, seated in the opposite corner.
“I apologize. My behavior was unpardonable. My language—”
“Under the circumstances, I think that your behavior and language were perfectly pardonable.” She looked at him for a long moment, her face pale and grave. “Icarus, what did you mean about Lieutenant Pereira? What did you mean when you said he’d broken?”
The question stung like a slap. He felt the muscles in his face tighten, felt himself flinch.
He looked away from her and clenched his hands together. Outside, Dartmoor stretched, bare and bleak.
Letty Trentham didn’t repeat her question, but it hung in the air between them. Finally, Icarus forced himself to answer. “I meant that he was so desperate for them to stop that he would have told them anything. He would have given up his own mother.”
“Did he tell them that ridge was undefended?”
Icarus looked down at his clenched hands. He didn’t hear the clatter of the carriage jolting over the rough lane; he heard Pereira struggling to breathe, water rattling in his throat. “Yes.”
“Before or after you told them?”
“Before.”
“I don’t understand. If Maria had told them, and Lieutenant Pereira had told them, why did they make you tell them, too?”
“I was a British major. My word held more weight.”
He saw Lieutenant Pereira in his mind’s eye, little more than a boy despite the flourishing mustachios, eager and idealistic, willing to give his life for his country.
Well, he had. But not heroically in battle. His life had been choked out of him over agonizing hours.
Pereira hadn’t deserved to be broken, and having been broken, he certainly hadn’t deserved to die.
And Cuthbertson had dared to mock him?
Black rage swept through him again, and—as at Cuthbertson’s—grief was inescapably mixed with it. His throat tightened. His nose stung. His eyes burned. God, I’m going to cry.
Icarus leaned his elbows on his knees, lowered his head into his hands, and squeezed his eyes shut.
Letty Trentham moved, coming to sit beside him. She didn’t hug him, didn’t kiss his cheek or murmur soothing words; she just rested one hand on his back.
Her silent comfort, her hand on his back, made his throat choke even tighter, made his eyes burn even more fiercely. It took every scrap of willpower Icarus possessed to force back the tears. “I want to kill him.” His voice was low, thick, hoarse.
“I know.”
They traveled the rest of the way to Okehampton in silence, side by side, her hand resting on his back. Icarus’s thoughts were fixed on Vimeiro. He saw each scout die again, heard Pereira begging, saw his sodden corpse.
It had been no grand plot, no treason for the sake of idealism or money, for love or fear. The scouts and Pereira had died because of Cuthbertson’s insatiable itch for sex.
For weeks he’d been focused on this moment—on finding the traitor, on forcing a confession—and now that he had, there was no sense of triumph. He felt weary and deflated. And sick. Sick with the sordid, venal stupidity of it all.
The road became smoother. The carriage picked up its pace. Five minutes later, they trotted into Okehampton. Icarus lifted his head and watched the Sleeping Mallard come into view. The sign above the entrance swayed in the breeze liked a hanged man on the gallows. His eyes focused on the movement.
For Pereira’s sake, and for the three scouts, Cuthbertson would hang.
* * *
Reid paid off the coachman and requested his services again later that day. Everything about him was grim—his manner, his expression, his voice. Sergeant Houghton looked at his face and forbore to ask questions, but he touched Letty’s elbow and drew her aside. “It was Cuthbertson?”
Letty nodded.
Houghton shook his head in bafflement. “Why?”
“To impress a woman.”
“Huh. That sounds like the colonel.” Houghton’s gaze slid to Reid, still talking to the coachman. “He doesn’t look pleased about it.”
“He’s not. Cuthbertson was . . .” She searched for the correct word. “Offensive. Extremely offensive. Icarus lost his temper.”
Houghton glanced at her. “The major never loses his temper.”
“He did today. He hit Cuthbertson a number of times.”
Houghton’s eyebrows rose. “Reid did?”
Letty nodded.
“In front of you?”
Letty nodded again. And he cried. “Will you please go with him when he collects the colonel? I dislike the thought of them being alone together. Icarus could be provoked into something he might regret.”
“Of course I’ll go with him.”
“Thank you.”
They ate a silent luncheon in the private parlor. Reid didn’t put any food on his plate; he looked at the goose and turkey pie as if he didn’t recognize it for what it was. Letty opened her mouth to urge him to eat, and then closed it again. Reid had retreated somewhere beyond reach.
Houghton must have come to the same conclusion. He kept glancing at Reid, glancing at the empty plate, but he said nothing. When he’d finished eating, he looked at Letty, his thoughts clear to read on his face: What do we do?
Letty shook her head. I don’t know.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed one o’clock. Reid came out of his bleak reverie. He pushed back his chair and stood. “Excuse me. I must find the constable.”
Houghton pushed back his chair, too, and stood. “I’ll find the constable. You need to eat.”
Reid blinked, and looked blankly down at his plate. “I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll find the constable,” Houghton said again, even more firmly. “An army marches on its stomach. You know that, sir.”
Reid’s gaze jerked to the sergeant. He clearly recognized the aphorism. For a moment, it looked as if he’d choose to ignore Houghton’s words, and then he gave a nod, and resumed his seat. “Tell him I’ll be bringing a guest for his lock-up this afternoon. Four-ish.”
“Yes, sir.”
Letty met Houghton’s eyes, and gave a grateful nod. Thank you, Sergeant.
Houghton nodded back, and left.
Letty returned her attention to Reid. He was regarding the pie with marked lack of interest.
“Would you prefer something plainer? I’ll ask for bread-and-butter, shall I?”
Reid had eaten one slice of bread-and-butter when Houghton returned. The sergeant was almost running. He shut the door with something close to a slam, caught his breath, and blurted: “Cuthbertson’s dead!
Chapter Forty-Five
The words seemed to strike Reid with the force of a battle-ax. He rocked back in his chair. His lips parted, but no words came out.
“Dead?” Letty said sharply. “How?”
“Shot himself in the head.” Houghton put two fingers to his temple. “The constable was called away not half an hour ago. Him and the doctor both.”
“Are you certain it was Colonel Cuthbertson?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s definitely dead?”
“Yes.”
Letty looked at Reid. The blood had drained from his face. He seemed stunned speechless.
“Sir?” Houghton said. “Are you all right?”
Reid shoved his chair back and stood. “Cuthbertson’s dead?”
“Yes, sir.”
Reid’s eyes seemed to burn in his pale face. Letty pushed back her own chair and stood. “Icarus?”
If he heard her, he gave no sign of it. He looked through her as if she didn’t exist and turned towards the door, moving like a man who was half-blind.
Houghton stepped aside.
Reid fumbled with the handle, pulled the door open, and stepped out into the corridor.
Letty and Houghton looked at each other.
“I’ll go after him,” Houghton said.
“No, I will. See if you can find that coachman—tell him not to put the horses to. I think the carriage came from the posting inn.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Houghton said automatically, and then, “But the major—”
“I’ll see he doesn’t come to any harm.”
* * *
Letty gathered her skirts in one hand and ran up to Reid’s room. He wasn’t there. She hurried down the dim staircase and burst out into the inn’s forecourt. Not come to any harm? She couldn’t keep Reid from harming himself if he chose to. No one could.
She spun on her heel. The quiet backstreet stretched empty in both directions. A scream built in her throat. Reid!
She ran to the far end of the yard. A lane led towards the river. Reid was halfway down it, walking with that same half-blind gait.
Letty hurried after him.
The lane ran past the orchard and turned left when it met the river. Reid turned left, too.
Letty followed, fifty yards back.
Reid walked for nearly a mile, not caring where he stepped, paying no attention to the mud and the puddles. The lane passed through a dark grove of willow trees. When it emerged into open daylight, Reid was nowhere to be seen.
Panic kicked in Letty’s chest. She turned and plunged back into the gloom of the trees. Reid!
She nearly ran right past him. Reid was almost invisible: a man in a dark tailcoat with dark hair standing ankle-deep in dark water behind a dark curtain of willows.
Letty’s heart seemed to stop beating. He’s going to drown himself.
She stood frozen with horror while Reid took a step. The water rose over the top of his boots.
Reid! But her voice was locked in her throat. She hurried down to the river, heedless of brambles and mud, her heart pounding almost hard enough to burst from her chest.
Reid lowered himself to sit in the water, moving with slow stiffness, as if his joints were made of rusted iron.
Letty halted on the riverbank and stared at him. What is he doing? Reid’s eyes were squeezed shut, his teeth gritted, his face gray beneath its tan. He was visibly shaking.
Understanding dawned. He’s not trying to kill himself. He’s trying to break free of Vimeiro.
She remembered his frantic panic when he’d fallen in the stream, remembered how he’d vomited, how he’d struggled to breathe. What Herculean effort was it taking him to sit in this river, with water wetting the lowest fold of his neckcloth?
Letty gathered up her skirts and stepped into the river. Water filled her half boots and climbed up her legs, so cold it stung. She walked with clumsy care to where Reid sat and lowered herself alongside him. Water rose to her collarbone.
Reid’s eyes opened. His head jerked round. She saw how close to the surface his panic was.
“It’s all right,” Letty said, and moved closer, so her shoulder touched his. She groped through the water and found his hand.
Reid didn’t speak. His fingers gripped hers tightly.
They sat silently, while the river flowed around them. Letty’s skin burned with cold. Reid’s eyes were tightly shut again. He was shaking as violently as he did after a nightmare, wheezing, his breath hissing fast and shallow between clenched teeth.
Letty held his hand, and leaned her shoulder against his, and grew steadily colder. Her skin no longer burned; it ached. The chill sank through her clothes, sank through her flesh, sank deep into her bones—but Reid’s breathing was growing slower, deeper, easier. He no longer wheezed so hoarsely, no longer hissed through his teeth with each inhalation.
Finally, his breath stopped wheezing at all. He was still shaking, but so was she, deep shudders that rocked her to her core. We’ll freeze to death. But she didn’t stand and clamber ashore. She would stay with Reid as long as it took.
Reid made no move to stand. Nor did he release her hand.
Letty clamped her jaw tight to stop her teeth chattering. Her skin was ice, her flesh was ice, her blood was ice.
Finally Reid spoke: “I don’t know what to do.” His voice was low, almost inaudible.
I don’t know what to do. It was a statement, and it was also a plea.
Letty had the feeling that her next words might be the most important ones she ever spoke in her life. She hesitated, selecting them with great care. “You have a choice, Icarus. You can choose to die, or you can choose to live.” She paused. “It’s not a choice that your scouts or Lieutenant Pereira were given.”
There was a lot more she wanted to say. Choose to live, Icarus! Choose it in their honor. Choose it for yourself. But she bit the words back. Reid needed to come to those conclusions himself. If he could.
Reid didn’t say anything. Nor did he look at her. Nor did he pull his hand from her grip.
Letty let another frozen minute slide past, then released his hand and climbed stiffly to her feet. Water streamed from her gown. Her body ached. Her teeth chattered. “Come back to the inn. You’re too cold to think.”
Reid turned his head and looked up at her. He was pale-faced, but not gray, and his eyes were neither burning nor blind.
Letty held her hand out to him.
Reid took it and let her pull him to his feet.
* * *
Back at the inn, Letty gave Reid into Green’s care. “What happened?” the valet said, aghast.
“We fell in the river,” Letty said, hearing the clang of her lie. She turned to Houghton, standing anxiously at her shoulder. “Sergeant, go down to the kitchen and tell them Mr. Reid needs a hot bath now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The sergeant clattered down the stairs, and reappeared two minutes later, when Letty was helping Green peel Reid out of his sodden, clinging tailcoat. “Is he all right?”
I don’t know. “Yes,” Letty said firmly. “Sergeant, I’d like hot bricks in his bed—as many as you can find!—and see what food they have in the kitchen. He needs something hot to eat. A good, hearty soup, if you can find it. Put him to bed, make him eat as much as you possibly can—force it down his throat, if you have to!—and give him quarter of a glass of brandy and a teaspoon of valerian—Green will know where it is.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hou
ghton hesitated. “Did he hit his head when he fell? He looks . . . odd.”
Numb, was how Reid looked. Numb with more than cold. He was somewhere deep inside his own head, not responding to remarks, moving like a sleepwalker.
Too much has happened to him today.
“It’s the cold,” Letty said.
Houghton accepted this with a dubious nod, and hurried downstairs to the kitchen again.
* * *
Houghton had ordered a bath for her, too. By the time Letty had bathed and dressed in dry clothes, she’d finally stopped shivering. Eliza insisted on wrapping two shawls around her shoulders. Letty hastened next door. Reid’s bedchamber was cozy, the fire blazing high, and Reid himself was in bed. She could tell at a glance that he’d drunk both the brandy and the valerian; his eyes were drowsy and heavy-lidded.
Letty crossed to where Sergeant Houghton stood at the bedside. “He had more than a pint of soup, ma’am. Mutton and barley, it was. Good and rich.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.” She reached out and touched Reid’s brow lightly, and then his cheek. He wasn’t shivering, and his skin felt comfortably warm.
“I don’t think he’ll take a chill,” Green said, hovering anxiously on the other side of the bed. “The bathwater was hot, and there’s six bricks in his bed.”
“Excellent,” Letty said. She looked around for Herodotus. “I’ll read until he falls asleep.”
Reid was asleep before the end of the third page. Letty closed the book and looked at his face for a long moment, then put the book aside and stood. “I would like one or the other of you to stay with him while he sleeps,” she told Houghton and Green in a low voice. “If he should have a nightmare, wake him immediately. But be careful—he can strike out.”
Both men nodded.
Letty hesitated. How to describe Reid’s mental state after one of his nightmares? She decided not to. “Fetch me when he wakes—especially if he has a nightmare.”