Fall from Trace

by Rebecca Connolly

  “You were?” Alex asked, looking at him in awe.

  Weaver raised a brow at Alex’s query. “Did you think we wouldn’t?”

  “I didn’t know what to think,” Alex murmured, “or what to expect.”

  “And then we found out he was here,” Cap went on, ignoring the others and keeping his gaze on Poppy. “So, we rode up without delay to see for ourselves.”

  Poppy nodded in understanding, biting the inside of her lip, and then tilted her head. “And you all are…?”

  Everyone seemed to look at Alex, though he stared at Poppy with the sort of trepidation one reserved for wild animals.

  “Spies, Poppy,” he finally said, lifting his chin, “for the Crown.”

  Spies. Their earlier conversation returned to her mind, and she swallowed at the pain of it. She’d thought it all a joke, some farfetched occupation he’d pulled out of thin air to amuse her.

  Never did she think it was true.

  “Even you?” she asked, somehow managing to keep her voice steady.

  Alex kept her gaze and nodded. “Even me.”

  Poppy exhaled once. “Of course, you are,” she muttered, any semblance of warm feelings from earlier fading entirely.

  One of the men hissed softly, but Poppy didn’t care enough to look. She didn’t care about any of them.

  She just stared at Alex, waiting.

  “Gent, Rogue, Cap, and I were all part of the same group,” Alex told her. “Weaver is our superior.”

  “And Rook took Trace’s… excuse me, Alex’s position,” Cap added, gesturing to Rook. “When we thought…”

  “Yes, when you thought Alex was dead,” Poppy finished for him, drumming her fingers again. “We’ve all had to make arrangements, it seems. Tell me, Cap, how is it that you all knew to come here to find Alex?”

  Cap kept her gaze, though he seemed hesitant. “Stanton sent word.”

  Slowly, Poppy turned to look at her servant and friend, who stared at her with the first sign of shame. “He did, did he?”

  “I knew my duty,” Stanton grunted.

  “How long is it that you have been with me, Stanton?” she asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it out loud.

  “Nearly five years,” he replied. “Came on shortly after your family left.”

  Poppy nodded carefully. “And you were in Moulton before then?”

  Stanton scratched at the back of his head and looked at the others.

  She threw her hands up. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s a simple question. I always thought it was too fortuitous that you appeared when you did in my hour of need. Were you supposed to help me survive? Help me farm? What?”

  He cleared his throat and pushed away from the door, straightening fully. “Whatever was necessary, madam.”

  Poppy stared at him for a long moment, then shot to her feet, glaring at Alex. “You had Stanton come over here to protect me? To keep an eye on me? What business was it of yours how I fared when you were gone?”

  “Umm, Miss Edgewood?” Gent broke in, looking almost pale despite his tanned skin. “Stanton was one of our placements.”

  Poppy rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, we’ve established that, gentlemen.”

  Gent cleared his throat. “No… Not Alex’s. Ours.” He gestured to the group. “Ours.” He indicated Alex briefly. “He had nothing to do with it.”

  It was as if the wind had suddenly left whatever sails her little ship had had. “Oh…”

  “We felt responsible,” Cap explained, his expression softening as he smiled gently, “and we couldn’t bear to see you suffer. So, we had our friend and colleague Stanton keep watch and act as he saw fit for however long he saw fit.”

  No doubt, this was meant to comfort and console her, but Poppy felt neither. She felt hollow and cold, confused and completely lost.

  “With your permission, Miss Edgewood,” Weaver said kindly, “I think we should all sit down, and perhaps Alex will explain how he came to be here.”

  She nodded numbly, and they all took seats, though she remained standing.

  If they were spies and had so much they couldn’t say, such as their true identities, she might not be able to hear. Might not want to hear.

  Considering the expressions on the faces of Gent, Rogue, and Rook, they felt the same way.

  “Miss Edgewood,” Rogue suggested reluctantly.

  She started to move out of the room without a fight when Alex shook his head. “No.”

  Everyone looked at him in surprise.

  Alex shook his head one more time. “No,” he said again. “Of all of us, she deserves to hear it.”

  Poppy looked at him for a long moment, and his eyes held nothing but regret and respect.

  That would have to be enough. For now.

  “For the last four and a half years,” Alex began as Poppy sat, “for one thousand, six hundred and fifty-eight days, to be precise, I have been held prisoner in one ship or another. One vessel in those first few days while I healed from my injuries, and then aboard another for the remainder. I worked as a crewmember, only less of one, and did not touch land until a few days ago.”

  Poppy watched as Alex spoke, frowning as he glazed over so much. Held on a ship? Why? By whom? What had happened? Each of the questions were on her lips, though she couldn’t manage to ask even one of them for fear she would miss something more.

  “When I realized,” he went on, “that I was on land, and in Wales, no less, I escaped. I knew I needed to get back here, I owed that to Poppy…”

  She swallowed once, clearing her throat. “But you were so injured when you arrived…”

  He nodded but did not look in her direction. “I was very injured when I escaped. I stole a horse from a barn maybe thirty miles outside of Fishguard and rode as far as the horse could take me, then turned it loose. Took another horse, along with some shoes and hat, some food, and kept going, this time without the same haste. I couldn’t draw attention to myself, especially not in those circumstances.”

  “Probably helped that you can speak Welsh,” Rogue murmured with a very faint smile.

  “Can you?” Rook asked, sounding impressed.

  “Rogue and I had Welsh mothers,” Alex explained, though it only brought a flicker of humor to his face. “I am much better at it than he is, though it’s still not my strongest language. I sound intoxicated most of the time, which tends to suit for the purposes.”

  The others chuckled, but Poppy didn’t. She stared at Alex still, in a sort of wonder and awe.

  He spoke Welsh? He spoke other languages? It was as though she’d never truly known him, and nothing she remembered had been real.

  “I don’t know how I managed it,” Alex went on, shaking his head. “I was hurt and feverish, barely aware of my surroundings, but somehow cognizant of what I needed to do and where to go to reach my destination. I didn’t pause to sleep even once, afraid of being discovered or not waking up at all should I…” He paused and swallowed with some difficulty. “But the horses I stole were all well trained and carried me where I needed to go. Once I reached familiar areas, I released the last one and went the rest of the way on foot. Collapsed on the doorstep here.”

  “Then he was in bed for three, almost four days,” Stanton broke in. “But for Miss Edgewood here, we might have lost him.”

  Poppy’s cheeks flushed at the mention of her name, and she looked down at her rough nails. “It wasn’t so dire as all that.”

  “I suspect it was,” Weaver contradicted, his voice low. “And for that, you have the gratitude of every man in this room, and quite a few in powerful places elsewhere.”

  Poppy glanced up at him, wondering if he knew just how little she cared about the gratitude of other people in this situation. At this moment, she wondered if she shouldn’t have hit Alex harder when he’d appeared. A great deal of trouble could have been spared if she had.

  “Trace,” Cap murmured, eyeing him with suspicion, “there is much to be explain
ed in what you’ve just said, and what you’ve left out.”

  Alex nodded slowly, rubbing his hands together in an absent fashion. “Some things, Cap, I can’t talk about.”

  “Understood,” Cap replied, “but you also should understand that there are things we need you to talk about.”

  Again, Alex nodded, and this time, he looked at Poppy.

  She returned his look, then glowered. “Now I need to leave?”

  He closed his eyes and looked away.

  She slapped her knees and rose, keeping her eyes on him. “Will my bedchamber be sufficient? Or do I need to go out into the barn and wait to be summoned back in?”

  “Not the barn,” he whispered, keeping his eyes averted.

  Poppy nodded and looked at the others. “You may all stay here this evening, if you can find the space.”

  “We have lodgings, Miss Edgewood, but thank you,” Weaver said, rising from his chair. “Lord Cartwright is loaning us Branbury Park until we resolve things.”

  Poppy’s hands curled into fists at her side. “Lord Cartwright. Of course, he is also one of yours. Why am I not surprised?” She looked back at Alex, shaking her head. “I wonder if anything in my life is truly mine, or if it is all due to you and this damned interference.” She marched past all of them out of the kitchen and into her bedchamber and slammed the door as though she were a moody adolescent girl once more.

  She didn’t care.

  Everything in her life was unraveling, and she was too exhausted, too frazzled, and too hurt to attempt the control she ought to have had. Because she had no control, emotionally or otherwise, and as she lay down in her bed, still fully clothed, all she could do was cry until she could manage to sleep.

  “I didn’t mean to make things difficult,” Cap murmured as they all stared after Poppy.

  Alex sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, then hissed as his injured shoulder protested. “I think that was already brewing, Cap. No worries.”

  “Miss Edgewood has been under a great deal of strain,” Stanton informed them, taking the seat Poppy had vacated. “Even before you showed up, Trace. The farm is always struggling, despite the help she receives from the reserves London sends. Trace showing up threw a kink into things, and then to have all of this…”

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” Alex groaned. “I should never have come.”

  “Alex,” Gabe murmured, leaning forward in his chair. “Where else could you have gone? London would have been too far in the state you were in, and too treacherous. You had no way of knowing if any other alternative would be safe.”

  Alex shook his head, swallowing hard. It was too much, and it was too hard. For him, yes, but especially for Poppy. She deserved better than this. Better than him.

  He should have died on the way to her. He would have known he was free, would have escaped, and yet he never would have brought such trouble to her life. Death was infinitely preferable to the torment he was feeling. Even what he endured on the Amelie Claire hadn’t hurt the way this did.

  “Alex.”

  He looked up at Cap, who was looking at him with all the warmth a father or older brother would have. “What?”

  Cap smiled gently. “It’s really good to see you. I never expected to.”

  Alex reluctantly returned the smile. “I didn’t think I’d see any of you again. Or anyone.”

  “You don’t have to talk about this tonight, Alex,” Weaver insisted. “I know we just sent Miss Edgewood away, but… we have time.”

  That was highly unlikely, and Alex gave him the sort of look that ought to have told him so. “I doubt that, Weaver. There’s never time.”

  “Tonight, there’s time,” Weaver said again. “We’re staying at Branbury, and the official debrief can happen tomorrow, or the next day.”

  Alex looked over at the fire and sighed heavily. “I may need a strong drink or two to loosen my tongue and unlock my memory. Most of it I’ve stored away, though I’m sure it will all come back to me if I let myself remember. My scars tell the story well enough.”

  “As bad as that?” Gent half-whispered, eyes wide.

  “Worse,” Stanton grunted, folding his arms.

  Everyone stared at the large man, even Alex.

  “I’ve seen the scars on Trace,” Stanton told them all. “Protected Miss Edgewood from the things no decent woman should have to see, though she might not comprehend what pain he had to endure to gain those marks. I can recollect each mark in perfect detail, gentlemen. If Trace can’t bear to tell you, I can give you a fair enough assessment, so he doesn’t have to endure it again.”

  Alex’s heart swelled in his chest, and he couldn’t have spoken if he wished to at the moment. He’d known Stanton before he’d left and never returned, but not particularly well, and only in the last few days had he come to know him much better. Never would he have expected to have earned such loyalty from him in so short a time, nor would he have expected the man to have recalled his injuries in such a way.

  He would never be able to express what that meant.

  He cleared his throat quickly and tried for a smile. “If I don’t have to report tonight, will someone at least catch me up on what I’ve missed?”

  Rook raised a brow, treating him with more familiarity than he’d expect from a man he’d just met. “Official or personal?”

  “Personal,” Alex said quickly. “I’m not sure I can handle official right now. Not with…” He shuddered briefly and craned his neck as a chill ran down his spine.

  “Bad news first,” Weaver said quickly, clearly having caught Alex’s reaction. “Cap’s wife Caroline passed about two years after we thought you did.”

  A flash of anguish cinched Alex’s heart and his breath caught. Caroline had always been warm and wonderful, though he’d not seen her much socially, but he knew how devoted Cap had been to her. He’d always hoped that he and Poppy would have managed a marriage and a love like theirs one day. However, despite what he’d always felt for Poppy, Cap and Caroline’s relationship had seemed too impossible to replicate.

  “Cap,” Alex groaned, looking at him. “I’m so sorry.”

  Cap smiled thinly and nodded. “Thank you. It came as quite a shock, and the children… Well, it was a painful time for all of us.”

  Alex nodded in understanding, thinking of Cap’s children and what it must have been like to lose their mother, particularly when their father was gone so often.

  “But,” Cap continued, smiling more broadly, “just this year, I married again.”

  “You did?” Alex was stunned and didn’t bother hiding it. “I’d have thought…”

  Cap chuckled, sitting back against his chair. “Trust me, so did I. But Beth…” He laughed again, grinning outright, which was a bewildering sight. “Beth changed everything.”

  Impossibly, Cap truly seemed happy. Beyond happy, but it had to have gutted him to lose Caroline.

  Clearly, Alex had missed a great deal.

  “That’s wonderful,” Alex told him. “Congratulations, Cap.”

  He inclined his head, then looked down the line of the others, and back at Alex. “Mine wasn’t the only wedding while you were away. Gent went first.”

  Alex barked a laugh and looked at Gent. “Did you, indeed? One of your damsels in distress, was it?”

  Rook and Gabe hooted in laughter, while Gent only grinned. “Yes and no. She wasn’t when I met her, and then she was, all of a sudden. But she loves me somehow, and we have a daughter, with another child on the way, and I thank God my daughter looks like her mother and not me.”

  “We are all very grateful for that, I believe,” Rook acknowledged, crossing himself.

  Gent glowered at him and kicked at the chair. “You could be kinder, you know, now that you are in the family.”

  Alex looked between them, smiling in spite of his confusion. “Excuse me?”

  Rook rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. “I married his wife’s favorite cousin very recently, and he seem
s to think that particular family tie means I should change my nature to suit him.”

  “One can hope,” Gabe muttered, shaking his head. “Poor Helen.”

  “You don’t like Helen,” Rook and Gent said together, making Cap and Weaver laugh.

  “I don’t dislike Helen,” Gabe protested moodily.

  “I hope you’re more convincing with your wife than you are with us,” Rook told him with a sniff.

  Alex looked at his cousin with wide eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Thanks for that,” Gabe muttered, shooting a dark look at his colleague, who was as delighted as a child at this change of events.

  “Gabe.” Alex was already smiling, wondering if it was possible that his cousin… His cousin, who was, by all accounts, the most difficult man on the planet, had a wife?

  Gabe growled and gave him a reluctant smile. “I got married, Alex.”

  “I think that part he got,” Rook whispered.

  “So help me, Rook, I will blacken the other eye,” Gabe snapped, though there was no venom in his tone.

  Alex laughed and put a hand to his head. “Gabe! Did you fall in love? Did you compromise someone? Who in the world is she?”

  Rook and Gent snickered uncontrollably, both clamping down on their lips hard, while Weaver and Cap only shook their heads and grinned.

  Gabe sighed, smiling himself. “She may or may not be the long-lost daughter of Eagle.”

  “No,” Alex moaned, laughing helplessly and covering his face with his hands. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Oh, I can assure you, I did,” his cousin replied, finally laughing with the rest of them. “My life will be all the more complicated from here on out.”

  Alex dropped his hands and looked at his cousin, grinning. “Gabe! You’re married!”

  “And a father, actually,” Gabe pointed out, wrinkling his nose in embarrassment.

  The floor could have fallen away, and Alex wouldn’t have been more shocked. “What?” he said, though the word had no volume.

  Gabe’s typical cynicism and scowling vanished, and he smiled at Alex with surprising warmth. “I have a son. Just recently, as it happens. And we’ve named him Alex.”