Amid the Winter's Snow by Tasha Alexander

Author:Tasha Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

FIVE

Davis showed no reaction when he opened the door to admit us to the house. Colin carried the ailing man upstairs while I instructed our butler to bring up chicken broth, have a maid run a hot bath, and send one of the footmen for the nearest doctor. Efficient as ever, he nodded, assured me he had it all in hand, and informed me that Miss Fletcher was in the nursery with the boys.

“Good,” I said. “Can you find a way to keep her there? I don’t want her to know what’s going on. Not yet.”

The doctor was some time coming through the storm. By the time he arrived, Colin had long since brought Corporal Spencer around, applying the same smelling salts we’d used on his fiancée. The bath had warmed him, and the broth began to bolster his strength, but it was no surprise when the physician told us that his recovery would hinge more on his mental well-being than the physical.

“He’s quite insistent that he wants no one else to know he is alive,” he said. “The nature of his injuries are such that . . . well, to be frank, Mr. Hargreaves, he will always look like a monster.”

“But physically, he will make a full recovery?” Colin asked.

“His war wounds have long since healed. Other than lack of food and some minor frostbite, he’s already physically as recovered as he ever will be. As for the rest, it is impossible to say what will happen. Difficult though it may be, soldiers have an idea how to cope with the loss of a limb. This sort of disfigurement, however . . .”

“I understand.” My husband shook the doctor’s hand, thanked him, and then watched the man descend the stairs. “We can’t force him to see Miss Fletcher or anyone else. He has suffered enough.”

“He can’t let her go on thinking he is dead,” I said.

“He believes he is doing her a kindness.”

“Well, he’s wrong. Does he have so little faith in her love that he thinks she would prefer him dead to scarred?”

“The scars are horrific, Emily. He’s a shade of his former self. It’s wholly understandable that he would not want to subject her to a life with him.”

“Shouldn’t that be for her to decide?” I asked, my hands on my hips. “Would you do the same to me?”

“I hope I would have the strength not to, but will not deny the temptation of disappearing rather than standing before you so deformed. And does not he have a choice in the matter? Perhaps, given his current state, he would prefer not to have a wife.”

“Of course he has a choice, but if his decision is to abandon her, he ought to be man enough to tell her.”

“Would it not be easier for her to believe he is dead?” Colin asked. “She will mourn, she will move on. And forever, in her memory, he will be the boy she loved, not some monster.”

“Forever he will be a liar and a coward, who did not believe in the strength of her love,” I argued.

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