Free A Gentleman of Means by Shelley Adina Page A

grown man. I’m just so worried.” Her voice dropped. “It isn’t natural. He’s not the same person he used to be, and I don’t know how to bring him back.”
    “Perhaps time is the only thing that will heal him?”
    Alice shook her head, and a curl fell out of today’s attempt at a chignon. “Jake is worried, too. He says there was a man in that prison who went stark raving mad, and it began in just this way.”
    “But Ian is far from the prison, and he was incarcerated less than a week.”
    “For some men, I think, even a day of being treated as less than an animal, of being starved and beaten and expected to work for hours and hours in a situation where one false move could mean death, would be too much.” Alice’s lips trembled before she swallowed and regained control. “He is a baronet, Claire. A man of renown, given respect across the skies. Such treatment as he received would have been inconceivable until he was faced with the reality of it. I am very much afraid that being witness to the cruelty this world is capable of has damaged his soul.”
    Claire gazed at her, at the grief in her eyes, at the ravages of a sleepless night—perhaps more than one—on her face. At the softness of her mouth as she spoke of him.
    And suddenly every suspicion she had ever had on the subject of Alice and Captain Hollys formed a conviction.
    “Alice … can it be … do you have feelings for Ian? Finer feelings that those of a colleague or even of a friend, companion, and nurse?”
    Alice’s face turned bleak. “Am I so transparent?”
    “No. I only this moment realized it, and we have been together for weeks.”
    “You mustn’t tell anyone,” she said urgently. “Especially him. You mustn’t tell him.”
    “Whyever not?” Alice loved Captain Hollys. Why, this was wonderful. If ever two brave, capable, stubborn, impossible people were meant for one another, it was they.
    “Because—because—oh, you know why, Claire!”
    “I do not. Enlighten me at once.” Claire barely restrained herself from waltzing her friend about the saloon.
    “Because—”
    “I do apologize, ladies, for making you wait so long,” the subject of their conversation said, stepping over the raised sill of the doorway. “I could not find a hat to save my life, so Alice, I have appropriated one of yours. I hope that is all right?”
    “Of course,” Alice said so breathlessly that Claire was sure she had no idea what she was agreeing to. “Shall we be off?”
    Alice would have gone on ahead had not Claire had the foresight to tuck an arm into both of theirs, which placed her companionably between them and gave neither the opportunity to escape. They set a leisurely pace down the linden walk, which led away from the fountain and the airfield, and would branch into two directions about half a mile farther on. She fully intended to make them walk the entire perimeter—or as long as it took to put some color in their cheeks and find at least a little relief from the fears that beset them both.
    After some one hundred yards of remarking upon foliage and several species of birds, Alice became restless and pulled away. But at least she did not leave them.
    “What was it you wanted to talk about, Claire?”
    Propriety dictated that she should release Ian’s arm, as well, which she did, but that did not prevent her from bending to look at a leaf, and then resuming her pace with Alice now in the middle. What a good thing these gravel walks were wide enough to accommodate a carriage … or a threesome.
    “I hope you will give me your counsel,” she said, “and then I hope you will allow me to give you mine.”
    “That seems a fair bargain,” Ian said. “How may we help?”
    So Claire told them—of her reports, the rubbish bins, being called upstairs into the managing director’s office, and finally, of her conversation with the count earlier in the rose garden. “I am finding it very difficult to resign myself to a career so