Free Suzanne Robinson by Lady Hellfire Page B

Val.
    Once she was gone, Val turned on him. “You know I don’t want to go to the Dower House. Quit trying to make me.”
    Alexis took Val’s arm and guided him toward the library at a slow pace. Val limped beside him in silence.
    “You can’t keep avoiding the men,” Alexis said.
    “Most of them are dying because of that bloody war. I won’t go.”
    “You had the courage to charge a battery of Russian guns, but you can’t face men wounded in the same war?”
    Alexis helped Val sit in a chair next to the glass doors that led to the terrace.
    Val laughed unsteadily. “The famous charge of the Light Brigade.” He looked up at Alexis, his eyes bright with an inner fever. “I can’t believe it. The whole country is in raptures about how Cardigan led us on a ride down the valley of death. What do the people care if the Russian guns blew whole sections of the Lancers out of existence? You saw.”
    “Val, don’t. You know the doctors said you’ll never get well if you torture yourself like this.”
    “All of my men were killed. Blown apart. It rained blood.” Fallen deep into his memories, Val talked more to himself than to Alexis. He wiped his hands on the shoulders of his coat, back and forth, as though it were soiled. “My clothes were soaked with the blood of my men.” The hands stopped moving, and Val looked out past Alexis to the terrace and the woodlands in the distance. “I wiped someone’s eye off my sleeve.”
    Alexis stepped in front of his friend. “Val.”
    He got no reaction. He knelt and shook his arm. “Val.”
    Val met his
gaze
.
    “Remember when we were at school and you tried to fight half the rowing team?” Alexis asked.
    “I don’t care.”
    “Listen. Old Percy Cheswit was sitting on you trying to flatten your face.”
    Val almost smiled. “I’d lost my grip on his fat neck. I was strangling him for calling me a bastard.” He looked atAlexis. “You pulled him off me and kicked him down the college stairs. I never saw anyone frighten two oarsmen with a mere stare before.”
    “It wasn’t the stare. It was the idea of having me for an enemy that sent them skipping. And you, you touchy devil, you laughed so hard I couldn’t get you to stand. You just lay there hiccupping and guffawing. I spent the next three years trying to persuade you not to be so quick off the mark about your birth.”
    They looked at each other, neither smiling.
    “Would you do something for me?” Alexis asked.
    “Of course.”
    “Would you go to the garden and cut some flowers for me.”
    “Me? Flowers?” Val sounded as if he wasn’t sure what a flower was. “Why?”
    “I want to give them to someone.”
    “But you have dozens of servants to do that.”
    “A servant wouldn’t be as careful. I want you to choose the most perfect flowers. No flaws. They’re for Miss Grey.”
    A transitory smile crossed Val’s pale face. “That hair.”
    “Yes, and while you’re at it get enough for the Dower House. Now listen. You must promise to take your time and choose only the best. Study each flower.”
    Val sighed. “Is this a de Granville remedy for crushed souls?”
    “I’ll bet you a new hunter that you feel better after doing it. But you have to promise to try.”
    Gazing at the garden that stretched out below the terrace, Val nodded. “I’ll do it. But only because I know you’ll make me go to the Dower House with you if I don’t.”
    “You do know me well,” Alexis said.
    Meredith appeared again. “My lord, Miss Grey is getting into the carriage. She wouldn’t wait.”
    “The coachman will. Damned impertinent little midge.”
    He took his time getting into his topcoat. After settling his hat on his head, he strolled outside, tugging at his gloves. She was annoyed. He could tell because she sat up too straight and stared at the coachman’s back.
    Sliding into place opposite her, Alexis eyed her while addressing the coachman. “Maitland House, please.”
    They rode in silence. It seemed