Letty jerked awake a short time after one o’clock. She heard rain on the windowpanes, and the sound of a man crying out in distress. She flung back her bedclothes, fumbled for the tinderbox, and threw her shawl around her shoulders.
Reid came out of his nightmare berserker-mad, lunging up from the bedclothes—and struck his head on the low ceiling. He gave a grunt. His legs folded and he sat abruptly on the bed, his expression a mixture of shock, pain, and bewilderment.
“Icarus? Are you all right?”
Reid bowed his head into his hands with a groan.
“Icarus?” Letty went to him, and cautiously touched his shoulder. The berserker fury had drained from his muscles. “Icarus, did you hurt yourself? Is it bleeding?”
He didn’t reply, but he did let her gently run her fingers through his hair until she found the swelling. To her relief, there was no blood.
Letty put her arms around him. “Poor darling,” she whispered.
Reid didn’t hear the endearment. He sat with his forehead resting against her shoulder, his breath wheezing in his throat, his whole body shaking from the nightmare. Letty laid her cheek against his hair and rocked him gently, as if he was a child. “Hush,” she whispered, stroking the nape of his neck.
When his breathing had steadied, she released him and straightened his bedclothes and rearranged his pillows. “Sit back.”
Clumsily, Reid obeyed.
Letty pulled the covers up, poured a quarter of a glass of brandy, and sat beside him while he sipped. He needed both hands to hold the glass steady. “Does your head hurt terribly?” she asked when he’d finished.
Reid glanced at her. His eyelashes were spiky with tears. “No.”
Letty’s heart clenched painfully in her chest. Icarus Reid, I love you. She took the glass and climbed off the bed and poured Reid a teaspoon of valerian. “Here.”
Reid swallowed the valerian.
“Would you like me to read to you?” Letty asked diffidently.
Reid looked at her and hesitated, and she knew that they were both thinking about last night. The hesitation drew so long that she was certain Reid was going to say No, but instead he gave a brief nod.
He trusts me. Letty had to swallow a sudden lump in her throat. She picked up Herodotus and sat at the end of the bed. “Aristagoras, the author of the Ionian revolt . . .”
She didn’t stop reading when Reid’s eyelids grew heavy, nor did she lean over and kiss him; she didn’t think she could endure it if he rebuffed her tonight. She read eight pages, ten pages, twelve, until Reid was deeply and profoundly asleep, and then she closed the book and sat looking at him in the candlelight: the bony, beautiful face, peaceful now in sleep; the slow rise and fall of his chest.
How could Reid believe he was dead?
She hugged Herodotus and watched him sleep. Rain pattered steadily against the windowpanes. The night chill sank into her skin, making her shiver. Finally, Letty climbed off the bed. She laid her fingertips lightly and fleetingly on Reid’s brow, and then tiptoed from the room.
It was still raining in the morning. The landlord informed them that the post road was under water in several places. “Then I think we should stay here,” Letty said.
Embroidery was not her favorite way of passing time, but there was little else to do. Letty stitched by the fire, while Reid and Houghton sat at the table, deep in discussion. She listened idly while they debated the merits of a confectioner’s shop over a bakery over a chandlery and then argued back and forth over whether to purchase a farm or two as well.
In the early afternoon the rain eased to a drizzle, and two hours after that it stopped entirely. Letty put aside her embroidery with relief. “I’m going for a walk. Do either of you wish to come?”
Both men looked up. “A walk?” Houghton said. “Absolutely! You coming, sir?”
They set out fifteen minutes later—with the addition of Eliza and Green—heading east along a narrow lane pocked with overflowing potholes. Letty strode briskly in her sturdiest leather half boots, inhaling air redolent with woodsmoke and decaying leaves. Houghton matched his stride to hers. “Good to be outside,” he said.
“Isn’t it just!”
They walked for half a mile, coming to a junction with an even narrower lane. “The landlord said we can take this one north for a mile,” Houghton said. “There’s another lane that’ll bring us back to the inn. It’s not signposted, but he says it’s bounded by a ditch with a good crop of withies, so we can’t miss it.”
“Withies?”
“Willow shoots. For making baskets.”
The landlord was correct; the ditch of withies was unmistakable, although to Letty’s eye they looked more like reeds than willow shoots. Green produced a penknife from his pocket and managed, without getting his feet wet, to harvest one withy. Watching him, Letty thought how boyish he looked—and how unlike the dispirited young man shoveling manure in Basingstoke. She glanced from Green’s beaming face to Reid’s solemn one. How do we rescue you, Icarus Reid?
Houghton stood alongside Reid, and for a moment the likeness between the two men made her blink. Houghton had craggy features and his eyes were brown not silver, but even so, he and Reid were extraordinarily similar. Both large men, grown too thin. Both with tanned skin and direct, alert gazes. Both with the same hard, faintly dangerous edge. One could tell at a glance they were soldiers—and that they’d killed in battle.
Houghton spoke with a West Country accent, but in every other respect, he and Reid could be brothers. Was that why Reid was so determined to rescue him?
Letty glanced at Houghton’s empty left sleeve. The men’s brotherhood went deeper than the eye could see. Both had been crippled at Vimeiro, even if only Houghton’s wounds were visible.
She looked at Reid again. How do we save you?
Reid noticed her glance. “Shall we continue?”
Letty nodded.
They walked without speaking, the mud sucking at their boots. The lane was scarcely wide enough for a cart, more path than road. Letty glanced back. Houghton had lingered at the withies with Green and Eliza. She heard their laughter, faintly.
She studied Reid’s face. He was gazing out across the flat, dank, wet landscape, and even though he was within touching distance he seemed as remote and unapproachable as if he were on the other side of the ocean. How do we save you?
The only tools at her disposal were words.
Letty chewed on her lower lip, and imagined repeating what she’d said at Whiteoaks. Reid would be angry. Furious.
But someone had to say something.
Reluctance and urgency wrestled in her breast, and for several minutes the reluctance won out—if she spoke to Reid on this subject again, their newly patched friendship would be sundered. He’d look at her with dislike glittering in his eyes and speak to her with curt hostility in his voice, and she wasn’t certain she could bear it.
But if she didn’t speak of it, Reid would continue on his path, and that would be a thousand times worse.
Letty’s sense of urgency grew. Pressure built inside her until it felt as if she would burst. She had to try again.
“Icarus?”
Reid glanced at her. “Mmm?”
Letty took a deep breath. She felt sick with nervousness. “I asked you a question at Whiteoaks, and you never answered it.”
“Didn’t I? I beg your pardon. You’ll have to refresh my memory.”
The feeling of nausea increased. Letty took another deep breath and grabbed hold of her courage. “If Pereira had told the French what you told them—and if he’d survived—what fate would you have wanted for him?”
Reid halted. He glanced sharply back at the others, out of earshot at the withy ditch.
“Would you have wished him dead?”
Reid’s gaze swung back to her. She saw outrage gather on his face.
“Or would you have thought that he’d already suffered more than any man can endure, and that he deserved forgiveness instead?”
“That is none of your business.”
“I’ve made it my business,” Letty told him. “And I intend to keep asking until you give me an answer. Would you have wished—in your heart—for Pereira to hang?”
Reid’s face was pale with fury. He turned from her and began striding down the lane, his boots spraying muddy water.
Letty hurried to catch up. “It’s a simple question, Icarus. Yes, or no.”
Reid didn’t reply. He walked faster.
Letty stretched her legs, almost running. “Yes, or no?” she said urgently.
Reid halted, and swung round to face her. “For God’s sake, woman!” His voice was almost a shout. “Leave me alone!”
“Would you have wished Pereira to hang?”
Reid was breathing heavily, his eyes bright and angry, his nostrils flared.
“Yes, or no?”
“Yes!” he flung at her. “Yes! Of course I would!” He swung from her again, striding fast, paying no attention to the puddles.
Letty stayed where she was for several seconds, hearing the clang in her ears. Did Reid know he was lying to himself? Then she gathered up her skirts and hurried anxiously after him.
The lane narrowed further. Overgrown hedges crowded close on either side. Letty was out of breath by the time she caught up with Reid. The lane made a sharp left turn, ducked through a grove of willows, dipped into a hollow where water flowed sluggishly—
Reid splashed knee-deep into the water before he caught himself. He recoiled so violently that he almost fell over. Letty saw panic flare across his face.
“Icarus!” She caught his arm, steadying him, drawing him several paces back from the water.
Reid shrugged his arm free.
“Are you all right?”
He inhaled a wheezing breath and bent over, bracing his hands on his knees. His hat fell off.
Letty picked it up. Cold water sloshed in her half boots. Reid’s face was tense, his eyes squeezed shut, muscles knotted in his jaw. She judged him very close to vomiting.
If I ever find the men who did this to him, I will kill them myself.
Letty gripped Reid’s hat in her hands and wondered how to rescue him, and then she bent until her mouth was close to his ear. “You lied to me, back there. You wouldn’t have wanted Pereira to hang. You would have wanted him to live.”
Reid’s eyes opened. “No,” he said hoarsely.
“You’re lying, Icarus. If Pereira had told them, and if he’d survived, you’d have wanted him to live.”
Reid shook his head. He straightened to his full height. His mouth was grim.
Letty handed him his hat. “You’re lying to yourself, and you need to acknowledge that.” She turned and headed back in the direction of the withy ditch. She made herself stand tall, made herself walk briskly, but inside she was trembling.