Brotherhood 02 - Broken Promise (12 page)

Austin sat with Gabe in a private room at the back of the inn and refilled his glass from the bottle of whiskey Mrs. Pollock had brought them. He took a long swallow then set his glass down with a decided thud.

Several minutes passed before Gabe broke the silence. “What are your plans, Austin?”

Gabe hadn’t matched him glass for glass. In fact, Austin thought this might still be his friend’s first, compared to his… Hell, he’d lost count.

“I don’t know.”

He reached for his glass again, then pulled back his hand. It wouldn’t do any good to get falling-down drunk. Not with her sleeping in a bed above them. Not with his longtime friend just waiting for the whiskey to loosen his tongue enough so he’d spill his guts.

Gabe had rescued him from that prison in France. He understood that what happened there had left a wound so deep it still haunted Austin.

Jarrod Dunstan’s fresh-faced features flashed before him and refused to disappear.

Austin lifted his glass, but his hand trembled so violently he couldn’t get it to his mouth without the liquid spilling over the rim. He lowered the glass to the table and stared at the sloshing whiskey.

Gabe rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward. “Don’t you think it’s time you talked about it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about what happened to you in France. In that prison.”

Austin wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He wished they hadn’t taken a table so close to the hearth. “Nothing happened.”

“Aren’t you tired of playing this game?” Gabe’s features turned harsh. His voice held a commanding tone as if they were still in the Crimea and he was issuing an order.

Austin chose to ignore his friend and stared at the liquid in his glass, knowing his hand still wasn’t steady enough to pick it up.

Damn, but he wanted a drink.

“Pick up your glass then, and let’s have a toast.”

Austin shot his friend a baleful glare. “To what?”

“To whatever you’d like. To the lady’s escape from an assassination attempt. To discovering that the Earl of Penderly has an heir. To your making it home from France ali—“

“Damn you!”

Austin slammed his fist against the top of the scarred table and stared at the whiskey. He wanted another swallow. He wanted to drink enough to erase his nightmare. But he couldn’t. Every nerve in his body trembled uncontrollably. If he tried to lift the glass right now, he wouldn’t have anything to drink by the time it reached his mouth.

“Haven’t you lived with this anguish long enough, friend?” Gabe whispered. “I know I can’t make what happened go away, but if you share your torment with me, I can at least carry part of your burden.”

“You think it’s as easy as that? You think if I tell you, everything will be fine?”

“I’m not as naïve as that. Anyone who survived the war lives with guilt every day of their life.”

Austin rolled his eyes. “Even you?”

A deafening silence settled over them. Finally, Gabe said, “Yes, even me.”

A serious expression darkened Gabe’s face and this time when he lifted his glass to his mouth he drained it.

“Have you followed your own advice?” Austin asked in a mocking tone.

“Yes. I’m lucky. I have Liddy. That’s why I can say with assurance that talking to someone helps.”

Austin’s heart pounded harder in his chest. He couldn’t stand this any longer. He knew if he didn’t tell someone soon, his guilt would drive him insane. And if he couldn’t tell his best friend, who could he tell?

He pushed back his chair and stood. He wanted to run, to escape, but there was no place to go where his memories wouldn’t follow. Instead, he walked to the fireplace on legs that felt strangely unsteady, and rested his arm atop the mantle.

The fire in the grate wasn’t blazing. It wasn’t cold enough to warrant that much heat. But the embers were hot enough they’d come to life if stirred. He stared at the smoldering ashes and carefully considered his words.

“When I close my eyes, I relive every detail of the time I spent in that French prison. I hear the uneven gait of the old guard who brought our trays of food each day. I hear his labored breathing and the clank of the keys at his waist with each step he took. Sometimes I can even smell the sour odor of the food he dropped beside me each morning and each night and my stomach revolts. And when it’s quiet, I hear the sound of his sadistic chuckle as he left the cell, knowing the slop wasn’t fit to eat.”

Austin dropped his hands and clenched his fingers into tight fists. “He enjoyed demeaning the English prisoners. That was their goal. To reduce us to animals. They fed us each day, but there was never anything to eat it with. It didn’t take long to learn if you wanted food, you ate like a dog.”

The memories burned inside him like acid to an open wound. He took a deep breath that seared his heart. “Each prisoner got one bowl of water a day. We could use our ration of water to drink or wash with. We all learned very early on that keeping clean wasn’t worth dying of thirst. By the time you came to rescue me, I wasn’t sure I could ever be human again.”

Austin kicked at a partially burned log in the grate and the embers ignited into several small flames. Even though heat came from the small fires, an icy shiver chased sweat down his spine. “But the most vivid memory is the sharp click of the French captain’s boots as he strutted through the prison.” He looked over his shoulder to the table where Gabe sat. “He never walked slowly, or softly, but fast. And loud. As if he wanted all of us to know he was coming, wanted us to fear his presence. As if he couldn’t wait to torture another one of us.”

Austin wanted to laugh away the terror he felt when he thought about his time in France. But he couldn’t. The painful knot in his stomach ached like he’d been stabbed with a white-hot poker.

“He enjoyed our
visits
. That’s what he called them. Visits. The ritual was always the same. He’d ask me if I’d finally decided to tell him which one of the prisoners being held there was Thorn.”

Gabe’s brows shot upward. “How did he know about Thorn?”

Austin tipped his half-filled glass of whiskey and emptied it. He needed to drink more than what he already had to get through his nightmare. He walked back to the table and refilled his glass, then sank into his chair.

“Rumors about him had surfaced throughout France for weeks. I don’t know how he’d been discovered, but he had. It was only a matter of time until his identity came out. He was trying to leave France when he was arrested—although no one knew what a prize they had.”

Austin leaned his elbows on the table and turned his glass with his fingers. “But Thorn made what was probably his first tactical error. He tried to pass me a message.”

“In prison?”

Austin nodded. “When the group of prisoners he was a part of walked by, one of them dropped a note into my cell. It was just a blank piece of paper, but it was folded. And fastened with a thorn. Unfortunately, one of the guards discovered it in my cell before I could get rid of it.”

A knot tightened in Austin’s gut. He shoved back his chair and bolted to his feet. He wanted to run like he did when he was in London, run to escape the confines of the four walls that closed in around him. Instead, he walked to a window that overlooked Maude Pollock’s vegetable garden. He studied nothing in particular for several long minutes before he was composed enough to speak.

“The guard gave the note to his commanding officer—Captain DuBois. From that moment on the bastard was relentless in his pursuit to discover Thorn’s identity. He was determined to hand over the infamous spy to earn a promotion.”

He paused. It was difficult to swallow, difficult to breathe. “When I survived the beatings without revealing Thorn’s identity, he invented a new and more effective method to make me talk.”

Austin took another healthy swallow of the drink he’d carried with him. He needed to get drunk. That was the only way he could tell the rest of his nightmare. But liquor wouldn’t help now. Nothing would.

“On his next
visit
, he brought along one of the soldiers who’d been captured with me. I knew the lad wouldn’t leave alive. And I knew I’d be forced to watch him die. I could tell by the look in DuBois’ eyes, the malicious glint. The sadistic smile on his face.”

“Hell, Austin,” Gabe swore. His arms still rested on the table, but his hands were clenched so tightly every knuckle was stark white.

“The first soldier they brought was just a boy, barely old enough to sport a beard. He tried to be—” Austin swallowed. The pain inside his chest hurt so damn bad. He cleared his throat then continued. “He tried to be so brave. The first words from his mouth were, ‘Don’t tell them anything, Captain. I’m not afraid—’”

Austin stopped. He couldn’t go on. He needed to step back from the memories, to separate himself from what had happened.

“Of course, DuBois silenced him,” Austin continued when he’d gained control of his trembling nerves. “You should have seen him, Gabe. He’d been starved, beaten, and spent as many weeks in that hellhole as I had, yet he stood before me as tall and proud as if I was about to pin a medal of honor on him. But the look in his eyes told me how scared he was.”

Austin clamped the fingers of one hand around the frame at the window and gripped the wood until his hands ached. “DuBois gave me one last chance to hand Thorn over. When I refused, he…he pressed the barrel of his gun to the young soldier’s temple.”

Austin turned so he could face Gabe. He needed there to be a connection to his friend when he revealed the nightmare that had haunted him for so long. “I could have handled watching the young soldier die—at least I tell myself I could have. I’d seen scores of lads die on the battlefield. I could have told myself this was one more casualty of war. Until…”

Austin stumbled back to the table and sank into his chair. His legs were too weak to hold up his body.

“DuBois lifted my hand and…pressed my finger over the trigger.”

Austin squeezed shut his eyes. “The lad looked at me with such pleading in his eyes. I know he was praying that I’d be strong enough to stop the gun from firing. And all the while, DuBois’ finger pressed harder against mine.”

The same fear and panic overwhelmed him as it had that day. The same gut-wrenching terror plunged him into a pit of helplessness. His muscles burned as they had then from the effort to turn the gun away from Dunstan’s temple, the frantic desperation to hold his finger from pressing on the trigger. “I fought to keep the trigger from moving, but I was so weak. The French bastard enjoyed watching me struggle.”

Austin was unable to continue. He’d battled to keep the terrors hidden inside him for so long that it was painful to let them surface. But he knew he had to finish. He knew Gabe was right—he had to share his most terrifying fears.

With tears streaming down his face, Austin met Gabe’s gaze. And revealed the nightmare that had haunted him since he’d been taken captive.

“I wanted to close my eyes to keep from watching the bullet blow Dunstan’s head apart—but I couldn’t. I had to keep my gaze locked with his. I owed it to him. It was as if the intensity of his gaze gave me the strength I needed to keep DuBois from winning our struggle. And then…”

Austin swiped his hand down his face. His palm came away wet, whether from perspiration or tears he didn’t know. Didn’t care. “He closed his eyes as if telling me the struggle was over. As if giving me permission to give up my effort. I remember crying out when I lost the battle. I can still hear the loud explosion. I can still feel—”

Austin swallowed past the lump in his throat. He couldn’t go on.

Neither of them spoke for several long minutes. It was as if they were paying homage to the innocent young man who’d given his life because it was demanded of him. Paying homage to all the soldiers who’d made that same sacrifice, both in the war and after.

“Do you know the soldier’s name?” Gabe finally asked. His voice was filled with emotion.

Austin swiped at the wetness that still streamed down his face. He didn’t care if Gabe saw the tears. The young soldier who’d given up his life deserved them. He deserved more. But there was nothing Austin could do for him now.

There was something, however, he could do for his parents. For his family.

“Lieutenant Jarrod Dunstan. The Earl of Penderly’s youngest son.”

“Bloody hell,” Gabe hissed almost as a growl. “No wonder…”

Austin pushed his glass away from him. He wasn’t drunk and he knew no matter how much he drank tonight, he wouldn’t get drunk.

“I owe them. I killed their son. I owe them their grandson.”

Gabe sat still a moment longer, then he leaned forward. “Do you think Penderly’s behind the attacks on the babe?”

He shook his head. “If you had heard him when he came for my help, you’d know he couldn’t harm the babe. He’s living with the same guilt as I am. I’m responsible for his younger son’s death. He considers himself responsible for the death of his older son.”

“But Lady Fledgemont is so sure.”

“I know.” Austin raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s what makes this so damn difficult. She’s almost irrational in her refusal to consider that Penderly might have had a change of heart.” He shoved himself out of his chair and walked to the fireplace. It was lifeless now. “Do you remember what it was like when we were on a mission and something didn’t feel right? You’d stop and check every direction. You couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t smell anything, you just
knew
something was wrong. That something was out there.”

He turned around and looked at his friend. “That’s how I feel now. Like something’s not as it seems.”

“What’s bothering you?”

“It’s Lady Fledgemont. I feel like she’s keeping something from me. And when it’s revealed, the repercussions from her secret will blow me apart.”

Gabe turned his half empty whiskey glass in his fingers. “What are your feelings for Lady Fledgemont?”

“Feelings? I don’t have feelings for her.”