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tea? I could do with a bit, myself. Not to sound flippant, but that Bath water tastes like rotten eggs. And, uh—” Macready nodded his head at the heap of broken china on the floor “—I’ll bring a whiskbroom so you can tidy up.”
    Macready heaved himself up from the chair and made his way to the small kitchen. The rattle and clank of the kettle and dishes signaled that he was readying the tea and had no more wish to converse about the past than James.
    James rubbed a weary hand over his brow. Of course he didn’t want to think about it. No one wanted to examine the unpleasant or foolish side of himself. But all the same, James had a driving curiosity to know the truth. What kind of fellow was he after all? There was a saying that the battlefield brought out what was genuine in a man. If so, then he had failed the test miserably. Sure, he was young. But then, they all were. What made a man suffer nobly, like Macready? And what made a man hide and cower with fear as he had? Where was the defect in his character? Would that he could root it out and tear it away, like attacking weeds in an overgrown garden.
    He wasn’t sure he deserved the friendship of his fellow veterans, like Macready. That’s what made attending those veterans’ group meetings so difficult. Those men had sustained real injuries while defending home and country. Many men had given their lives, leaving wives and children behind. He couldn’t even look the widows in the eye, so riddled with shame was he. Their husbands had paid the ultimate sacrifice while he lay silent in the rye at La Sainte Haye.
    If he wasn’t sure he deserved the friendship of those brave men, then he felt doubly undeserving of Miss Williams’s attention. She seemed to care about others quite a bit, judging from her conversation with Cantrill. Every mention of her charges or Sophie brought a merry twinkle to her eyes. She would never sit back and allow others to suffer in her place. Someone like her would recoil in horror at his cowardice. Not that he had a chance with her anyway, poor and mute as he was. It was just that, in general, a friendship with someone like her could be nice. It took the rough edges off of life.
    How could he come to deserve friendship again? Perhaps he could begin by confronting his shame and his cowardice first. These twin emotions had robbed him for two years now, leaving him bereft of speech. Only by ridding himself of them could he regain what he lost.
    It was going to be a difficult journey. But, like the soldier he should have been, he could take it battle by battle. He would regain his power to speak. He would find a way to support his mother and sister. And in doing so, he would become a man. Not, perhaps, the man he should have been had he not been such a quitter on the field of battle. But, perhaps, the man he was meant to be.
    He sighed.
    Would he ever become the kind of man who might, one day, deserve a pretty girl like Lucy Williams sitting by his side?
    He certainly had his work cut out for him.

Chapter Four
    L ucy perused the bookshelves before her, tapping her fingers across the spines of the leather-bound volumes. Lord Bradbury possessed an excellent library that he used but infrequently. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she looked among them for something that could help her to cure the ensign.
    She moved along the row of books pertaining to natural history, drifting toward the middle of the room until she spied the medical texts. Botheration, the titles of some were in Latin. Oh, it was all jolly well to teach Latin and to importune his lordship’s daughters with the proper declensions of each noun but to read it oneself? Highly taxing to the nerves, and hard on the eyes. She shifted her gaze higher, looking for any treatise that might be of help.
    Ah, there was something. A Treatise Upon the Treatment of Invalids, the Infirm and Those Wounded in the Course of Battle. A handsome volume, too, bound in heavy green leather. She fetched