She tried to force a smile that wouldn't come.

"You did," he insisted, his tone harsh. He reached for her and then glanced over her head at the waiting carriage bearing the servant and trunks. "You always mattered," he said in hushed undertones.

Eloise turned her face up to the sun and welcomed the soothing caress of the warm rays upon her cheeks. "Of course I did," she said, because she'd always believed she mattered to him. "I merely ceased to matter in the way I once did."

A denial sprung fast and hard to Lucien's lips. The bond he'd shared with Eloise had oftentimes defied the closeness he'd known even with his brothers. Oft regarded as the young, underfoot brother, Eloise had thrust him into the role of escapade-leader. He would lead them on their merry sc.r.a.pes and she would follow. Then, he had simply set aside the closeness between them, for his love of Sara. A powerful, instantaneous love of a young man who'd seen a glorious beauty he could not live without.

He stole a long, sideways look at Eloise, her face tilted to the sun, her cheeks pink from the warmth of the day. And the love he'd had for her had been of friend, confidante...and he'd forgotten her. G.o.d help him. "I'm so sorry, Eloise," he said.

Her eyes flew open. She looked at him questioningly.

The worst part of life, he'd discovered, had not been in the mistakes he'd made, but rather in his inability to go back and undo each of them, and put his life and the lives of those he'd loved to rights. He gestured to the fields. "I was to meet you-"

"It was silly-"

"In the fields of poppies to pick the blooms and I-"

She lifted her shoulders in a nonchalant shrug, the casual gesture only belied by the hurt in her tone. "Why, would you? You were a man of nineteen. I was just barely a woman at seventeen." Eloise folded her arms across her chest, as though hugging herself. "That was the day you met Sara."

She remembered that pivotal moment in his life. Remembered because she had always been more of a friend to him than he'd ever been to her and he'd left her standing in a field of wildflowers. Even if the woman who'd ensnared his attention that day would go on to be his wife, forgetting Eloise as he had, was unpardonable.

He stepped forward and waded into the sea of red blooms.

Eloise called out after him. "Where...?"

He spun slowly around and held out his hand, motioning her forward. "These are here now."

Eloise of old would have danced merrily into the flowers, spun in circles until she was dizzy with the scent of spring. The cautious woman who'd also known great loss looked hesitantly at the carriage. She returned her attention to him, with a slight frown. "Lucien, we do not have time-"

"We've already lost too many moments, Eloise. Let us have this one."

She hesitated and lifted her skirts. Her slipper hovered above the earth.

"Both of us have been surrounded by so much death." Too much. Countless, faceless men. His wife. Child. Her husband. Her father. His father would soon be gone.

Eloise shook her head. "We cannot escape." They could not escape death. Her meaning was clearer than had she spoken that omitted word.

"No." He inclined his head. "But we might steal a moment of happiness where we can."

And with that, Eloise completed that step. She loosened the strings of her bonnet and shoved the piece back and then walked over to him. She moved with more graceful, practiced steps, a woman's steps that carried her over to him. She stopped. "Well?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

He flicked the tip of her nose the way he'd done when she'd been a vexing girl. "Never tell me you've forgotten how to pick flowers."

Eloise swatted his arm. "You're as incorrigible as ever." Her laughter rang clear as tinkling bells through the rolling fields.

Lucien angled his head down, awkwardly motioning to his half-empty sleeve. "I may require some a.s.sistance, my lady. I fear my flower picking abilities are not once what they'd been."

She snorted. "Oh, hush. You require about as much help as you did then, which is none at all." With that, the tension, pain, and regret of their pasts melted away and she flitted through the field, an emerald splash of green muslin amidst the fields of poppies. Eloise stooped and picked a single bloom. "Here." She held it up.

Lucien stood in silence, accepting the selected buds she handed off to him. For so long, bitter resentment had burned like a poison inside him. He'd accepted the black mark upon his soul was to be a penance for the acts he'd committed against other men in the name of his country...and for abandoning his wife and child. Now, staring at her, time frozen in this field of flowers, he was stricken by the realization that he was...for the first time...in five years-happy. He braced for the flood of guilt. Where were the sentiments of remorse and that sense of unworthiness which had followed him all these years?

Instead, a lightness filled his chest at that freeing acknowledgement.

"Splendid!" Eloise brushed her gloved hands upon the front of her skirts and stood. "We shall give them to your father." With a smile she took the makeshift bouquet from him. "Granted, they'll likely be all wilted by then," she prattled on with the same youthful exuberance she'd exhibited as a girl plucking flowers from a field. "Here." She withdrew a single bloom and tucked it into the front pocket of his jacket. "This one shall be for you." Her smile widened. "Shall we?" With that, she started back for the carriage, not pausing to see if he followed her questioning words.

Likely because she already knew that just then, he would follow her anywhere. Lucien stood transfixed by the seductive sway of her hips. Just then a gleam of sun lit upon the crown of her head and turned those blonde tresses to spun gold. Ah G.o.d, how he wanted her. Through her resolve, courage, and strength, Eloise, with an effortless ease, managed something Boney and all his men had failed to do. She'd marched over his heart and laid siege to the organ he'd thought dead.

Perhaps not all surrenders were altogether bad. With a grin on his lips, he started after her.

Chapter 19.

One hour, fifty-six minutes and a handful of seconds later, they arrived at Lucien's childhood home. He tucked his timepiece back in his pocket and dismounted from his horse.

A servant rushed forward to accept his horse. The young man, likely no older than twenty years or so, was unfamiliar to him. How many other unfamiliar faces would he find? With reluctance, he took in the impressive stone facade of the structure he'd called home. Regal and elegant with wide, stone steps and floor-length windows along the front of the faade, his skin p.r.i.c.kled with a sense of being studied from someone behind one of those windows.

Absorbed as he was, a man stepping back into his past, he started when Eloise sidled up to him. "Forgive me," he murmured. "I..."

"It's all right," she said. She slipped her hands into his hand and gave a faint squeeze.

His throat worked. For his insistence that she remain behind in London, he found himself suddenly very grateful for her presence here. These handful of days they'd spent together melded his past and present, and he who'd prided himself on needing no one these past years, found himself needing...her. "Ellie," he said, his voice came out garbled under the weight of his discovery.

He loved her. Loved her for who she'd been and the friendship they'd shared but more, he loved her for the woman she was-a bold, defiant, determined lady who refused to let him to dwell in the resentment and anger and bitterness of his past.

She angled her head. "Lucien-"

The front door opened and, as one, they swung their gazes to the door. Two men filed out the entranceway. A slender golden haired lady with spectacles perched on the edge of her nose hovered in the entranceway staring curiously down at him. This must be Palmer's wife. His brother had married several years back. Two? Mayhap three years ago?

His brothers now conversed with Eloise, nodding periodically at whatever questions she put to them. He felt the worst sort of interloper on a familial tableau he didn't belong in. Lucien took a step back. But for Eloise, Richard and Palmer had been his best friends through the years. Time had turned them into older, more mature figures he barely recognized. In Palmer's case, a wedded gentleman to a woman Lucien had never even met.

Richard claimed her hands and raised them to his lips one at a time. "Ellie," he said with such familiarity that a stone pitted in Lucien's stomach.

"Richard," she said, smiling up at him with that smile Lucien had believed was reserved for him.

You were gone, a voice needled.

The tendrils of jealousy fanned out and spread through every corner of his being as he stood, an interloper on the intimate exchange between Eloise and his brothers. He'd not considered the possibility that his Ellie could be, that she might be, something more to either of his brothers. Seeing the way they spoke with smiles and grins and her soft blushes, he confronted the truth-their lives together had continued without him. Lucien had left. First for war and then in his choosing to cut himself apart from his family and, in that time, the friendship they three had known, continued.

It was wrong for this seething envy to eat away at him like a poison. With Richard and Palmer's intact bodies, refined manners, and easy smiles, the glaring differences between him and his brothers shone, never more obvious than in this moment. Richard would make her a far better husband. Lucien had nothing to offer her. He retreated a step. He'd been foolish to come. He didn't want this life. Didn't want...

Richard said something that drove back Eloise's smile. She gave a slight nod and then stepped aside and with that movement, she provided his brothers an unfettered view of Lucien.

The tension between them fairly crackled with a lifelike quality. Palmer and Richard stared with eyes, a shade of gray that may as well have been his own, at Lucien's empty sleeve, to the place his arm should be. He clenched and unclenched his jaw, detesting the idea that he should be an object of pity to them.

Lucien jutted out his jaw and then wordlessly, held out his hand.

Richard studied it a while, as though he'd never before seen five fingers and then took it. He yanked Lucien into his arms. "Lucien," he said, folding him in a grip hard enough to raise bruises.

He stiffened but then blinked as emotion rolled through him. A feeling of coming home.

"I've missed you," Richard said, his voice harsh with emotion and then cleared his throat. The dull flush on his cheeks hinted at embarra.s.sment over his lack of restraint. He stepped away and Palmer, the heir to the viscountcy, stepped forward.

Broader than he remembered with more harsh, angular planes to his face, he evinced the same aura of power and strength as their father. "Lucien," his baritone so very similar to Father's that it may as well have been the viscount greeting his son.

Lucien tried to force the words out, but he'd been solitary for so long he couldn't form them. "I..."

Richard slapped him on the back. "I know," he said, sparing him from exposing his soul to them on the front steps of their childhood home with curious servants as their witnesses.

Lucien turned to Eloise just as Richard held out his arm. She placed her fingertips upon his expensive, sapphire coat sleeve, and the cost of that garment greater than all the clothes he'd donned as a patient at London Hospital or servant combined. He curled his hand so tight he dug crescent marks upon his palm.

Eloise cast a lingering glance back at him and then returned her attention to Richard. Lucien stared after them until they'd disappeared inside. He registered Palmer's knowing stare. "So, you've at last noticed, Ellie," he said with a small grin. And just like that, the years melted away and it was as though he'd never left.

"Leave off," Lucien growled and then took the steps two at a time after them. His brother's amused chuckle trailed after him. He drew to a slow, uncertain stop at the slip of a young woman. Poised at the entrance, she stood almost as a sentry between Lucien and the hallowed walls of his youth.

His sister-in-law. Under the intensity of his scrutiny, she smoothed her hands over the front of her skirts. "Hullo," she murmured, stepping outside.

Palmer came over and settled a palm at her waist. "I'd introduce you to my wife, Julianne," he said. "Julianne, this is my brother." His words broke.

Lucien bowed his head. "How do you do?" he asked, once again shamed that he'd so easily shut his brothers from his life. He didn't know how the young couple had met. Whether theirs had been a love match. How much he'd missed.

Julianne gave him a tentative smile. "It is a pleasure." She looked to her husband and a pretty blush suffused her cheeks. "I have heard so many stories of you and I am so very glad you've come."

Palmer saved him from searching for a suitable reply. He placed a hand upon his shoulder. "Father is ill." All earlier levity, replaced by the somber, cautioning tone.

Tears flooded Julianne's pale blue eyes.

Lucien nodded. "I-"

"No." Palmer shook his head. "I..." He swiped a hand over his mouth. "You'll not recognize him," he said. "He's been asking for you."

Lucien squared his jaw, but none of the previous seething hatred he felt for the viscount came. Filled with a sudden disquiet at his brother's ominous admission, he stepped through the front doors. The housekeeper was still the same plump, red-cheeked woman he remembered from his youth. Only streaks of white painted her chestnut brown hair. Mrs. Flora said something to Eloise.

A spasm of grief contorted Eloise's face and she took the housekeeper's hands in hers and gave a squeeze. Tears filled the loyal servant's eyes and she nodded. Eloise released her and the woman discreetly dabbed at her eyes. She turned to him and then her eyes widened like a night owl startled from its perch. "Master Lucien," she cried and then the tears fell freely down her cheeks.

Lucien went taut. Years of fighting had stolen the luxury of unrestrained emotion from him. To exhibit even a hint of weakness meant death. He'd lived by that code and more, he'd lived away from loved ones so long he forgot to move about them. "Mrs. Flora," he said gruffly.

"It is so very good to see you." She looked to Richard. "The viscount will be..." her voice broke. "Happy."

Richard rested a hand upon his shoulder. "The doctor just left his side a short while ago, Lucien." Emotion burned strong in the other man's eyes. "I do not know how much longer he shall live."

One week ago, before Eloise had slipped back into his life and stolen into his heart restoring his spirit, Lucien would have had a vastly different reaction to that p.r.o.nouncement. He'd have sneered and said the viscount could burn in h.e.l.l and not given his sire another thought. Now, taking in the swell of emotion in his brothers' and Eloise's solemn expressions, the magnitude of this loss rocked him.

"We should see him now." If you intend to. The implication as loud as if it had been spoken.

Lucien nodded jerkily and fell into step beside his brother. He made it to the middle of the sweeping, marble staircase and registered Eloise at the base, standing beside Palmer and Julianne. He turned to her expectantly. "Will you come with me?" He needed her to be there. He'd feigned indifference for five years. She'd forced him to confront the truth of his lie.

"Of course," she said simply. Eloise climbed the stairs. Her gown wrinkled from a long day's travel, the hem of her skirt muddied from their traipsing through the poppies. She trailed along behind him as they wound their way down the corridor. How many other ladies would have put aside their own material comforts to join a surly b.a.s.t.a.r.d such as Lucien to visit a dying man?

He staggered a step and his brother's gaze registered a question. Lucien quickly righted himself and continued his forward stride. Ah, he'd been so very indifferent. He'd spent years hating his father, begrudging him for the commission that had sent him off to war. Now he realized that it had been easier to place blame, hating his father, than to confront the lack of control Lucien had over any aspect of his life-his sanity, his wife and child's well-being, h.e.l.l he couldn't have even protected his own b.l.o.o.d.y arm.

They stopped before the viscount's chambers. Lucien's palm grew damp and he dusted it along the side of his wrinkled pants.

Eloise captured it in her small, capable hands. He fixed his gaze on their interlocked digits for a moment. She gave him a gentle smile and squeezed his fingers, her touch comforting and yet capable for one so small. Then she released him.

His brother pressed the door handle and motioned him inside.

Lucien stepped into the darkened chambers. He froze as the door closed quietly behind him with a soft, decisive click. In spite of the warm day, a fire blazed in the hearth, the curtains remained closely tightened blotting out all hint of light. His eyes struggled to adjust to the dimly lit room and then he located the small figure at the center of the ma.s.sive four-poster bed. A pressure tightened about his lungs, making it difficult to draw breath. He strode over to the bed.

His throat closed painfully and he swallowed hard. The emaciated figure, with his gaunt face, bore no hint of resemblance to the commanding, powerful viscount. His father slumbered, drawing in an occasional, ragged breath. He cleared his throat. What a waste. What a G.o.dd.a.m.n waste his hatred had been. And for what? What had any of it gotten him? It hadn't brought Sara or his son back. It hadn't even brought him a small measure of satisfaction.

Lucien took a slow breath and searched about for a seat. He pulled the King Louis XIV chair closer to the bed. The mahogany legs sc.r.a.ped along the hard wood of the floor.

His father struggled to open his eyes. "R-Richard," his voice emerged a hollow croak.

He closed his eyes a moment. "N-no, Father," he said, his voice breaking. "It is Lucien."

The dying man stilled and then blinked his bloodshot eyes. "L-Lucien?" He shoved himself up onto his elbows.

Lucien rested a staying hand upon his shoulder. "Don't, Father."

Tears flooded his eyes. "Ah, G.o.d, Lucien..." A tear streaked down his cheek. "I-I have missed you my boy."

The sight of that single drop from a man who'd represented power and strength, who'd possessed an indomitable spirit that could not be shaken, that one lone tear a final testament to how human this man before him was. "I- I've missed you, as well."

A startled chuckle escaped his father's lips and he promptly dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing.

Lucien lunged out of his seat and looked about. A pitcher of water rested on a nightstand beside his bed. He picked it up and poured a gla.s.s full.

"Bah, water won't cure me, boy," his father said with a trace of dry humor he'd shown throughout the course of his life.

Nonetheless, he sat at the edge of his father's bed and braced him against his body helping him into a sitting position. Water sloshed over the rim of the gla.s.s, dampening the crisp, white bedsheets. He d.a.m.ned the loss of his arm that made his movements unsteady. Only, he knew as one who'd been forced to confront the many lies he'd told these five, nearly six years now, the tremble in his body had nothing to do with the absent limb. "Here," he murmured, holding the gla.s.s to his father's lips.

The viscount sipped, the muscles of his throat moving slowly, displaying an agonizing effort to manage something as simple as a swallow. A sheen of tears blurred Lucien's vision and he blinked them back. He set the gla.s.s down and eased his father back down upon the pillow. "I am so sorry."

It took a moment to register that soft plea for forgiveness belonged to his proud sire and not his own.

"I-"

"Don't," Lucien said ravaged by the sight of his parent's suffering.

His father stretched out once strong, now frail, fingers. Green veins stood out stark in his pale white skin. He touched that skeleton-like hand to Lucien's empty sleeve. "My boy," he said on a broken sob and then his gaunt frame shook under the force of his weeping.