“No. I’m going home.”

Palfreyman reached out to stop him, looking concerned. “Captain Phelan, there’s a table in the taproom—come sit for a moment, there’s a good lad. You’re a bit gray around the gills. I’ll bring out a good brandy or rum. One for the stirrups, eh?”

Christopher shook his head. “No time.” No time for anything. He ran outside. It was darker, colder than it had been before. The late afternoon sky was nightmare colored, swallowing up the world.

He rode for Phelan House, his ears filled with the ghostly cries of men on the battlefield, sounds of distress and pleading and pain. Bennett, alive . . . how was it possible? Christopher had seen the wound in his chest, had seen enough similar injuries to know that death had been inevitable. But what if by some miracle . . .

As he neared the house, he saw Albert bounding out of the woods, followed by Beatrix’s slender form. She was returning from Ramsay House. A strong gust of wind blew against her wine-colored cloak, causing it to flap wildly, and her hat flew from her head. She laughed as the dog went to chase it. Seeing Christopher approach on the road, she waved at him.

He was nearly overcome with relief. The panic eased. The darkness began to recede. Thank you, God. Beatrix was there, and safe. She belonged to him, she was beautiful and vibrant, and he would spend his life taking care of her. Whatever she desired of him, whatever words or memories she asked for, he would give. It almost seemed easy now—the force of his love would make anything easy.

Christopher slowed the horse to a walk. “Beatrix.” His voice was carried away in the wind.

She was still laughing, her hair having come free, and she waited for him to come to her.

He was startled by a streak of bright pain in his head. A fraction of a second later, he heard the crack of a rifle shot. A familiar sound . . . an indelible tattoo on his memory. Shots and the whistling of shells, explosions, men shouting, the screams of panicked horses . . .

He’d been unseated. He was tumbling slowly, the world a confusion of sight and sound. The sky and ground had been reversed. Was he falling up, or down? He slammed against a hard surface, the breath knocked from him, and he felt the hot trickle of blood sliding along his face into his ear.

Another nightmare. He had to wake up, get his bearings. But oddly, Beatrix was in the nightmare with him, crying out and running toward him. Albert reached him in a fury of barking.

His lungs strained to take in a breath, his heart leaping like a fish freshly pulled from water. Beatrix dropped to her knees beside him, her skirts a billow of blue, and she tugged his head to her lap.

“Christopher—let me—oh, God—”

Albert bayed and snarled as someone approached. A momentary pause, and then the dog’s ferocious barks were mingled with high-pitched whines.

Christopher levered upward to a sitting position, using his coat sleeve to blot the rivulet of blood that rolled from his temple. Blinking hard, he saw the rawboned, disheveled figure of a man coming to stand a few yards away from them. The man held a revolver.

Instantly Christopher’s brain made an assessment of the weapon—a cap-and-ball revolver, five-shot percussion. British military issue.

Before he glanced up at the man’s haggard face, Christopher knew who he was.

“Bennett.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Beatrix’s first instinct was to interpose herself between her husband and the stranger, but Christopher shoved her behind him. Breathing hard from fear and shock, she looked over his shoulder.

The man was dressed in civilian clothes that hung on his near-skeletal limbs. He was tall and large framed, looking as if he hadn’t slept or eaten well in months. The shaggy layers of his dark hair badly needed cutting. He regarded them with the wild, unnerving stare of a madman. Despite all that, it wasn’t difficult to see that he had once been handsome. Now he was a barely salvaged wreck. A young man, with an old face and haunted eyes.

“Back from the dead,” Bennett said hoarsely. “You didn’t think I’d make it, did you?”

“Bennett . . . Mark.” As Christopher spoke, Beatrix felt the fine, nearly undetectable tremors running through his body. “I never knew what happened to you.”

“No.” The revolver shook in Bennett’s grip. “You were too busy rescuing Fenwick.”

“Bennett, put that damn thing down. I—quiet, Albert—it nearly killed me to leave you there.”

“But you did. And I’ve gone through hell ever since. I rotted and starved, while you became England’s great hero. Traitor. Bastard—” He aimed the pistol at Christopher’s chest. Beatrix gasped and huddled against his back.

“I had to save Fenwick first,” Christopher said coolly, his pulse racing. “I had no choice.”

“Like hell. You wanted the glory for saving a superior officer.”

“I thought you were done for. And if Fenwick had been captured, they would have dragged all kinds of damaging intelligence out of him.”

“Then you should have shot him, and taken me out of there.”

“You’re out of your bloody mind,” Christopher snapped. Which probably wasn’t the wisest thing to say to a man in Bennett’s condition, but Beatrix could hardly blame him. “Murder a defenseless soldier in cold blood? Not for any reason. Not even Fenwick. If you want to shoot me for that, go ahead, and the devil take you. But if you harm one hair on my wife’s head, I’ll drag you down to hell with me. And the same goes for Albert—he was wounded while defending you.”