Page 34 of A Devious Secret

“I shall see to it.” Pratt slowly turned on his heel and departed from the room.

Stephen was fearful that Pratt might collapse at any time, but he didn’t dare insult him by insinuating that he couldn’t handle his job.

A long moment later, Hawthorne stepped into the room with a quizzical look on his face. “Your choice in a butler is an interesting one,” he said as he walked closer to the desk.

“The household staff came with the townhouse,” Stephen explained.

“Ah,” Hawthorne said. “That makes sense.”

Stephen rose. “Shall we depart for the Canterbury?” he asked eagerly.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I do,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

Hawthorne held his gaze and said, “Because sometimes it is best to not go prying into other people’s lives. You never know what you will find.”

Stephen came around his desk. “I need to know what happened with Benjamin. I can’t just let this go.”

“All right, but do try and remember that I warned you against this.”

“Duly noted.” Stephen gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

As they headed out of the small study, Hawthorne asked, “How well do you know Benjamin?”

“I thought I knew him quite well.”

“But not now?”

Stephen shook his head. “The Benjamin that I knew would never have shirked his responsibilities to spend time at a gambling hell.”

“War can change people,” Hawthorne remarked.

“You don’t need to remind me of that,” Stephen said. “There is not a day that goes by that I do not relive the moment the French boarded our ship and took us captive. It was my greatest failure.”

Stephen stepped into the entry hall and saw Pratt was holding the door open. Although he was leaning into the door for support. That poor man, he thought to himself.

He stepped outside and saw a hackney was positioned in front of his townhouse. Hawthorne brushed past him and went to step into the hackney.

Once they were both situated, Hawthorne gave him a pointed look and said, “You mustn’t torture yourself with the past. It is over, and you managed to survive it.”

“I wish I didn’t.”

“Surely you don’t mean that.”

“I do, wholeheartedly,” Stephen replied. “The only reason I survived was because I was wounded and fell into a state of unconsciousness. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have fought until my last dying breath.”

“What good would that have done?” Hawthorne asked.

“I was the captain of my ship. It was a failure on my part to be taken alive,” Stephen expressed. “The main deck was covered with dead bodies and I should not have escaped the onslaught.”

Hawthorne opened the window, allowing fresh air to circulate in the coach. “I must assume that you did all that you could to help your crew.”

“I did, but it wasn’t enough.” He paused. “I wasn’t enough.”

Hawthorne didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “The past cannot be changed, but it can be accepted.”

“I cannot accept what I did.”