Page 54 of How to Start a Scandal

‘When you...?’ Violet asked.

Seth shook his head. ‘Such things are not fit for a lady’s ears.’

Violet’s fingers curled around his hand and it was as if she had wrapped all of him in an embrace. She was comfort and peace and acceptance.

‘You needn’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I am not prone to sensitivity. And I think speaking of it will do you good.’

He nodded. ‘My first battle—it was the first time I took a life.’ He swallowed around a ball of tension. ‘He was an older man with dark hair that had gone grey at the temples and wide brown eyes. I remember thinking of him afterwards, about his family. His sons and daughters, his wife. Maybe he didn’t have them, but I imagined he did and he would never come home to them because of me. It was a horrific realisation, but when you are in the thick of it, when it’s you or them...’

Violet’s free hand rested on his forearm. ‘I am glad it was not you.’

‘Sometimes I wonder about how I feel about that,’ Seth responded in truth.

Violet’s smooth brow crinkled and she opened her mouth to speak, but the doors to the ballroom opened. Quickly, she pulled her hands back.

The warmth she left behind cooled, but a subtle hum of her touch lingered. Through the layers of his gloves and his sleeves, he continued to detect that pleasant presence.

A gentleman passed them with a nod and slipped off into the garden where a woman’s soft laugh rose up from the distance.

The veranda went silent once more and Violet regarded Seth anew. ‘If you hadn’t come back, your mother would have been beside herself.’

He scoffed. ‘I doubt that.’

‘I would have been disappointed,’ Violet said.

A smile lifted the corner of his lip at that. ‘Would you?’

‘Well, you did owe me a dance.’ She lifted her chin in a coquettish tilt that made him want to catch her face in his hands and kiss her soundly.

If all worked to his advantage, if the cards fell in his favour, he would have a lifetime to kiss her. Again and again and again. And so much more.

‘I’m grateful for having the opportunity to finally make amends for my foolish, youthful mistake.’ He cast a surreptitious glance around the empty terrace and slid his hand towards hers, desperate for her touch. ‘I only wish I could have returned to you a better man than I am.’

She settled her fingers over his with a shy glance. ‘What happened?’

He knew exactly what she meant. ‘I didn’t think anything could be worse than killing another man. Until my own men died through the years. Ones who I knew had wives and families waiting for them. I was an officer, a captain—those men were my responsibility and I took it seriously.’

Many of his soldiers did come back alive, far more than other regiments, and he was damn proud of that. He cared for his men more than he cared for himself.

‘But Waterloo...’ Seth gathered his strength against the tightness blazing in his chest. ‘It was unlike any battle I’d fought before. It had rained the night before and I’d been with the fellow officers in attendance at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball when we learned that Napoleon’s army was advancing on Quatre Bras. We were told to go to our regiments. We had no idea what the battle would become. Many of us were still in our dancing slippers.’ He tried to give a wry laugh, but it choked off.

‘How awful.’ Violet shifted closer and cast a look at the door to the ballroom. Their proximity to one another skirted the edge of propriety, but he could not bring himself to ask her to step back. Even for her own good. Not when her nearness brought such comfort.

‘We fought there before moving on to Waterloo two days later. It was that battle...’ He clenched his jaw. ‘It didn’t matter what I did to help my men, we were decimated.’ He closed his eyes to stave off the visions pressing at his brain. ‘The cannons tore through my soldiers. At one point...’

His throat went tight, cutting off his words. He looked out at the garden to gather his wits.

Violet’s hand rested on his shoulder. But he shook his head. For the life of him, he could not summon those terrible words.

‘What I saw...’ He swallowed at the ache, but it did not abate. ‘It stays with me.’ His voice caught and he had to pause a moment before resuming. ‘The battle was so crowded, we were bumping into one another, and it was hot as a furnace with the blasts of the guns and cannons. It was hell: all fire and smoke and death.’

He rubbed his free hand over his face. His palm had been made cold by the stone he’d gripped and was a blissful reprieve against his cheeks.

‘Seth.’ The way she whispered his name pulled at his heart in the most exquisitely painful way. As if she understood his pain and accepted him despite it.

‘It’s not just at night in my dreams.’ He stared hard out into the garden so she would not see the pain of his confession. ‘It happens during the day as well. The smallest instances will take my thoughts back to Mont-Saint-Jean. When the hearths are lit and there’s the chalky odour of flint and fire, when I’m at a ball and someone bumps against me, when the heat of a room blazes from all directions, or drums are added into an orchestra. Who puts drums into an orchestra?’

‘The drums were an awful addition,’ Violet agreed. ‘Or when a serving tray is dropped?’