Page 38 of Her Unsuitable Match

“I am not giving you the chance to slip out the door before I am even awake.” She stepped into her room and turned around, gesturing for him to enter. “Come in, Myles.”

He remained in the corridor, half in shadow, staring at her with one wide eye. “Are you certain?”

Though her cheeks warmed, Pippa couldn’t resist a short laugh. “I have no ill intentions toward you or your virtue, husband. I promise. I only wish to have a short conversation with you.”

For a moment, he glowered at her, though a flicker of humor had appeared in his eye. “I have no fear for my virtue, my lady. I am a married man, after all.” But his steps were hesitant. When she closed the door after him, he stepped hastily away from her, keeping to the wall rather than walking to the fire and the two chairs pulled up before it.

She had never heard of a man growing timid in a woman’s bedroom. Especially a married man. But perhaps she misunderstood the situation. Maybe he only wished for her to feel unthreatened. If so, his hesitancy struck her as most charming.

Pippa stripped off her gloves and dropped them on her dressing table, then she took her favorite chair before the fire. Once there, she plucked the waving white feather from her hair and dropped it onto the small table at her elbow. “Myles, please sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

He cast her a suspicious look before approaching, slowly. He sat in the chair as gingerly as if he expected to spring up again at a moment’s notice.

Did she make him nervous? Or did their topic of conversation unnerve him?

Pippa folded her hands together in her lap and studied her husband. How many times had she traced his profile with her eyes? Or wondered at what it must be like to wear an eyepatch, going through one’s life with half the sight one was used to? He had such a handsome face, even with the scars marring half of it. Tonight, he wore his usual stern expression. Though she saw the pull of muscles along his jaw that spoke of greater tension.

“Will you tell me what happened today?” she asked when they had sat in the quiet for so long, she knew he would not speak first.

Myles shifted, his gaze briefly meeting hers before darting to the fire again. “There isn’t a word for it,” he said, his voice so low that it mingled with the sound of the crackling fire. “Call it a waking nightmare, or the memories of war, if you like.” He shifted in his chair, removing his dinner gloves with an attention she knew they did not merit. “Today, I heard a sound. Something simple, that you likely did not even hear. But to my mind, it was deafening. It overwhelmed my senses and my mind. Instead of standing on the street beside a beautiful lady”—he smiled tightly up at her, as though he hadn’t even meant to offer the compliment—“I felt as though I stood in a field in France or Italy. Facing the enemy all over again.”

Turning that explanation over in her mind, Pippa cast her mind back to that confusing moment. Her husband had snatched her away from the walk and thrown them both against a solid wall. There he had stood, eyes blazing and face pale, unmoving except for a tremor that went through his body.

“I wanted only to escape,” he said, voice hoarse. “But how does one escape the ghost of a memory?”

“Is this the first time such a thing has happened?” she asked, studying him with new respect. Admitting to a weakness in body was one thing—but a man, admitting to an imperfection of mind? Unheard of, in her opinion. All British men were expected, even raised in such a way, to withstand the unpleasantness of the world around them with detachment.

“No.” Myles finally met her gaze, darkness mingling with pain in his expression. “Though it has been a long while since I have undergone such a…such a spell.”

“Have you spoken to a doctor?” Even as she asked, she had little hope regarding the answer. The human mind wasn’t something any physician could claim to understand.

Myles leaned forward, clasping his hands between his knees. She looked down at them, noting the remnants of fingers on his left hand. Physically, he had lost much. But again, she wondered at all the scars she couldn’t see. Scars on his heart.

“The only doctor I spoke to urged me to get more rest. He theorized that a well-rested mind was less apt to make mistakes—thinking I am at war when I am only walking down the street. He also suggested opiates.” Myles shuddered. “But I will not risk myself or my future on something that forms a lifelong habit of use.”

“Did the rest help?” she asked, privately agreeing with his stance on taking something that would dull feelings rather than solve the problem.

“For a time. Through my own observations, I find that having a routine helps. Doing things to exercise my mind and body means a better rest at night. Sometimes, that keeps my mind from wandering into the past.” He shrugged and looked down again, flexing his hands. “I am sorry you had to witness a moment of weakness today.”

“You and I are married.” Pippa resisted the urge to reach out to him, to breach the distance between them with a touch to his hand. He hadn’t seemed to like her initiating such contact in the carriage. “We must look after one another. Now, and always. I want to help you, Myles. In whatever way I can.”

He looked up at her through a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead. One corner of his mouth tipped upward. “I should have told you about it before I agreed to marry you.”

Pippa shrugged and offered him a smile, attempting to reassured him. “I cannot see how it would have made a difference. You are an honorable man. You suited my every requirement in a husband.”

“There is more,” he said slowly, as though it pained him to admit to any other weaknesses. “The headache at the ball…that is not uncommon in such circumstances. One reason I attend the church in Chelsea is because of its size. There are never crowds of people inside. They wouldn’t fit.”

“Crowded events make you ill,” she said, “and when you are not rested, your memories of war assault you.” That would make life in the middle of London Society difficult for her husband. But then, many a woman went about town without her spouse. London’s elite accepted that the social whirl of dinners and dances was more for the benefit of ladies, anyway. Men merely put up with the parties and planning to appease wives.

When her husband clenched his hands into fists, she focused again on him. “Is there something else?” she asked, studying his features. “The more you tell me, the more I will understand how to help.”

A laugh preceded his scoff. “There is nothing you can do to help me, except exercise patience. There is more. I have nightmares. Vivid, disturbing dreams. I wake feeling lost, the scent of smoke choking me. Sometimes, I cry out. In my rented rooms, I disturbed the neighbors more than once.” He shuddered and dropped his face into his hands. Shame poured from him, until tears pricked at Pippa’s eyes.

“I think we ought to talk to another doctor,” she said softly. “A military doctor, perhaps, who may have seen such a thing before.”

“I know many men who experience such things. We do not speak of it often. It is only something understood between old soldiers.” Myles shuddered. “There is nothing a doctor will do.”

“How do you know?”