To each his own, as the saying went.
For Neil’s part, he’d stick with peace and quiet. After surviving years of chaos and commotion on the battlefield, Neil relished what little peace he could carve out of life. It wasn’t much. The nightmares still haunted him, as did the echoes of the men he had left behind—the ones he’d had no choice but to leave, the ones he had shoved a knife into, the ones whose blood he had felt warm on his hands as their lives drained away.
The people in the church erupted into cheers and clapping, and Neil started, his thoughts still anchored in a smoky battlefield where the mud would be stained red for years to come.
Beaumont’s hand landed on his shoulder, warm and reassuring. “It’s over,” he said.
Neil didn’t know if Rafe referred to the wedding or the memory of the battle. For Neil the war would never be over. Marriage, babies, a family—those tenets of normal life were for other men, men like Ewan.
And oh how, for one fleeting moment, Neil envied his friend.
Order Shana Galen’s next book
in The Survivors series
No Earls Allowed
On sale March 2018
Read on for an excerpt from book 2
in Shana Galen’s Survivors series
No Earls Allowed
Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca
One
London, 1816
Neil woke and gulped in air. The acrid smell of cannon smoke burned his lungs, and the stench of burning flesh assaulted his nostrils. His hands fisted in the sheets on the bed, their softness reminding him he was not lying on a battlefield beside his dead brother but in his bed in his flat in London.
Without looking, he reached for the glass of gin on the bedside table. There was always a glass of gin on the bedside table. It wasn’t a gentleman’s drink, but here, in the dark, alone with his demons, Neil didn’t want to be a gentleman. And so he bought gin for the nights when the dreams of battle haunted him. And when he drank the bitter brew, he tried to forget he was the son of a marquess.
He sipped the gin and lit a lamp, taking solace in the fact that his hands didn’t shake. If he’d dreamed on, he likely would have woken with trembling hands and a scream echoing in his ears. For, as he’d lain beside his dead brother on that hill in Portugal, the smoke of the battlefield had coalesced around him, settling inside him. Instead of stifling him, the smoke caught the breeze and the flame of rage ignited within him. The fire built until it seared and burned, and he’d not been able to quench the heat until he rose and, with a roar, stumbled after the French soldiers the dragoons hadn’t routed. Like a berserker, he’d cut every one of them down, even as they raised hands in surrender, even as they’d begged for quarter.
Neil had expected to be reprimanded for his behavior that day—behavior unbecoming a gentleman—but Draven had pulled him aside and given him a promotion of sorts.
If one could call leading a suicide troop a promotion.
The flame of rage had long been extinguished, and in its place laid a weight like a sodden mantle, bowing his shoulders. Neil could not shed it, no matter how hard he tried. Now he rose and pulled on trousers and a linen shirt. He didn’t bother to tuck in the shirt or button it at the throat or sleeves. Instead, he padded to the window and pushed the heavy curtains open. He had a view of St. James’s Street. He liked the sight of carriages and men coming and going from gambling hells or brothels. He liked the noise and the lights spilling from the establishments. It drowned out the sounds of battle that too easily plagued him in silence.
Neil stood and stared out the window for a long time before shoving his feet into boots and shrugging on a coat. His manservant would not arrive until later in the morning, so Neil managed the cravat on his own. As for his wild hair, he combed his fingers through it, pushing the sides out of his eyes.
He had no one to inform of his departure. He lived alone, a necessity when one woke screaming five out of seven nights of the week. He took his walking stick as a precaution against drunkards, who might be stupid enough to accost him, and left for his club.
Twenty minutes later, Porter greeted him. “Mr. Wraxall,” the older distinguished man said as he opened the door. “A pleasure to see you, sir.”
Neil handed the master of the house his walking stick. “Don’t you ever sleep, Porter?”
Porter raised his brows, silver to match his hair. “Don’t you, sir?”
“Not unless I have to. I know it’s half past three. Is anyone here?”
“Mr. Beaumont is asleep in the card room.”
No doubt Rafe had retreated to the Draven Club to escape some woman. Neil might have laughed if he hadn’t come to escape his own demons. Not that the club didn’t have its ghosts. His gaze strayed to the shield hanging directly opposite the door where no one entering could miss it. It was a silver shield bisected by a thick, medieval sword with a pommel shaped like a fleur-de-lis. Under the grip, the cross-guard was ornamented with a skull. It would not have been particularly macabre except for the eighteen marks on the flanks and base. Each fleur-de-lis, nine on the dexter side and nine on the sinister side, stood for a member of the troop of Draven’s men Neil had lost during the war. Neil often felt he carried the weight of the enormous shield on his back.
“Anyone else here?” he asked the Master of the House.
“No, sir.” Porter placed the walking stick in a stand, his wooden leg thumping on the carpet. “Would you care for a drink or something to eat, sir?”
Neil wanted more gin, if only to settle his nerves, but he could have drunk himself into a stupor at his flat. He’d come here to affect civility. He’d come here because it was the closest thing to home he’d ever known. “Brandy would suit me, Porter.”
Though Neil could have found it blindfolded, Porter led him up the winding staircase and into the dining room. The five round tables in the paneled wood room were empty, their white linen tablecloths bright and clean and anticipating the next diner.
Neil chose a chair near the big hearth and settled back. The silence here didn’t bother him. He could all but hear the echoes of his friends’ voices—those who had survived—raised in song or laughter. He half expected to look to the side and see Ewan Mostyn—the brawny, muscled protector of the group—bent over a meal or spot Rafe Beaumont leaning negligently against one of the walls, under a sconce.
Neil never felt alone here.
Porter returned with the brandy on a silver salver. Neil had told the man a hundred times such gestures were unnecessary, but Porter believed in standards. Neil lifted the brandy then frowned at the folded white paper that had been beneath it.