Kane, Samantha - Brothers in arms 7 (30 page)

“We’ve been over this,” Gideon barked, moving to stand at the railing, turning his back to them. “Sarah has no memories of me before.”

“Am I supposed to feel guilty that I do?” Charles cried out. “Apologize because I knew you before this? Apologize again for saving your life?”

“I am repaying that debt,” Gideon said coolly, staring out at the pasture.

Charles growled and in a fit of frustrated temper swept his arm out and knocked the tea service from the table. The teacups shattered on the floor and Sarah gasped.

Gideon’s head snapped around at the crash. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“You wish to destroy everything we have here? Well, then, I will help you.” Charles stalked over to the steps. “Better yet, I’ll let you do it all on your own, you’re doing such a good job of it. I’m leaving. I refuse to stay here and watch you make the biggest mistake of your life. Of all our lives.” He turned and leapt down the stairs, walking briskly toward the house.

When he was gone silence descended on the gazebo.

“Are you going to leave me too?” Gideon asked calmly.

Sarah raised a shaking hand and smoothed her hair over her aching head. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. “No.” She looked at Gideon, refusing to hide her distress just to make him feel better. “I’ll stay. I’ll stay because I love you and because you need me, whether you admit it or not. And I’ll stay because I agree with Charles. I think this is a mistake. But unlike Charles I understand why you are doing it and that only you can stop this madness.”

“Madness?” Gideon inquired in a politely bored tone.

Sarah stood up. “Yes, madness. For surely it is madness to risk what we have.” She couldn’t stop herself from making one last effort. “So few people have this, Gideon.

This house is filled with love, and you are at the center of it. If you would only forgive yourself, you would see that.”

“It is not forgiveness I seek,” Gideon said in genuine surprise.

“Isn’t it?” Sarah replied as she walked gingerly toward the steps, avoiding the smashed china. She turned and faced him at the top step. “Charles does not blame you, Gideon. He does not blame himself anymore either. He accepted your forgiveness. Can you not accept his?”

“I—”

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Sarah held up a hand and he stopped obediently. “No, no more. My head aches and my heart is breaking. Charles is right.” She turned with a sigh and took the steps down.

She saw a groom bringing Charles’ mount from the stables and her heart constricted. If Gideon had finally driven Charles away, could she forgive him? Her uncertainty over the answer to that question was more dreadful than any harsh words spoken this morning.

* * * * *

“Madam.” Dr. Jones bowed deeply to her with an ingratiating smile. She hated him already and he’d just walked in the door.

“Dr. Jones.” She held out hand and he grasped her fingertips weakly. Ugh, he was insipid. A short, rotund little man with beady eyes and thinning gray hair. If he could remove disfiguring birthmarks and scars, why couldn’t he stop his own hair loss?

Doctor, heal thyself
, Sarah thought snidely.

“Come in, doctor,” Gideon asked politely from the drawing room door. He turned and moved on his crutches over to the settee and Sarah watched Dr. Jones follow his progress. She didn’t like the calculating gleam in his eye as he stared at Gideon.

Dr. Jones took a seat with a great deal of pomp as he fluffed out his coattails before sitting. To add insult to injury he was a popinjay. He wore a bright yellow coat with a glaring red waistcoat and a neckcloth that combined the two. Really, he was an eyesore from head to toe.

Sarah sighed at her thoughts. She didn’t recall being such a mean-spirited woman before. But Dr. Jones seemed to bring out the worst in her. At least she hadn’t voiced her feelings aloud. She looked at Gideon and winced. Apparently she didn’t have to.

From the censorious look on his face he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“When shall we begin the treatment?” Gideon asked immediately.

The doctor seemed surprised at Gideon’s forthright manner but recovered quickly.

“Immediately if that is your wish. So I shall be treating both of you? You did not make that clear in your letters.” His smile was unctuous and made Sarah want to wash her hands.

“No,” she replied. She gave the doctor a look she had learned from Gideon and he gulped like a fish out of water. She raised her eyebrow in a superior way. “I am not in need of your treatment.” She paused for effect. “Doctor.” Scorn dripped from her tone.

“Sarah.” Gideon’s voice had a warning in it. She disregarded it. She knew he would do nothing to her no matter how she treated this so-called doctor.

“You mustn’t disparage those who try to better their situation through the miracles of modern medicine, Mrs. North,” Dr. Jones said, sounding alarmingly like her father when he was preparing to give a sermon. “Mr. North has been burdened by the scars of his heroic war service. It is our Christian duty to help him be free of their taint.”

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Sarah was so outraged at his comments she had no response for a moment. She looked at Gideon in consternation. Surely he wasn’t going to let this idiot masquerading as a man of medicine touch him? Gideon sat there with a pained expression on his face, his eyes closed. She turned back to Dr. Jones, who looked smug, as if he’d put her in her place.

“Yes,” she agreed with an exaggerated nod of her head. “Gideon is shockingly reticent about his feelings.” She clasped her hands together and brought them to her chest. “Locked inside his maimed and scarred body.” She fluttered her eyelashes as if overwhelmed and heaved a great, tremulous sigh.

“Thank you, Mrs. Siddons, that will be quite enough,” Gideon said drily.

There was slow clapping from the drawing room doorway and Sarah turned to see a stranger standing there grinning broadly while he showed his appreciation of her performance. He looked exhausted and rumpled, as if he’d traveled all night. “Perhaps not the caliber of Mrs. Siddons, whom I had the honor of seeing on the stage in Bath, but a fine performance just the same.”

Gideon had stiffened across from her and Dr. Jones was frowning darkly. She cast an inquiring glance at Anders who stood holding the door open. “Dr. Peters to see you, Mr. North,” Anders said blandly. The name was familiar but Sarah couldn’t place it.

Gideon must have sensed her confusion. “Let me introduce you to Dr. Thomas Peters, Sarah. The man who saved my life at Badajoz.”

“I was not aware you were under the care of another physician, Mr. North,” Dr.

Jones said disapprovingly.

Dr. Peters sauntered into the room, gazing around with avid curiosity. Sarah was not immune from his scrutiny. Indeed, she seemed to receive the bulk of it. “Under my care?” he said in astonishment. “Why, doctor, he owes me his life! The ancient Chinese believe that he now belongs to me.”

“God bless his Britannic Majesty George,” Gideon intoned, “and my supreme luck to be his subject and not an ancient Chinaman.”

Dr. Peters laughed as he came to a stop in front of Sarah. He bowed low before her.

“Mrs. North, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” He stood up and took a step back, perusing her with a puzzled look on his face. “From Borden’s drunken description I expected you to reside permanently atop a marble pedestal, a golden halo floating above your head.”

Sarah’s laughter burst out in unabashed glee. “You’ve seen him, then?” she asked eagerly. “Is he all right?”

For two days she had worried, waiting for some word from Charles. He had stormed off with his satchel not long after he and Gideon had their argument in the gazebo. He’d left with a passionate goodbye for Sarah and a terse “I’m going to London.”

“Compared to what?” Dr. Peters answered noncommittally.

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“I see,” Gideon drawled as he leaned back in his chair. “Charles has sent reinforcements.”

“Hardly,” Dr. Peters grunted as he fell onto the other end of the settee where Sarah sat and laid his head against the back with a sigh. He really was exhausted. “If I am the cavalry come to save the day, you really are a lost cause, North.” He opened one eye and looked at Sarah. “I apologize, ma’am. But Borden poured me into a carriage and I’ve been jostled nonstop from London. I am tired, thirsty, dusty and weary beyond comprehension. The last before I even entered the carriage, truth be told. I’m afraid my manners were left on the roadside.”

Sarah turned to Anders. “Send us some tea, Anders, and some food for Dr. Peters.”

Anders nodded and closed the door.

Dr. Jones frowned harder as the implications of refreshments being ordered for Dr.

Peters and not for him sank in. He stood abruptly. “I shall leave you to greet your old friend properly, Mr. North,” he said with a slight bow. “If you would have someone show me to my room?”

Sarah did not need him to ask twice. Before Gideon could answer she rang for a footman.

After Dr. Jones had made his irritated exit, Dr. Peters turned to her. “Again, excuse my rudeness, Mrs. North, but may I speak to your husband alone?”

Sarah hastily rose. “Of course, Dr. Peters. I hope you will join us for dinner? And of course you shall stay with us.”

“You are indeed the angel Borden made you out to be,” he said sincerely.

Sarah smiled at him. “Nonsense,” she scoffed. “How absolutely boring that would be.”

The doctor laughed and she gave Gideon a saucy grin over her shoulder. His return smile was genuine if reluctant. “Be nice,” she admonished him before she closed the door.

“I am not an angel either,” he muttered, “thanks to Dr. Peters.”

She was still chuckling at Dr. Peters’ fervent “Truer words were never spoken” as she walked away.

* * * * *

Gideon wasn’t sure whether to be angry or amused. Charles really had been desperate to send Peters. He was uneasy, however, at the fact that Charles had not returned.

“What in the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, North?” Peters asked in annoyance. “I was unaware that along with your other infirmities you had become feeble in the head.”

“You are still as droll as you were before, I see,” Gideon told him. “And I am hardly infirm.”

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Peters glared at him. “If Borden brandishes another sharp object at me in order to force me to save your life one more time, I will not be responsible for the consequences.”

“Dare I hope the consequences will be your failure to appear?”

“It won’t work.”

Gideon sighed. He’d attribute Peters’ haphazard conversational style to exhaustion, but the fact was the doctor always talked like this. One minute he was talking about one topic, and the next he’d moved on to another. And he was always starting his conversations in the middle, as if he’d been carrying on the conversation in his head and suddenly decided to make it public. “I assume you are talking about Dr. Jones’

treatment?”

“No, Faraday’s experiments with electrical currents. Of course I mean Jones’

treatment.” Peters sounded disgusted with him, which was not unexpected. Peters had always sounded disgusted with him.

Gideon sighed again. He had always done that in response to Peters’ disgust too.

How odd to fall back onto old habits. “I know it won’t work. One look at him and I could see he was not to be trusted.” Peters rubbed his hands over his face and then gave Gideon a sympathetic look. It shocked Gideon and increased his unease. “What?”

“Even if Jones’ treatment managed to get rid of the scars, it wouldn’t erase the past, Gideon. I know.” He laughed bitterly. “Trust me, I know. There is no erasing the past no matter how we try.”

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Gideon said nothing. He just clenched his jaw and refused to look at Peters. The doctor fell back wearily in his seat again. There was a knock on the door and they both sat silently as Anders came in with the tea tray and poured them each a cup. He left and it took a moment for Peters to resume their conversation.

“How many men do you think I saved in the war, Gideon?” he asked quietly.

Gideon shot him a wary look. “I don’t know. A great many I would think.”

Peters was nodding. “Yes, a great many.” He sat slumped on the settee, staring at his hands as he rubbed one thumb repeatedly with the other. It was clearly an unconscious gesture. “And how many do you think I failed to save?”

Gideon was uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. “Just as many.”

Peters was still nodding. “At least, yes.” Then he looked at Gideon and Gideon noticed how bloodshot his eyes were, and how bleak. “I remember them all, Gideon.

Each and every one.” He stood, his weariness palpable, so heavy that Gideon began to feel it himself. He walked over to the window and stared down at the paddock where the grooms were walking some of the newer horses yet to be trained. They pulled at the leads, pawing the ground. “I’ve stared at the bottom of too many empty bottles since the war. And not one of them helped me forget.”

“They were not your responsibility, Peters,” Gideon told him gruffly. “Just as I was not and am not now.”

Peters barked out a laugh and turned to face Gideon. He leaned against the window frame and crossed his legs casually, though Gideon knew it for a lie. “You all were. I played God, Gideon. I made the decision who would live and who would die. And some I helped along their way.”

“To ease their suffering,” Gideon said. “There was no malice in it.”

“You screamed at me to let you die. I didn’t.”

Gideon winced at the reminder. “You were right not to. I didn’t mean it.”

“Maybe they didn’t either.” Peters turned away again. “I don’t want to remember them, Gideon. But part of me won’t give them up.” He shoved his hands into the pockets on his bottle green jacket. “If I don’t remember them, who will?”

Gideon had no answer. “Why didn’t you let me die?”

Peters laughed and this time it was a genuine laugh. “I had nothing to do with it after my initial involvement on the field at Badajoz. Charles refused to let you go.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I could have let you die. I could have kept Charles from you. It would have killed you fast enough. But it would have killed him too.” He turned and walked over to the nearest chair, sinking into it. “Every doctor—every good 162