To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(62)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

His voice broke and trailed away, and a look crossed his face that she’d never seen on him before. Despair. She nearly cried out.

But his face smoothed and he cleared his throat. “Spinner’s Falls it was called as I found out later. We were attacked from both sides by the French and a band of their Indian allies. Suffice it to say that we lost.” A corner of his mouth twitched in something that might’ve been a smile. “I say ‘we’ quite deliberately. In the midst of battle, one is never a bystander. Though I was a civilian, I fought just as hard as the soldiers standing next to me. We fought for the same thing, after all: our lives.”

“Alistair,” she whispered. She’d seen how he’d touched Lady Grey’s dead body, seen him patiently teach Abigail to fish. He wasn’t a man who would commit or recover from violence easily.

“No.” He waved away her sympathy. “I’m prevaricating again. I survived the battle relatively unscathed with several others, and the Indians rounded us up as captives. We marched for many days through the woods and then we made their camp.”

He frowned down at the shirt and carefully folded it. The muscles of his bare arms shifted in the fading light. “The native peoples in that part of the world have a sort of custom when they win a battle. They take captive the enemy who survives and they torture them; the object is part celebration, part demonstration of the enemy’s cowardice. At least that’s what I believe the object is. Of course, there may not be a reason at all for the torture. Certainly, there’s ample evidence in our own history of peoples delighting in inflicting pain purely for the pleasure of it.”

His voice was even, almost cool, but his fingers folded and refolded the shirt he held, and Helen knew that tears were coursing down her face. Had he thought like this as they’d tortured him? Tried to take his mind away from the pain and horror by noting and analyzing the people who had captured him? The thought was too awful to bear, but bear it she must. If he could survive what had been done to him, the least she could do was hear what had happened.

“I’ll come to the point.” He took a deep breath as if to steady himself. “They took us and stripped us naked. They tied our hands behind our backs and then strung a rope from our bound hands to a stake so that we could stand and move a bit but not go far. They played with a man named Coleman first. They beat him and cut off his ears and threw burning embers on him. And when he collapsed to the ground, they scalped him and heaped burning coals on his still-live body.”

She made a sound of protest, but he didn’t seem to hear.

He gazed blindly down at his hands. “It took Coleman two days to die, and all the while, we watched and knew we would be next. Fear…” He cleared his throat. “Fear does ugly things to a man, makes him less human.”

“Alistair,” she whispered again, no longer wanting to hear this tale.

But he continued. “Another man—an officer—they crucified and set alight. He made high, terrible screams like an animal as he died. I’ve never heard the like before or since. When they started on me, it was almost a relief, if you can credit it. I knew I would die; my chore was simply to die with what bravery I could. I never cried out when they pressed burning brands to my face, nor when they cut me. But when they took a knife to my eye…”

His hand drifted to that side of his face, and his fingers delicately traced the scars. “I think I lost my mind a little. I can’t remember exactly. I don’t remember anything before I woke again in the Fort Edward infirmary. I was surprised to be alive.”

“I’m glad.”

He looked at her. “For what?”

She swiped at her cheeks. “That you survived. That God took away your memory.”

He smiled then, a horrible twisting of his lips. “But God had nothing to do with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It made no sense.” He waved his hand in a broad sweep. “Don’t you see? None of it had any order or reason. Some of us survived and some did not. Some were scarred and some were not. And it mattered not whether a man was good or brave or weak or strong. It was pure chance.”

“But you survived,” she whispered.

“Did I?” His eye glittered. “Did I? I’m alive, but I’m not the man I was before. Did I truly survive?”

“Yes.” She stood and came to him, placing her palm on his scarred cheek. “You’re alive and I’m glad.”

He covered her hand with his own, and for a moment they stood thus. His gaze searched hers, intent and confused.

Then he turned his head away, and her hand dropped. She felt as if she’d missed something in that moment, but she didn’t know what. Bereft, she sat back down on the bed.

He resumed dressing. “As soon as I was well enough to travel, I sailed for England. You know the rest, I think.”

She nodded.

“Yes, well. I’ve lived since that time very much as you first saw me when you came to the castle. I’ve avoided the company of others for obvious reasons.” He touched the patch over his eye. “But a month ago, Viscount Vale and his wife, your friend, Lady Vale…”

He trailed away, frowning. “I say, how did you become acquainted with Lady Vale? Was that part of your story made up as well?”

“No, that was true enough.” Helen grimaced. “I suppose it does look odd, a mistress like me friends with a respectable woman like Lady Vale. I confess that I know her only slightly. We met several times in the park, but when I fled Lister, she helped me. We are friends, truly.”

Alistair seemed to accept that explanation. “Anyway, Vale was one of the men taken captive at Spinner’s Falls. When Vale came to visit, he had this odd story. Rumors that the 28th Regiment of Foot had in fact been betrayed at Spinner’s Falls by a British soldier.”

Helen straightened. “What?”

“Yes.” He shrugged and finally laid the shirt aside. “It makes sense. We were in the middle of the forest, and yet we were attacked by an overwhelming force of Frenchmen and Indians. Why else would they be there save that they knew we were to pass that way?”

She drew a sharp breath. Somehow the knowledge that such destruction of life had been planned—and by a fellow countryman—made it all the more horrible.

She looked at him with wonder. “I would think that you’d be wild with the desire for revenge.”

He smiled, fully and sadly. “Even if we catch this man, bring him to trial and hang him, it’ll not restore my eye or the lives of the men lost at Spinner’s Falls.”