The fierce pain of the blows engulfed his hand and stabbed up through his wrist and arm. Welcoming it, he looked down to see the skin ripped on his knuckles and rivulets of crimson trickling between his fingers. He stared mutely at the blood and tried to establish a fragile control over himself.
Remembering that he was not alone, he turned to William. There were tear tracks on the round face, and the boy was staring at Reggie as if he had never seen him before, bewildered and frightened by such incomprehensible adult behavior.
Reggie inhaled deeply, trying to find some sanity in his whirling, disoriented brain. Then he knelt to bring himself to the boy’s level and said unsteadily, “Come here.”
After a long moment’s hesitation, William approached. Reggie placed one hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
William nodded warily.
Holding the boy’s gaze with his own, Reggie said, “I’m sorry that I was so angry. I was afraid you would be killed. Then when I knew you were safe, I went a little crazy. Stupid of me, but adults are often stupid.” That elicited a more vigorous nod. Reggie continued, “Do you understand now why I said to keep away from Bucephalus?”
“Yes.” The boy swallowed hard. “I’m sorry I caused trouble. I ... I just wanted to make friends. Will Bucephalus have to be destroyed?”
“I hope not.” Face set, Reggie got to his feet. “Go and get the head groom. We’ll see what can be done.”
William darted off, and Reggie cautiously opened the upper half of the stall door. The stallion had stopped neighing and kicking, but he still pranced about in agitation, patches of sweat and foam marring the sleek black coat. Reggie began talking softly, a process that calmed his agitation almost as much as it helped the horse.
By the time the head groom arrived on the run, Reggie was in the stall, patting Bucephalus’s neck and checking the extent of the horse’s injuries. The puncture wounds weren’t deep, though there would be scars to mar the glossy hide. A hock was also sprained, but the horse seemed to have escaped serious injury.
Reggie left the stallion in the groom’s capable hands and went back to the house. There he retreated to the library and folded wearily into the old leather-upholstered wing chair, unable to keep his thoughts at bay any longer.
This had been his father’s room, his father’s chair. As Reggie slumped back, eyes closed, the missing pieces of his childhood fell into place. No wonder he had forgotten everything before the age of four, and no wonder Jeremy Stanton had been unsurprised to hear that. His godfather had made some cryptic comment that doubtless Reggie would remember if there was anything he needed to know.
What had been blocked out was the ceaseless fear and fighting caused by his father’s drinking. His mother had swung between hope and anger and despair, and with a child’s sensitivity Reggie had known that something was horribly wrong.
Though he had adored his father, he had also feared the unpredictability of his moods. Sometimes his father was a great gun, other times he must be avoided at all costs. Reggie’s habit of endlessly watching and analyzing other people’s behavior, of looking for weaknesses that could be used in defense was needed, had originated then, when he was scarcely old enough to walk.
Shortly after the birth of Reggie’s younger brother, Julius, matters culminated in that last fearsome brawl. Horrified by what he had done, his father had stopped drinking.
Reggie had spent a long time in bed with his injuries—concussion, cracked ribs, and a broken shoulder. He had been frightened the first time his father visited. Expression stricken, his father had patiently worked to regain his son’s trust, playing games and teaching lessons and reading aloud.
By the time Reggie recovered, his father was truly sober. Anne Davenport did not insist that her husband leave Strickland once he stopped drinking, and in time the family had healed. Then had come what Reggie thought of as the Golden Age. His parents had been happy with themselves, their marriage, their family. The days seemed endlessly full of light and laughter. Another child was born, a red-haired sprite named Amy.
Reggie had flourished in that time, tagging after his father all around Strickland, playing with his younger brother and sister. And he had buried every memory of the Dark Age that had gone before.
Until today, when the demon of drunkenness had driven him to the edge of injuring another child. His throat and chest ached at the thought, both for William, and for the child he himself had been.
He twisted restlessly, and his gaze fell on a paper pamphlet on the table next to him. Someone, it seemed, had left it for him to read.
Lifting it, he read the title, “The Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon Man.” Underneath was printed “Benjamin Rush, Physician, Philadelphia, 1784.” He stared at the pamphlet, wondering who had left it for him, before finally turning to the first page.
A dark chill curled around his heart. Inside was the name “Reginald Davenport,” written in a bold, masculine hand.
For an instant he wondered if this was something he had bought, then forgotten. Could his memory lapses have gotten that bad? He studied the signature, then released the breath he had been holding. The handwriting was similar to his, but not identical. He had been named for his father, who was the original owner of this tract. It had been waiting in the library for all the intervening years. He began to read.
Time passed as he read and reread, with long spells of sightless staring. The monograph was short, only a few thousand words, yet in it Benjamin Rush had described in great and ominous detail the effects of drunkenness, from unusual garrulity to captiousness and a disposition to quarrel, to immodest actions and a temporary fit of madness. And everything in between.
The physician called drunkenness an odious disease and described the physical effects, both immediate and long term. He’d gone on to say, It is further remarkable that drunkenness resembles certain hereditary, family, and contagious diseases. In other words, like father, like son.
Ardent spirits ... impair the memory, debilitate the understanding, and pervert the moral faculties. Everything that was happening to Reggie.
He glanced once more at the last pages, where Rush made dire predictions and mournful commentary on the many ways drunkenness destroyed lives. The physician classed death as among the consequences of hard drinking: But it is not death from the immediate hand of the Deity: it is death from suicide.
Reggie closed his eyes and heard again that internal voice of warning: This way of life is killing you. With the veils ripped from the past, he identified that voice as his father’s, the first Reginald Davenport, who had come perilously close to destroying his life, his family, and his first-born son with drinking.
In an odd burst of fancy, Reggie wondered if his father was keeping an eye on his only surviving child, trying to prevent his namesake from repeating the pattern of self-destruction. Improbable though the thought was, it was warming, the only positive reflection he’d had all day.
What was dark and inescapable was the knowledge that Reggie was coursing down the same merciless path his father had followed. Jeremy Stanton had been skeptical of whether it would be possible to moderate his consumption of alcohol, and implied that only quitting entirely would work. The older man’s hard-won advice was proving accurate. As soon as Reggie had swallowed the first glass of brandy the night before, judgment and good sense had gone out the window, resulting in the worst drunk—and the worst morning after—of his life.
The weeks of sobriety had done nothing to reduce his drinking. Indeed, he had been worse. If the physician Rush was right that drunkenness was a disease, it must be a progressive one. And the only cure Reggie could imagine was absolute abstinence.
Massaging his temples, he leaned back in his chair, wishing that the ache and the dank, choking depression would go away. Even now, the desire to drink was a hot, siren call. Every fiber of his body was longing, pleading and cajoling, to have just a single glass, a single mouthful. In a bottle lay surcease from pain. It would be so easy to
blot out the intolerable memories, the guilt, the hopelessness... .
If he was going to kill himself, a pistol would be quicker and cleaner.
Alys had worked with grim determination all day, trying to blot out the memory of her employer’s drunken advances and angry attack. His drinking was getting worse. For the sake of the children and herself, they must move out of the house immediately. Dear God, what if he went after Merry? She shuddered at the thought.
It sickened her to remember how Reggie had behaved. What was worse was knowing how much she cared for him, flaws and all.
She stayed out past dinnertime, preferring her own company. By the time she returned, dusty and weary, shadows were lengthening. She walked into the house to find a delegation waiting. Merry was there, her sapphire eyes showing the strain of parting from Julian; William, unnaturally abashed; and Mac Cooper, looking inscrutable. Only Peter, who was on a holiday with a school friend’s family, was missing.
Alys glanced at the concerned faces. “Is something wrong?”
“Not a disaster, exactly,” Merry replied, “but we’re worried about Reggie.”
“Has he run off again? He makes something of a habit of that,” Alys said with studied neutrality.
Cooper spoke up. “No, he’s been in the library all day, since an accident with that black devil’s horse of his.”
Beginning to be alarmed, Alys listened to William explain how Reggie had turned rescuer again, then had nearly succumbed to an urge to wring William’s neck. Alys could understand that impulse, since she had occasionally shared it, but she frowned as the boy described how Reggie had smashed his fist into the wall over and over. Was the man going mad? Perhaps he had been drinking steadily all night and all day.
She glanced at Cooper. “If you’re all so concerned, why doesn’t someone just go into the library?”
The valet replied, “I was about to, but then you came in. Might be better if you checked on him, Lady Alys.” His aitches were firmly in place.
“Why me?” she asked in exasperation, but Cooper returned her gaze with an opaque expression. Wearily she accepted that since she had been running everything and everyone at Strickland for years, she must be the one to ensure that the owner was alive, and as well as could be expected.
Ironic though the thought was, it produced a small stab of anxiety. Surely he would not have done anything foolish? She asked, “Has he eaten anything today?”
Cooper and Merry looked at each other. “Not that I know of,” the valet said.
“Have the cook get a tray together with enough food for two people, and a large pot of hot tea,” she ordered. “I’ll wash up, then take it in to him.”
She didn’t take the time to bathe and change, but she washed her hands and face and let her hair down, since the long hours in tight braids had given her a headache. After tying her hair back with a ribbon, she went downstairs. She chased the concerned watchers away, saying the man would never come out if he had an audience.
Then she took the prepared tray and entered the library. Reggie was a lean, silent shape slouched in his favorite chair, half turned away from her. The room was too shadowed to see his face, but his clothing was neat. With luck, he had not availed himself of the liquor cabinet. She set the tray on a table to the left of the door and said quietly, “Are you still among the living?”
His head turned in her direction. After a lengthy silence, he said in a slow, rusty voice, “I’ve read of penguins that jump around on an ice floe, trying to decide if there are sharks in the water. Eventually they push one of their number into the sea. If the sacrifice isn’t eaten, they all dive in. You, I assume, are the sacrificial penguin.”
She had to smile. Obviously there was some life in the old boy left. “I’ve been called many things in my life, but never a sacrificial penguin. How did you know there was a committee outside trying to decide what to do about you?”
“Occasionally the door would open, very quietly, then close again.”
“After they had determined that the shark was still lurking here.” Without asking if he wanted any, she poured two cups of tea, with heavy dollops of milk and sugar in Reggie’s cup, then went and put it in his hand. Close up, he looked dreadful, with haunted eyes and a gray tinge to his dark skin. As he stared at the dainty cup, she said helpfully, “It’s called tea. People drink it. It’s the British cure for whatever ails you.”
He smiled faintly, then raised the cup and took a deep swallow. “In that case, you had better order a larger pot.”
She winced at the sight of his lacerated knuckles. The result of smashing his fist into the wall. Later those wounds must be tended.
But for now, the physical was less important than the mental. She set the tray next to him and took the opposite chair, then proceeded to select a substantial supper for herself. “Rumor has it that you haven’t eaten in twenty-four hours. Food might help. I’m told the roast chicken and the pickled mushrooms are particularly good tonight.”
Slowly he filled a plate and began to eat while Alys periodically topped up the teacups. She was just finishing a portion of Ripon pudding when Reggie said abruptly, “How much do I have to apologize for?”
Alys swallowed her pudding. “You don’t remember what happened last night?”
“No, but Mac implied rather strongly that I have a lot to answer for where you are concerned.”
Alys sipped her tea and considered. Her lingering anger had largely dissipated at the sight of Reggie’s haggard face. Clearly he had gone through hell—and she sensed that he had also crossed some kind of significant mental frontier. “You were drunk and amorous,” she said at last, deciding on honesty tempered with discretion.
“In vino veritas,” he muttered. “That’s what I was afraid of. Did ... did I hurt you?”
“It was a near run thing for a moment,” she admitted. “You refused to take no for an answer and cornered me, so I threw a few books at you.”
“Bloody hell.” His face sank behind one hand. “Thank God you are a most redoubtable female—I have enough to feel guilty about.” He sighed heavily. “I seem to spend a lot of my time apologizing to you, Allie. For what it’s worth, I regret most deeply what happened.”
“I think we’re about even,” she said pensively. “The volume of French plays that I threw into your stomach didn’t do you much good.”
He raised his head at that, and in the dusk she could see a faint smile. “Too many French plays could give anyone a bellyache.”
She was glad to hear more life in his voice. Reggie without a sense of humor was a terrifying thought.
He lifted a pamphlet that lay on the table on his other side. “Did you find this and leave it out for me as a not-so-subtle hint?”
Peering through the dusk, she could just make out the words “The Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon Man.” It looked familiar. She frowned a moment. “I think it tumbled off a shelf when I was grabbing books to throw at you. Mac Cooper probably found it when he was cleaning up. It does seem to the point.”
“Doesn’t it, just.” He laid the pamphlet down again. “It was written by an American physician. He talks about drunkenness as if it’s a disease.”
An interesting thought. Alys made a mental note to read the pamphlet later.
“As you must have noticed, I had stopped drinking for several weeks. I thought that would be all I need to reestablish my control.” He sighed again. “Last night made it clear that approach won’t work. I’ve reached the conclusion that I must stop entirely.”
“I don’t suppose that will be easy.” She knew her words were inadequate, but was unsure what else to say.
“No, I don’t expect it will. However, I see no alternative.” From the levelness of Reggie’s voice, he could be commenting on the weather rather than announcing what must have been a fiercely difficult decision.
“If there is anything I can do to help ...” she offered tentatively.
“Thank you,” he said in a very low voice. “I
don’t think this is the sort of thing anyone else can help with, but I do appreciate the offer.”
On impulse Alys got to her feet. “Come outside for some fresh air. It’s a lovely evening.” And being holed up like a badger in its sett couldn’t be helping his state of mind.
After a pause he said, “Very well.”
She led the way out the French doors into the fresh summer evening. The lawn had just been cut, and the sweet green scent enticed the nostrils.
To the west a spectacular sunset flared, with towers of clouds gilded in gold and orange and indigo. It was lighter outside than in the library, and she could see Reggie’s face clearly. His expression was stark and he moved slowly, without his usual lithe grace, but he looked composed.
They strolled down to the lake, by unspoken consent settling on one of the benches and watching the colors fade from the sky overhead. Neither talked, but Alys thought her presence was affording Reggie some silent comfort. She hoped so.
When only a golden rim on the horizon remained of the sunset, Reggie said, “It’s getting late, and you’ve had a very long day. I should let you get some rest.”
“It’s good to take time to be silent now and then. I don’t do so often enough.” Alys rose. “I want to show you something else on the way back. One of life’s very small wonders.”
He followed her passively to the wool room. It was a large, clean chamber in one of the more distant barns, and tonight it was nearly full of fresh-cut fleeces. Alys opened the door and picked up one of the rolled fleeces to show Reggie.
There was just enough light left to see a faint mist clouding the pale wool. “See? The fleeces are still warm and alive. As the sun goes down, they cool.”
He took the fleece from her, squeezing its springy bulk in his hands. “Interesting. Who would have guessed that fleeces have their own local dew?”