We attract hearts by the qualities we display;
we retain them by the qualities we possess.
Jean-Baptiste Antoine Suard
“But of course.” Drew threw back his head and laughed.
“Drew? Are you all right?” Wren reached for the hedgehog and gently pried the animal’s teeth out of his hand. “It isn’t like her to bite. Erinaceus eropaeus are normally quite gentle unless they’re frightened.”
“I’d venture to say that this one is frightened.” He continued to laugh, the sound of it rumbling from deep in his chest before bursting forth in beautiful clear tones.
Drew couldn’t seem to stop laughing and Wren couldn’t seem to stop apologizing. “I’m so sorry, Drew. I can’t imagine why you’re laughing. Her teeth are very sharp. I know that must have hurt.” Erin relaxed in her hand and Wren reached inside Drew’s cape to return the animal to her pelisse pocket.
“It hurt like bloody hell,” Drew said, finally able to speak without laughing. “It still hurts.” He realized Wren’s intent and stopped her. “No, my love, don’t put her back in there. Give her to me.” He held out his hand for the hedgehog.
Wren hesitated. “Are you certain? She may bite you again.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” he said. “And I’m not going to frighten her. I’m simply going to put her in one of my cape pockets. They’re deeper. And, more importantly, they’re outside your clothing.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, oh.” He carefully placed the hedgehog in the deep outside pocket of his cape, covered her with his leather glove, and buttoned the flap. “She’ll be perfectly comfortable in there,” he said. “And I’ll be safe as well.”
“Let me see your hand,” Wren said.
Drew held out his hand, splaying his fingers so she could see the hedgehog bite. Erin had bitten through the flesh and it had hurt like the very devil, but he was quite proud of the fact that he’d managed to suppress his automatic urge to fling the creature off his hand and to its death. The wound hadn’t ripped. There were only two beads of blood. “I’ve had worse wounds. I’ll live.”
Wren cradled his hand in hers as she studied the wound. “If you hadn’t removed your riding gloves, she would have bitten the leather and wouldn’t have punctured your skin at all.”
“If I hadn’t removed my riding gloves, I wouldn’t have been able to feel you nearly as well. Suffering an Erinaceus eropaeus bite is a small price to pay for the pleasure of caressing you.” He wiggled his fingers. “No damage done. They all work.”
Wren wiped the droplets of blood away with the pad of her thumb, then pressed a kiss in the palm of his hand. “There,” she pronounced when she lifted her head. “All better.”
Drew closed his fist around the kiss and held it while it worked its way from his hand to his heart. “I haven’t had a kiss to make a hurt all better since I informed my mother that young men didn’t need them.” He snorted. “I believe I was ten at the time.”
“Poor Lady Templeston,” Wren said. “How that must have wounded her. I know it will break my heart the day Kit decides that he’s too old for my hugs and kisses.”
“Kit will never grow too old for your hugs and kisses. I pray to God that we’ll somehow be able to make him understand that.” Drew slipped his hand inside the sealskin cape and placed it against her stomach.
“Oh, Drew,” she whispered. “All boys go through a period of thinking that they’re too old to be kissed and cuddled—especially by their mothers.”
“But it’s their mothers they cry for when they’re lying wounded and dying in the mud and gore on the battlefield.” Drew shook his head in a vain effort to dislodge the battlefield memories stored there. “You can’t imagine, and I pray you never know, what it’s like to hear thousands upon thousands of young men crying for their mothers. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” he said softly. “The sound of all those men and boys calling for their mothers in English and French and German and Spanish and Italian. I never heard a single soldier call for any father—except the heavenly one. They all cried for their mothers and I’m afraid the memory of it is going to stay with me forever.” Drew closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the top of Kathryn’s head.
“I prayed for you,” Kathryn said softly. “I prayed that you would return home safe and sound.”
“And so I have.”
“But not without scars.”
“Physical scars are the least of what I brought home with me,” Drew said. “The memories, the nightmares, the fear—the guilt—are far worse than scars. I returned to England and was hailed a hero, but I still wake up shaking at night.” He gave a little snort of derision. “Some hero. For the first two years after Waterloo, I spent every waking moment that I wasn’t taking care of Julian, or overseeing his care, drinking myself into a stupor so I could forget. I still drink when I can’t sleep. Ironically, my drink of choice is French brandy.”
Wren took a deep breath. “I’ll listen if you want to talk about it.”
“War’s not a topic a man should discuss with…” He almost said the words his love. “The fairer sex.”
“I understand,” Wren murmured. “I suppose it’s something you could only talk about with your father, your confessor, or fellow soldiers and close friends.”
“I never discussed it with my father and I haven’t spoken about it with any of the other people you mentioned—with my confessor, my fellow soldiers, or my closest friend. Especially not my closest friend, for he knows all too well the horrors of war.”
“Yes, I suppose he must.” Kathryn’s words were spoken so softly Drew barely heard them.
He didn’t reply. Wren leaned against his chest. Drew held her close as he guided Felicity back around the parkland. It was raining harder, but they continued to ride in companionable silence until Drew began to talk.
The words seemed to pour out of him as he told Kathryn of the nightmare of war, the battles he’d survived and the horrors he’d endured. It was the first time he’d ever spoken to anyone about the things that lived in his memory and haunted his dreams at night. Drew exhaled when he finished relating his experiences, more relaxed and at ease with himself than he had been in years. He knew the memories would stay with him for the rest of his life, but he could make peace with them now. He could come to terms with what he’d seen and done in the name of war and eventually Drew knew that he would manage to sleep soundly once again. Kathryn would never be able to banish the pain he carried with him, but she had been willing to share it and that meant all the difference to a man who had spent the past six years refusing to live the life he’d had spared.
“All better,” he said, at last.
“Without a single hug or kiss,” she teased.
“With something even more powerful than a hug or a kiss,” Drew said. “The compassion of a very special woman.” He leaned forward and kissed her neck. “I wish to God I could go back to that day when I was ten and let my mother kiss away the pain of that childhood scrape. I wish I could tell her I’m sorry for hurting her.” He swallowed hard, once and then once more. “I wish I could tell her how much I loved her.”
“You already have,” Wren said. “She hears you, Drew. She knows what’s in your heart.”
“Perhaps,” he admitted. “But I should have told her then. I should have let her hug me and kiss me all she wanted. I should have collected as many of her hugs and kisses as I could, so I’d have more of them to remember now that she’s gone. I shouldn’t have shrugged out of her embrace and pushed her away.”
“She forgave you the moment you did it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’m a mother,” Wren told him. “And that’s what mothers do.”
“I should have persisted with you, too,” Drew whispered against her wet hair. “I should have waited at your front door until you agreed to see me or else broken it down and gone in anyway. I should have done more, Kathryn. I gave up too easily. I ran away with We
llington and his army instead of staying in London with you.”
“I wasn’t your responsibility.”
“You were the woman I loved, the woman I was going to marry.”
“I was the woman who stood you up in front of the whole of London. You had every right to sue me for breach of promise.”
“I thought about it,” he admitted. “But what good would dragging both our names through the mud have done? I didn’t feel the need to supply the ton with more fodder for gossip and I certainly didn’t need to sue you for money. I had plenty of money. What I didn’t have was you. And you’re the only thing I wanted, Kathryn.”
“I’m sorry I failed you, Drew.”
Drew inhaled, then slowly expelled the breath. “I know you didn’t do it on a whim to hurt me, Kathryn. I know something happened that made you feel as if you had no other choice.” The moment he said the words, he knew they were true. The pain and the anger he’d carried since his wedding day lingered like the smoke from a flame, but it wasn’t quite as acrid as it had once been. The lacerations on his heart were still evident, but the bleeding had finally slowed to a trickle. Time with Kathryn might one day provide the miracle cure he’d been searching for. “I only hope that one day you’ll trust me enough to tell me what it was.”
“Oh, Drew,” she whispered in a voice thick with tears and trembling in pain.
“It’s all right,” he told her. “You don’t have to tell me anything until you’re ready. And whenever you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready to listen.” He squeezed Wren tightly. “It’s time to go home.” Drew turned Felicity toward home.
Wren nodded.
“I usually ride alone every morning before breakfast,” he told her. “If you’d like to join me.”
“Will I have to ride my own horse?”
Drew shook his head. “Until you gain a bit of experience in sitting a horse, I think this might be the best way for you to ride.”
“Then I’d be delighted to join you.”
“There is one other thing I’d ask of you,” he drawled.
“What is that?” Wren turned to meet his gaze.
“Your word of honor that you won’t ask any other man if he’d enjoy tasting your breasts.” The look he gave her made Wren hot all over. “That’s one honor I want reserved exclusively for me.”
“When?” she asked breathlessly.
“Any time you’d like,” he answered. “I’ll always make myself available for that.”
Chapter Seventeen