Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,62
He did not imagine spending time with him was anything like an adventure in the Far East or Cairo would have been, but he appreciated her attempt to make her time in Milcroft seem special.
“And now your turn.”
He laughed. “Would you believe a hay loft and a dairy maid?”
“Really?” she asked, her hand tightening on his.
“No. It was my first year in the army. My regiment was quartered in the north of England, near Lincoln. The family I stayed with had a young cook, who was always making me a special tart or giving me an extra helping of dinner. One night she slipped into my bed after the family was asleep. A few months later, I was sent to France to fight the French.”
“Mr. Langford said you served under Lieutenant-Colonel Draven in a special troop.”
“I did, but I was asked to join Draven’s troop after I’d already been fighting for a couple of years and had distinguished myself as a marksman. The Colonel was famous for asking the men he invited to join him if we were afraid to die. His orders amounted to nothing less than suicide. We were sent to get as close to Bonaparte as we could and destroy his top men, if not the general himself. We started with thirty and came home with twelve. It’s only because of men like Rowden Payne and a few others that even a dozen of us came home.”
“I’m sure your skill with a rifle had something to do with it as well.”
“I was injured a couple of months before the war ended, and I wasn’t there for the end of it.”
She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean you weren’t an integral part of it.”
Nash didn’t answer. It felt so normal to sit here with her. He could pretend his eyes were closed and he was like any other man, not a damaged man who could not even see the face of the woman he’d touched so intimately just a half hour before.
“What did you say?” she asked a little while later. “When the colonel asked if you were afraid to die?”
“I said, hell yes. Anyone not afraid to die was a fool.”
She laughed. “I would have said the same thing.”
“Apparently, I’m the only one in the troop who answered that way.”
“Really? None of the other men were afraid to die? I can’t say I think them very stable after a revelation like that.”
“I think any man who joins a suicide troop is at the very best reckless and at the worst completely mad. We were all a bit of both at one point or other.”
The brook burbled in the long silence as she digested this. “So the correct answer was that you were not afraid to die. Why did the colonel choose you then?”
“I suppose because I was the best,” he said without any pride. He had been the best and being the best at shooting people was not something he would ever boast about. “He needed me. When I told him I was afraid to die, he said, Then you’d better shoot straight and keep your head down. We’ll protect you.”
Nash thought about Rowden and the other members of the troop who had come to visit him in the past few months, men he had chased away or, accidentally, though no one believed it, shot at. The troop was still protecting him, even if it was from himself.
Thirteen
No one answered the door when Pru knocked the next day at noon. The morning had been cold and rainy, and she was glad she had spent so much time outdoors the day before. Today all anyone wanted to do was stay inside and huddle by the hearth. The weather was damp and gray, and Pru had considered staying at the vicarage, but Mrs. Blimkin had arrived late because of the foul weather and was in a foul mood whenever Pru managed to get underfoot. The vicar was home as well, and the house seemed too small for the three of them.
The rain had slackened by eleven, and Pru had hoped it would stop altogether so she and Nash might walk in the informal gardens again. Perhaps walking wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. She had in mind more of what he’d done to her yesterday—the kissing and touching and more touching. Her mother would have told her she was an unrepentant sinner. She’d known her parents would think what she’d done was