Sweet Rogue of Mine (The Survivors #9) - Shana Galen Page 0,85

knew it was to help guide him, she did it so unobtrusively that it was easy to believe she just wanted to be beside him.

They walked a little way, she telling him about the fields of brown grass and the trees turning colors and forcing him to stop and hold very still when she spotted a fox ahead. He’d walked this path many times in his youth, and he could see it again through her eyes. Nash recognized and remembered the landmarks she pointed out—the big tree perfect for climbing, the post at the crossroads, the farm of this family or that—but he’d never seen it as she did.

To him, it had all looked like land to be crossed on the way to his destination. But to Pru, the path was full of wonders and pleasures and the noticing of every small detail. To her, the journey was as important as the destination.

“When will you tell me about the peacocks?” she asked, jolting him out of his reverie. The picture she’d been painting in his mind of the landscape they traversed suddenly washed away, dripping off the canvas in a mix of colors most days he could barely remember.

“Not the peacocks again,” he said. But he knew this time he would not be able to avoid the topic. And perhaps he didn’t want to. He’d been thinking about his father and the years before the war more and more lately. It was easier to think about those times now than it had been even a few weeks before.

“My father had them brought here from—I actually don’t know where they came from. We had five peahens and five peacocks,” he continued. “The earl wanted to show them off at a garden party. Most of the guests had never seen a peacock, and he thought it would impress them.”

“Did it?”

“Yes. The peacocks were all anyone could talk about. Until I put on a show.”

“Your father asked you to show your skills in shooting. Mrs. Northgate told me,” she said, by way of explanation. “She said you were better than any other man there by a long shot—pun not intended.”

He smiled. “Yes. My father liked to show me off. He was proud when I went into the army and was distinguished with all sorts of medals and awards.”

“Were you?” she asked. “I never knew that. Where are they now?”

“I tossed them in the fire,” he said.

Her step faltered, and he halted.

“I understand,” she said.

“I doubt that.”

“You didn’t want honors for doing what you had to do to survive. You didn’t want to be distinguished for killing.”

That was it, exactly. She’d put his feelings into words in a way he’d never really been able to. “I apologize,” he said. “You do understand.”

“But your father didn’t.” She took his arm again and they began to walk, more slowly now.

“I’m like the peacocks to him,” Nash said. “I was something to show off and be proud of. He was proud of the peacocks, but he bought them on a whim. He didn’t know how to care for them, didn’t hire gamekeepers who knew what they were about. The peahens and peacocks died of illness or were caught by foxes and eaten. After a time, we stopped coming to Wentmore because it reminded my father of his failure with the peacocks. And after the war, once I was injured, once I was damaged, he was only too happy to send me away and pretend I’d never existed.”

“But you’re his son.”

Nash shook his head. “All the more important that I make him proud. When I shot Duncan, I embarrassed him. People were talking about me, about him. Like the peacocks at Wentmore, he wants me out of sight and out of mind.”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“There’s still a peacock at Wentmore.”

He stopped walking, and the meaning of her words struck him. There was still a peacock at Wentmore. Despite all the obstacles, despite all the years of neglect and hardship, the peacock was still alive. Pru had described him as old, feathers bent and gray in the face, but he was still there, still fighting after all these years.

“No matter what happens between us,” she said. “I will find a way to keep you out of the asylum.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he said.

“No, you don’t.”

“And I shouldn’t want you,” he said. “But, God, I’ve thought of nothing but kissing you these last days. I can’t stop remembering the feel of your skin under my fingertips,