man. “Tell me how my actions led to your disabling accident.”
His brother Patrick was frowning down on him, but Godfrey continued to speak, his words halting. “Your betrayal made me question my own devotion to honor. I was furious. I wanted to be like you and escape to freedom, yet at the same time, I hated you for your dishonorable behavior. After stewing for a fortnight or two, on impulse I decided that if you could escape, so could I and be damned to the consequences.”
“You were injured in your escape attempt?” Kendra asked softly.
Godfrey’s gaze locked on Lucas. “You know how impregnable the Bitche fortress is. How steep the walls. How dangerous any escape attempt from the fortress would be.”
“But breaking out of the prison would not be breaking parole,” Lucas said. “Not like walking away from the town as I did.”
Godfrey nodded. “Your walking away from the town was easy, but dishonorable. If I broke out of the fortress, I would be free in an honorable way. I was on the verge of success when my makeshift rope broke, and I crashed to the ground. It felt as if I’d broken half the bones in my body.
“The French guards came to collect me and threw me into a cell with several other prisoners. No medical treatment was provided.” He drew a shuddering breath. “The pain was excruciating.”
“Yet you didn’t die,” Lucas said. “You must have great strength of will.”
“I wanted to die!” Godfrey said savagely. “But my fellow prisoners did everything they could to preserve my worthless life. They set my bones as well as they could, shared rations with me and offered words of comfort, telling me how brave I’d been to attempt the escape and how I would surely survive to go home. I hated myself for my failure and I hated you even more for being a . . . a false idol who had walked away from us laughing.” His mouth twisted. “Spoken aloud, my words don’t make much sense, do they?”
His brother rested a hand on Godfrey’s thin shoulder. “I understand your anger, but perhaps it shouldn’t be aimed at Foxton,” he said in a comforting voice. “Surely it would have been wiser to hate the French and be grateful to your fellow prisoners.”
Lucas shook his head. “Unending pain tends to warp one’s thinking. Particularly when a man you’ve idolized seemed to have betrayed all you believed in and escaped without consequences. I don’t believe I deserve to be the target of your pain and anger, but I do understand why you felt that way.”
Godfrey looked away, not speaking. Lucas sharpened his voice. “Look at me, Godfrey Rogers, and I’ll tell the truth of my imprisonment, escape, and the consequences!”
The younger man swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and raised his gaze to Lucas’s. When he had Godfrey’s attention, Lucas continued in a flat voice, “I didn’t realize that I was an inspiration to the younger officers because I was so often in pain myself and doing my best to hide it. The commander of the fort, Colonel Roux, loathed me for the same reasons you put me on a pedestal I didn’t deserve. Because he was an officer of peasant origin, he despised me for being a ‘damned aristo.’ In his eyes I was a rich, spoiled Englishman, unworthy of respect or honor. Roux wanted me to suffer. He was a master of inflicting pain that wouldn’t leave permanent marks. So . . . I suffered.”
Wincing, Kendra pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from expressing her horror at his words. From Simon’s expression, even he hadn’t been told the full truth of Lucas’s imprisonment. She sensed that Lucas was only speaking up now because of the need to resolve the murderous conflict between him and Godfrey.
Lucas continued, “Besides physical torture when he had time to amuse himself, Roux played cruel mental games, promising that soon I’d be sent back to England, then tellng me with obvious pleasure that the exchange had fallen through. It wasn’t long before I realized that he would never exchange me. Eventually he said so in as many words.”
“But the possibility of exchange is an essential part of giving and receiving a parole,” Godfrey said, frowning.
“Exactly so. I was trapped between knowing that the promise of parole wasn’t real, and my feeling that escaping would be dishonorable.” He fell silent for half a dozen heartbeats. “You and I had more in common than simple imprisonment, Godfrey.