The Return of the Prodigal. Кейси Майклс

the only one still remaining at the manor house, the château, whatever this place was called, and strangely reluctant to be deemed well enough to leave.

      Did Lisette have anything to do with that reluctance? No. Impossible.

      Well, now, he was doing his share of thinking today, wasn’t he? He wasn’t sure if this was something to celebrate. It was much easier, drifting.

      But, as long as his brain seemed to be waking up, he might as well think about Lisette. Much better to think of her, than to push down an almost overwhelming need to scratch the itch on the back of the left hand that was no longer a part of him.

      Was it pity he saw in her eyes when she came to his bed? Never revulsion, bless her, but then, she was at heart a simple girl, attempting to unravel a complex man.

      “Or a very thick man,” Rian said, smiling slightly, feeling ashamed of himself once more. Perhaps this was good. At least shame was an emotion. Perhaps he was beginning to wake up from the months’ long slumber he’d allowed himself, indulging his pain, both the physical, and the pain that he felt only in his heart.

      Damn! It was about time!

      He looked down at the leather-bound journal Lisette had found for him a few weeks ago. He’d written only three lines today. What a lazy creature he was, or else he’d become sick of his own maudlin scribblings.

      Once he’d written of a brave adventurer, a man of spirit and daring traveling the world, slaying dragons, dazzling all the beautiful women. Even Fanny, who thought she knew everything about him, had never known of the journals he kept hidden beneath a floorboard in his rooms, of the poetry, the supposed epic he had been writing for years. His brothers had jokingly called him a poet, but they also had never known how right they were.

      They had also called him a dreamer, and he did once have dreams. Lofty. Soaring. Full of ideals and promise. He would go to war, he would have grand adventures, and then he would write about them. He would become famous, like Lord Byron. He would go to London, be fêted, even honored by the Prince Regent.

      Oh, what ambitious dreams he’d had!

      Now? Now, when he forced himself to write, he wrote of silly things; the shapes he saw in the clouds, the many names he could give the color of Lisette’s hair, the beauty of peas, floating in a sea of gravy. Insane things. Or else he’d write of stormy nights, lonely walks through tangled forests, demons and dangers behind every tree. Despair, hanging like low clouds over every horizon.

      Mindless rambles, or melodramatic drivel. That’s all he could muster. All because he’d lost his arm? Was that something to be maudlin about? Probably…

      What had he written today?

      Alone in a world of strangers; unfit, unknown, no longer whole;

      Does the world go on without him?

      Lovely ladies, where are your smiles and sweet simpers now?

      Dear God, how pathetic! Pathetic, self-pitying nonsense. A waste of ink and paper.

      He crumpled the page in his hand and tried to rip it from the journal. But that was an exercise that took two hands, and the journal only slipped from the arm of the chair and went flying across the grass.

      “Damn!”

      “There is a problem? And what bee has flown in to your bonnet today, Mistress Becket?”

      Rian closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. “Go away, Lisette. I’ve been working on a way to choke you using only one hand. I may soon perfect it.”

      “Not the silly clown today, I see, but the dour-faced malcontent, threatening mayhem. I tremble in my shoes, truly.” Lisette bent down to pick up the journal, smoothing out the rumpled page and reading it before she closed the thing and slipped it into her pocket. “Where have all the ladies’ smiles gone now? Yes, I can see why the ladies would have smiled at you, Rian. When you’re asleep, I can see it, for then both the too-silly smiles and the scowls disappear, and the hopeful poet emerges. I should like to see the poet awake. But for now, my impatient patient, it’s once again time for your medicine.”

      “Hang my medicine,” Rian said, getting to his feet, tucking what was left of his forearm into the buttoned front of his jacket. “I don’t want to shock you with such a revelation, but I’m as whole as I’m going to get, Lisette.”

      “So you say. For months, throughout the hot summer, I despaired of you, for so many wounded turn putrid and die in the summer. And for these past weeks I’ve waited for the questions. But they never come, do they? ‘Where am I, Lisette? Who has taken me in? Why has this person done so? What is his name? When will I be strong enough to return to my own home? Who won the battle, Lisette?’”

      Rian turned to her at that last question. “We took the day, Lisette. I know that, at least.”

      “And how do you know that? I told you the name of the battle in which you were wounded, but I have a great memory for all that we’ve spoken of, you and I, and we have never really spoken of the battle. You never told me what you did there, or even asked who won the day.”

      God, she could drive a man to distraction. Pushing at him, always pushing, pushing.

      He frowned, trying to remember how he knew they’d won the battle. But thinking too deeply was beyond him, and caring to think was a nebulous thing, something he felt he should be able to master, but a desire that always seemed somehow just beyond his grasp for more than a few moments. “I don’t know. But we won that day, just as we won the war. You told me we won the war, so it stands to reason we won such an important battle.”

      “So many thoughts strung together. Very good, Rian. I had begun to think that feat beyond you. But are you correct? Or I have lied about everything, and you could be a prisoner of war, Rian Becket. Perhaps we have cared for you, plumped you up like a Christmas goose, in order to ransom you back to your family. War has made France desperately poor, and we needs must find money any way we can. Your uniform bespoke of the officer, and officers are often beloved sons of rich families,” Lisette pointed out, holding out the small silver tray on which sat a tumbler filled with a liquid that smelled of cloves but, he knew, tasted of filthy socks. “Perhaps I am in fact your gaoler.”

      “No, not my gaoler. Just my tormentor, always trying to confuse me.”

      “No, Rian Becket. Not confuse. Wake you up. Make you angry. Make you do something.”

      “There’s nothing I want to do, Lisette, except perhaps to kiss you. It’s the most pleasant way I can think of to shut you up.” Rian looked at her, looked at the tumbler, and said, “And I don’t want that, thank you. I’ve had enough of your potions.”

      “Oh, please, Rian, not this same argument again. The draught is necessary. Do you want the fever to return?”

      “You could drive a man to another sort of drink, you know.” He hadn’t drunk the medicine yesterday. She’d left it with him and gone to answer a summons from one of the other maids, and he’d poured it into the ground. But today she was standing here, staring at him, and he saw no escape. He looked at the tumbler again, and then grabbed it up and tossed the vile liquid to the back of his throat, so he wouldn’t have to taste it. “There? Have I pleased my gaoler now?”

      “What a good little soldier.”

      Rian felt an unexpected stab of what had to be homesickness. “What did you say?”

      “Excuse me? What did I say about what, Rian Becket?”

      “Never mind. You just reminded me of someone for a moment.”

      “And who would this be? A lady love?”

      Rian smiled, shook his head. “A female, yes, but no, not a lady love. A pest.”

      “Ah, then we will dispense with your memory of her.” Lisette took the empty glass from him and placed it and the tray on the grass. “Walk with me, Rian. We won’t have many more days this warm