Chapter Twenty

A quick succession of knocks sounded at the closed door of Stanley’s room. “One moment,” he called out, pulling himself to his feet. He was getting better at rising.

He crossed to the door, relying less on his walking stick than he once had. He wasn’t sure whom he expected to see on the other side, but Philip’s valet was certainly not on his list of possibilities.

Wilson stood quite still, perfectly silent, and entirely on his dignity. Stanley solved the mystery of Wilson’s presence the instant he saw the battered black rod he held in his right hand.

“Ah, lud.” Stanley slammed the door shut, as he knew he was expected to do. He was a grown man, for heaven’s sake. He hadn’t had to undertake this ritual in years.

Right on cue, Wilson administered three solid blows against the door with, if he was doing the thing properly, the black rod. Whose idea had this been originally, anyway? It was not only absurd, but it probably also bordered on treason. A person simply didn’t mock the Crown and Parliament.

Stanley shook his head and opened the door once more.

Wilson cleared his throat. “Captain Jonquil, you are hereby commanded to remove immediately to the House of Peers.”

It was a horrifically flawed recitation of Black Rod’s summons to the House of Commons at the State Opening of Parliament. Philip had first fashioned the altered version of that very traditional passage before Stanley could even remember. Layton had whittled the rod. Jason had pointed out that it absolutely had to be black.

Why in the world were they still doing this? They were no longer boys to be entertained by such things.

Wilson handed the rod over to Stanley before bowing and walking away. If they had undertaken the exact ceremony, Stanley would have followed Philip’s valet with all the casual disinterest he could muster to the gatehouse, which had served as the House of Lords in the Jonquil parliament for decades. The House of Commons had been assigned the boathouse. Jason had always found that insulting; the boathouse was small and drafty but had been required to accommodate all the brothers except for Philip and Layton; they had claimed the rights of Peers, being heirs to the Lampton titles and the Farland title, respectively. Whichever servant was talked into playing the role of Black Rod was instructed to hand the rod over to the brother he summoned last.

Stanley shook his head but couldn’t help a bit of a smile. They had rather enjoyed their overly complicated approach to calling one another to a council or discussion away from the ears and eyes of their parents. Again, if they had possessed the slightest desire to be accurate, their parents would have been present, playing the roles of monarch and consort. The brothers had been adamant about overlooking that particular technicality.

Stanley made his way across the grounds. Had he chosen to walk, he would certainly have managed the unhurried swagger expected of those representing Commons when adhering to the summons to appear in the Upper House. He, however, did not think falling on one’s face was part of the ceremony and, therefore, chose to make his way to the gatehouse on horseback.

The door had been left open in anticipation of his arrival.

“This is so ridiculous,” he said to himself, and yet, he was enjoying himself.

He dismounted, pleased that he could do so without feeling quite so certain he would stumble in the undertaking and, wrapping his horse’s reins around a nearby branch, stepped inside the cozy gatehouse. Any similarity to the true opening of Parliament ended at that point in the ceremony. There would be no separation of houses, no formality, no pomp. Stanley dropped into an unoccupied chair and watched Philip and Layton lounging quite at their ease in chairs of their own.

Stanley tossed the black rod onto a bench pushed up against the wall nearest the door. The stick was kept in the gatehouse unless being used for a summons.

“Marjie says you’ve heard from Horse Guards.” Philip spoke with a casual air, but both he and Layton watched Stanley intently.

Stanley nodded.

“Were you planning to mention this to any of us before you were recalled to your regiment?” Philip asked. “Or were we simply to wonder one evening why none of us had seen you about for a while?”

“As if anything could be kept a secret around here.” Stanley meant the reply to be cheeky, but he felt the near desperation that accompanied the declaration. He was attempting to keep a great many secrets, and they weighed more on him every day.

“How many secrets do you have, Stanley?” Layton possessed an uncanny ability to seemingly read thoughts. He had done so often when they were all children.

“Not nearly as many secrets as I’d like,” Stanley muttered.

Philip’s mouth pulled into a frustrated line. “How is it that I nursed you for weeks last year and you never thought to tell me the true nature of your injury?”

Last year? “I was injured at Orthez,” Stanley said. “You knew as much.”

“But there is more to the story than that, isn’t there?”

Stanley resisted the urge to squirm. They were tiptoeing too close to the line. “Men are injured in battle all the time.”

“Cut line, Stanley.” It was almost a sigh put to words. Philip rubbed his face with both his palms, a mannerism that had once belonged to their father. Stanley looked away, the pang of loss too acute in that moment. “There is a vast difference between the dangers inherent in a battle and the almost guaranteed death of a forlorn hope.”

“Pluck told you.” Stanley was going to absolutely strangle him.

Philip shook his head. “Marjie.”

“Marjie? How did—? I didn’t tell—”

“Anyone,” Philip finished.

Layton took over the inquisition. “Why would you volunteer for such a thing? Did you wish for a captaincy so much?”

Stanley slumped in his chair. This was why he never told anyone. They always wanted to talk about it, to hash out the details and motivations and outcomes. He preferred to forget the entire thing. “I didn’t do it for the promotion.” Career advancement had been the last thing on his mind.

“Was your income from the estate insufficient?” Layton’s voice asked one question, but his eyes were digging for something else entirely.

Stanley shifted his gaze to the crackling fire in the fireplace. There were no secrets in their family—it was frustrating as the devil.

“A person doesn’t risk death for money,” Stanley said quietly.

“Were you trying to prove something, then?” Philip didn’t keep his voice as calm as Layton’s, frustration encasing every word. “To be heroic and dashing?”

Stanley cleared his throat against the lump forming there. He didn’t want to think about any of this, about the desperation he’d felt leading up to Orthez. Only Waterloo had been harder than Orthez. He wanted to put it all behind him, to not allow any of it to poison him until he returned and couldn’t avoid doing so. Couldn’t they give him a few weeks’ respite?

“One would think you were trying to get yourself killed,” Philip said.

Stanley pressed his eyelids closed, tears squeezing from the corners. His lungs caught and pulled against each breath he took.

“Stanley,” Layton said quietly. “What happened?”

“It had always been just a game.” The whispered words broke as they escaped his mouth, like glass dropped against a hardwood floor. “That was all war ever was—a game we played as children by the river. We’d stage heroic battles and fight bravely, and when it was over, we all got up and walked home together.”

His entire body shook as he pushed out another breath. He could feel everything pressing free, all the thoughts and worries and pain he’d hidden inside. With his eyes closed, he could see them, the Jonquil brothers, as children. Then those laughing faces transformed to those of other boys who’d fought battles and paid with their lives.

“No one gets up in war. They lie where they fall. Everyone else marches on, looking around and wondering who isn’t going to survive the next battle. It was supposed to be simple, like the game. If one was brave and followed the battle plan, everything was fine. Just a game where no one died and no one got hurt and . . .” He dropped his head into his upturned hands, leaning forward in his chair. He couldn’t push back the memories and the pain.

“But it wasn’t like that at all. Three hundred sixty-one.” The number was tattooed in Stanley’s memory. “That’s how many people I knew, knew personally, who died between the time I reached the Continent and the Battle of Orthez.” Too many faces swam through his mind. “They weren’t even all soldiers.” Tears coursed more quickly down his face, some pooling in his hands. “There were women and families who followed the drum, marched alongside us with their husbands and fathers, and they didn’t always survive. They weren’t even there to fight, and they died.” He lifted his head, but his eyes couldn’t focus enough to see anything but the fuzzy light of the fire. “There were thousands of others—people we passed in the villages—who were starving to death, casualties of a war they didn’t ask for and couldn’t end, conquered people who were desperate. I helped carry soldiers off the battlefields only to have them die before I could get them help. Some were so mangled and ripped apart that we couldn’t even tell who they were.

“I can still see every one of them, a constant stream of faces. There are days when I close my eyes and the faces won’t go away. And mixed in with all the rest are the men I—” Killed. But he couldn’t say it out loud. “I couldn’t bear it anymore.”

The silence between them dragged out. He tried to stop the memories but couldn’t hold back the onslaught.

Layton didn’t let the subject rest. “And the forlorn hope?”

Stanley felt himself droop further. “I just wanted to go home.”

“Were you that desperate?” Layton asked. “You would only be sent home if you were horribly injured, but you were far, far more likely to be killed.”

“Either way, I would have been done.” The words were barely audible, and Stanley wasn’t entirely certain either of his brothers had actually heard him.

Philip stood, crossed the room, and sat in the chair nearest Stanley’s. “If things were so bad, why didn’t you tell me? We could have arranged for you to sell your commission.”

Stanley shook his head.

“Why not?” Layton asked. “If you dislike the army so much—”

“I gave my word,” Stanley said. “My solemn oath to the army and the Crown that I would serve. There was no predetermined allotment of time. It wasn’t a promise to be loyal and fight for the Kingdom only until I no longer enjoyed the work or it became inconvenient. It was a commitment. A gentleman does not break his word.”

“The buying and selling of commissions is part and parcel of the armed services,” Philip said.

“Which is part of the reason so many incompetent officers botched so many things.” Stanley shook his head. He’d seen what happened when men tossed aside their promise to serve and left holes in command. Inexperience became the ruling force in the engagements that followed. Lives had been lost that would not have been. “I do not hold my honor so cheaply.”

“But to be willing to die—”

“Everyone who fights a war must be willing to die.” Stanley could hear his sudden sharpness. He would get up and pace if he weren’t absolutely certain he’d topple over.

Philip sighed rather loudly and with noticeable heaviness. Stanley kept his gaze focused on the fire.

“Would you never consider selling your commission?” Layton asked.

“So long as they need me and I am able, I will go where I am sent.” Could they hear the resignation he felt?

“Are you fit enough to return?” Philip asked.

Stanley nodded slowly. “Since W”—he cleared his throat and forced the dreaded word—“Waterloo, I’ve done more organizing than fighting.”

“That should be easier to endure.” Layton sounded reluctantly optimistic.

Stanley very nearly snorted out loud. “Certainly. I still get to decide who marches to their death; I simply don’t have to watch them do it. Won’t that be so much better?”

“There should be fewer deaths now that the war is over,” Philip said.

“Fewer deaths.” Stanley sneered at the coldness of that phrase. “Only in the army would fewer deaths be such an improvement. Would you feel better if someone told you after an epidemic had decimated your family that you ought to put your mind at ease because there should be fewer deaths in the future?” He shook his head again and again.

“Did you never find any satisfaction from your service?” Philip sounded nearly as weary as Stanley felt.

“I know it is what Father always said I would be good at, so, in that sense, I suppose there is some satisfaction. But I do wonder why he thought I would excel at killing people and watching half-grown boys die.” Boys like Pluck, a frightened face behind a wall of flames. In that moment, he had looked closer to seven than seventeen.

“Father knew you were happiest when you were helping people,” Philip said. “He thought you might find the opportunity to do that in the army.”

“Help people?” Every muscle quivered with the growing tension seizing through him. “I have shot men dead. Tell me, Philip, how much did I help them?” Stanley glared at his eldest brother, daring him to turn those years of survival into something noble. Philip paled. Perhaps reality had finally penetrated. “I chose which of my men were at the front of a battle charge, knowing those on the front lines were the least likely to survive. I sent boys and men with families out to their deaths. How did I help them? Tens of thousands of men died at Waterloo. What good did my fighting do any of them?”

“The victory at Waterloo saved us all from another dozen years of war,” Philip said. “Everyone who fought there did good. Everyone. For the first time in the history of the Kingdom, the Crown is awarding a medal to every one of our soldiers who fought in that battle.”

Stanley’s hackles instantly rose. “A medal?”

“As a means of expressing the gratitude of the entire Kingdom.”

“It is essentially saying, ‘Here’s a hunk of metal with Prinny’s ugly phiz stamped on it. Thank you for spending five years of your life having your soul ripped to shreds. We’re ever so grateful.’ I don’t want it.”

“I don’t think the medal is intended to be equal in any way to the sacrifices made,” Layton said. He always had been the brother who tried to soothe tempers. At the moment, it was decidedly annoying. “It is simply an acknowledgment.”

“I don’t want it.” Stanley pronounced each word with tremendous precision.

“Then what do you want, Stanley?” Philip was not the peacemaker Layton was. “You don’t want to sell out. You don’t want to be in the army. You don’t want the medal you earned. What do you want?”

Too many things he would never have.

“When I accept your medal from the Prince Regent on your behalf, since you obviously will not be doing so yourself, what would you like me to tell him you want instead?”

Philip’s sarcasm was the final push that sent Stanley past his usual barrier of self-protection. “Tell him I want my leg back.”