LITMIR.BIZ

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was the ugly world he knew, she’d only known the sanctuary of her father’s property.

      “Ellen, wait here,” he commanded when she was seated in the parlour. But he did not then walk away; he squatted down and rubbed her gloved hands as he held them together, as if warming them. Then he said more gently. “I will be back in a while, as soon as I can.”

      She nodded.

      He had not returned when her warm chocolate arrived. She sat in silence, sipping it – drowning. How would she cope on the edge of a battlefield? Paul was not who she’d thought he was, the man who overflowed with vibrancy, who smiled and laughed easily.

      She had neither taken her bonnet nor her cloak off, and the fire in the hearth blazed, but she was cold.

      When Paul arrived an hour later – an hour which she’d endured in the form of a statue, sitting in the chair staring at the cup of chocolate gripped in her hands.

      He shut the door behind him; the action sent her nerves reeling. She was unused to being in a room alone with a man, and yet they’d spent days confined in the carriage. But now she knew she’d spent those days with a man who could kill brutally and close his heart off to it.

      An expression of pain passed across his face as she looked up, he’d seen her flinch.

      He no longer wore his blood stained clothes and he’d put on his greatcoat.

      “Have I made you dislike me?” The words held anguish. He looked younger. His age. “I am sorry, you–”

      She stood, setting her cup down.

      How could she balance the man she loved against the soldier who could kill? There was a lethal warrior living inside the gentle man she’d met in a drawing room.

      He was not gentle.

      But she did not dislike him. Her heart loved him. She’d known he was a soldier, she’d just not understood what that meant. Now she was terrified of the choice she’d made.

      She went to him, sobbing, and her arms embraced his midriff; doing what she’d longed to do for an hour – hold him and cry – and pretend that what had happened, hadn’t happened.

      His hand slid her bonnet back so it hung from her neck, then he kissed her cheek and her forehead, holding her. “I’ve spoken to the magistrate. The villain was known here. There will be no prosecution against me, and the driver who is injured is being replaced. The injured man will stay here until he is well enough to travel back. I have given him money for his lodgings.”

      Ellen nodded against his chest, not knowing what else to do.

      His palm lay on her hair, a gentle weight of reassurance.

      How could he touch her with such gentleness yet do what he’d just done?

      “You’ve had a taste of death tonight, Ellen. Has it made you wish to turn back? I will take you back if it’s changed your mind.”

       Had it changed her mind?

      She could not remain with her family if she’d stayed at home. Her father would force her into marriage with another man, and what then? She would have to endure ugliness anyway, perhaps ugliness worse than the death of a thief who chose to kill or be killed.

       But Paul had killed a man…

      She pulled away, although her hands still gripped Paul’s greatcoat either side of his waist in fists. “Was killing him the only way?” Maybe she showed her naivety by asking. But she was a little afraid of him.

      His eyes studied her in the flickering orange light of the tallow candles which burned in the room. “Not the only way, no. I could have brought him down from his horse and shot him in the shoulder or the arm. But it is my instinct, Ellen. In battle, a soldier cannot risk simply wounding a man. Otherwise, as you fight on, a dozen men could be aiming a pistol at your back and…. you were in the carriage… and I did not know if there were more men in the woods.”

      She could not judge the colour of his eyes in the candlelight, but she could see regret and pain. He had killed, but he did not wish to kill. He was not a murderer. Sorrow caught in his gaze, as if ghosts walked about him.

      She pressed herself against him, holding him. This time it was not to receive comfort but to give it.

      “Ellen?” His hand ran over her hair. “Do you want me to take you back?”

      “No.” She did not want to go back, but she did not know how to go forward.

      ~

      Ellen’s answer was warmth seeping through the clothing covering his chest, into his heart. It would have hurt to let her go. But he would have done it, if she’d wished it. Thank God, she did not. He’d promised himself barely hours ago to protect her from the brutality of this world, and he’d not even reached Gretna before he’d failed. “You are strong, Ellen. You are going to have to face unpleasant things if you follow the drum with me. But you will survive.”

      She sobbed and more tears dampened his collar in answer. He held her tighter for a moment. But then he set her away. If her father was behind them, they’d lost hours… “We need to leave, Ellen. Are you ready?”

      Her gaze met his, flooded with the uncertainty he’d dispelled before this incident. She was brave and strong, and she loved him, he knew it, but he could see she was also a little afraid of him now.

      A sigh left his throat. He could do nothing. He had been trained to kill, and he had killed. He was a soldier; it was his instinct to fight and protect.

      He pushed his thoughts aside, along with the memories of dead, dying and wounded men. They had to reach the border before her father reached them. If he’d followed.

      Within a quarter hour they were in the carriage with freshly heated bricks, his weapons tucked away once more, and blankets piled over them as the temperature had dropped still further. The next stop would be Penrith. They were nearly there… nearly.

      Ellen pressed against him, seeking comfort, her arms about his midriff, but her body felt stiff and her fingers trembled a little, implying her shock had not really ebbed.

      Neither had his.

      She went to sleep, her head resting against his chest. He laid his arm over her shoulders, and took comfort in her beauty.

      As she slept, he could not. The call of battle still raged in his blood. There had never been any real danger, he was by a mile more experienced in a fight than the highwayman, but a murderous desire had swept over him; the same which captured him on a battlefield.

      Kill or be killed.

      Ellen was right; he was skilled enough to have maimed the man and no more. But the thought of her in danger… God, he could not bear it. He had not stopped for one moment to consider doing anything less than kill. Visions of battlefields, of corpses, and men’s eyes clouding with death before they fell, had played through his head, but his heart had only felt Ellen and nothing of the bitter world he fought in.

      He’d fought for her, to keep her safe, to get to her, to return to the beauty he’d found and forget death.

      What was his intent for the future then?

      To keep her safe he would have to march across enemy lines and slay every man.

      A throaty sound of self-deprecation erupted from his chest. Bloody hell. It was what he wished to do, but he would end up dead from such stupid ideas, and that would hardly protect her, and what was the point of her companionship and comfort if he was dead?

      He looked out the window, his gaze scanning the passing treeline. He’d left the lantern smothered, and the curtain open, so he might look out for any risk of attack, merely to ease his battle ready nerves. But now what he saw was snow. Ahh. Damn. Why tonight? Why could it not have waited one more day?

      As the carriage rolled on at its hard pace, bouncing over the frozen

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