‘You will tell me of those other dreams later,’ Grace encouraged huskily. ‘Surely the nightmares are perfectly understandable when you have been a soldier? When for years—too many years, perhaps—war and blood and dying were your life?’
Lucian shook his head. ‘It is a weakness.’
‘It is a strength,’ she contradicted softly. ‘I would respect you less, like you less, if you had lived through those years without care or reaction to the destruction and death that surrounded you. It is a strength, Lucian,’ she repeated firmly, as he would have protested. ‘You are a man of strength. You are also a man of compassion. Of caring. A man who could not have lived through such things as you did without some inner scarring of your own.’ She smiled encouragingly.
‘I do not know of other men who suffer such nightmares—’
‘That is because men do not talk to each other of such things. Because they consider them to be a weakness,’ she continued pointedly. ‘It is not,’ she said again firmly. ‘You are not weak.’ She paused, moistening her lips before speaking again. ‘Lucian, I was already aware of these—dreams.’
Lucian gave her a sharp look. ‘How—? That night at the inn!’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘You saw—you have known all this time!’ His eyes glittered in the darkness. ‘I understand better now your determination not to agree to a betrothal between the two of us!’
She shook her head. ‘That was not the reason for my initial reluctance.’
‘Then it should have been!’ Dear God, all this time she had seen—had witnessed— ‘How you must despise me!’
‘Never,’ Grace assured him with feeling.
‘Grace, I killed a man!’
She shook her head. ‘I am sure that in the course of your army career you killed many men.’
‘This one I killed for the sheer pleasure of doing so,’ Lucian told her grimly. ‘The memory of that has haunted me. Made my nights a living hell. My days—! Grace, you have witnessed first-hand my need for complete emotional control.’
She had also, Grace noted with satisfaction, several times witnessed his complete loss of that control when in her company. ‘Tell me why.’
‘I have just explained—’
‘No, not that, Lucian,’ she calmed softly. ‘Tell me why you believe you killed this man.’
Lucian drew in a sharp breath, the images of that terrible day more vivid than ever. Could he tell Grace of his behaviour that day? Could he confide his savagery to her and then watch as disgust and horror appeared on her expressive face? Lucian knew he had no choice but to do so if Grace was to know all that he was; if he was not to continue to live a lie in her eyes at least.
He deliberately averted his gaze from the beauty of her face. ‘It was at Waterloo. The war with Napoleon was almost over. The whole sorry mess was almost ever. We were in a forest, following a particularly bloody skirmish, when we—’
‘We?’ Grace prompted gently.
‘My men, myself and—and another officer.’
‘It was my cousin Simon, was it not?’ she realized astutely.
Lucian’s jaw clenched. ‘I— It— Yes,’ he grated harshly. ‘He had lived through it all, Grace. Had survived every battle. And now—when it was almost over—a French cavalry officer appeared as if out of nowhere. He charged in amongst us, sword raised, swinging to left and right, uncaring if he struck his target or not, simply bent on destruction. Several of the men went down instantly. Amongst them Simon.’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘It was too much, Grace. Seeing Simon simply lying there, his eyes wide and looking sightlessly up to the sky, his gaping wound—!’ He shook his head. ‘I did not even think, Grace. I simply pulled the Frenchman from his horse and began attacking him with my own sword. In front of my men I drove my sword into him again and again, until my fury had abated.’
Grace could not pretend but to be horrified by this account. Shocked and horrified. But those emotions were not directed towards Lucian. Never towards Lucian. He had reacted instinctively, emotionally, and he had paid the price for that excess of feeling when he had returned home by cutting himself off from all emotion.