Chapter Eight

D arkness swarmed around her, suffocating and heavy. It crawled down her throat, choking her scream. It swathed her whole body, dragging her toward insanity. Not the dark. Please, not the dark. Her hands covered her eyes as if she could block out the darkness that way, and she crouched on the ground.

She whimpered, stuffing a fist to her mouth. She had to be quiet. Even though she distantly knew it was over, she didn’t have to be quiet anymore; she wasn’t there. But it was instinct now, as ingrained as breathing.

Warm hands grabbed her wrists. A strong body encircled her. “Blanche, please. Blanche.”

She bit down hard on her knuckles, embracing the pain. It would break through her fear and ground her into this reality. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might leap from her chest, and her head spun. She tried to breathe slowly, carefully, but the whimpers came too hard and breath came as a shaky, stuttering sob.

“Dear Blanche, you’re safe. I have you.” Warm whispers against her ears reminded her she wasn’t alone.

I’m not in the cupboard. I’m not a student. I’m on a train in York with Dennis. She took a deep breath and held it, fighting to control herself. Her knuckles burned.

Dennis shifted in the darkness until he crouched in front of her. His hands cupped her face. “Darling, whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real anymore. It’s over.” He pressed his forehead to hers.

Blanche pulled her fist from her mouth to grab Dennis’s shirt collar.

One hand left her face to stroke soothing circles on her back. “Are you here with me?”

Blanche clutched him with both hands and nodded, falling into his chest. She still couldn’t breathe. Her body wouldn’t obey her. “I–I–I can’t,” she got out between gasps. “I can’t—”

But he seemed to understand. The hand on her face slipped downward until it covered her heart. The heat of his palm seared her skin, and she latched onto the sensation.

“Breathe with me,” he murmured, somehow firm and gentle at the same time. He took a deep, exaggerated breath. His chest expanded under her hands. It took effort and several moments, but eventually her breathing slowed. Her body still shook.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed.” He slipped one arm under her bottom and lifted, standing in one motion.

How strong , Blanche thought distantly.

He lay her down in the soft bed, then dragged the rumpled covers up over her. The cool linen chilled her bare legs, slightly better than the frigid air around them.

“Stay,” she whispered.

He hesitated for one heartbeat, then climbed in beside her. After arranging the covers, he wrapped an arm around her and tugged her flush against him, until her nose bumped his collarbone.

She shivered at the heat of his body, keeping her eyes shut. She wriggled her toes. How could she get even closer? She could lift her leg and wrap it around his hip. No, she wasn’t that bold. Blanche smelled his unique scent. Was this marriage? She’d imagined doing this with Tobias, but he hadn’t seemed like the cuddling type.

Dennis stroked her back in firm, sure strokes all the way from her bottom to her neck. Slowly, she relaxed into his touch. Eventually her shivering eased, and she turned into gooey toffee from his attentions.

“So,” Dennis’s voice sounded deeper. “I take it you do not care for the dark?”

Blanche snorted at the understatement.

He waited patiently, his hand never slowing on her back.

“I went to a strict girls’ school,” she said. “The first school, the one my parents chose, was quite lovely. But then Uncle Alan came to visit and decided it was too lax in its moral instruction. He transferred me to Miss Meriweather’s School for Demure and Gentle Young Ladies. It certainly produced demure ladies, for it seemed its sole purpose was to break us down into husks of who we were.”

Dennis breathed into her hair. Had anything ever felt so intimate?

“I grew my hair out there, for they didn’t allow us to cut it. The uniforms were rough-spun wool and they instructed more about the Bible and deportment rather than literature and watercolors. They had so many rules. When we could speak, when we could bathe, when we could take walks, when we could lift a spoon at mealtimes, when we could fall ill, when we could smile. And we always, always had to smile. So they could see holy joy shining from our countenance. ‘A sweet and pleasing countenance brings glory to the Lord,’ they claimed. So we smiled when we ate moldy bread. When we woke with frost on our blankets because they demanded fresh air and wouldn’t splurge on coal.” Her heart twisted, thinking of the four years she’d spent in that hellhole.

“They sound like monsters,” Dennis said with such calm malevolence she shuddered.

“They even made us smile while they rapped our hands with a switch.” She clenched her hands in memory. “But the worst was the cellar.”

“They locked you in?” Dennis growled.

Blanche had never told anyone this, save her uncle. Either people already knew, such as the poor girls trapped at the school with her, or they wouldn’t care. Like Tobias, she realized now. But Dennis was different. “Yes, for several hours at a time. There was a coal bin, metal and large enough for a grown man to sit in it. They would lock us in whenever we’d disobeyed them too much.”

“What small, mean people, to take out their self-misery on children in their care,” Dennis spat.

No one had defended her in years and years. A soft feeling blossomed in her chest, something akin to hope. “I was locked in a few times. Once they forgot about me, and I stayed for nearly two days. I’ve never been able to be in total blackness again.” She bit her lip. Would he think her weak? Not worth his comfort?

Dennis wrapped her in a tight embrace, so tight she couldn’t breathe for a heartbeat. “I’m so glad you’re free of that place,” he whispered, and kissed her temple.

Heat unfurled through her whole body at the kiss. She felt it down to her toes. I’m afraid I’m falling in love with him.

“I understand bad memories,” he said haltingly. “I have a few of my own.”

Blanche reached up and rubbed her forefinger against the scab on his lip. “Something with this?”

“No,” he sighed. “At least, not directly. That was a pub fight on Christmas Eve. They were former officers, like me. Toadying fools, more like. They spouted some nonsense about the glory of blood sacrifice in the war, about how the Light Brigade should be honored above all others for their valiant sacrifice. Then they praised General Raglan.” He sighed.

Blanche waited. Everyone had heard of the charge of the Light Brigade, the cavalry force mistakenly ordered directly into enemy fire and nearly wiped out by Russian artillery that surrounded them on three sides. That was not war, as a French general declared, but madness. The French cavalry helped them retreat, the only reason any of the Light Brigade survived.

“It was not a valiant sacrifice. It was a fucking waste.” His voice came harsh, his breath hot against her forehead.

Blanche didn’t react to his language. She knew a hurting person when she heard one. “Did you fight at that battle?” she whispered.

He shook his head, his rough jaw scraping against her forehead. “But it’s a good example of the whole war. I’ve never seen something so mismanaged in my life. The men I served with were the bravest men I knew. Our battalion’s leader, Colonel Yea, is probably the only reason any of us survived the hurricanes and winter. That horrible winter, where more of us died of disease than battle, when we ate our draught horses and carried our dead because we didn’t have wagons, when we dug trenches in frozen mud to hide from the wind, not enemy fire.” His tone turned bitter. “Newspapers have written at length about the conditions of the hospital in Scutari, because Florence Nightingale made public the incompetence of the officers there. But at least they had huts. On the frontlines we had nothing. But the 7th Royal Fusiliers were the first to have huts and supplies in the spring, thanks to his persistence. We owe Colonel Yea our lives.”

“I’m glad you survived,” Blanche managed.

“I almost didn’t. I caught influenza in February. Thank God it was influenza and not cholera. My captain planned to ship me back to Scutari to be treated at the hospital, and I begged him to let me stay at the front. Going to Scutari Hospital was a death sentence.”

Blanche laid a hand on his cheek, wishing she could take away his pain. How could someone survive something so awful and remain unchanged?

“Because the horses froze to death and Supply hadn’t given us enough wagons, we had to march twelve miles to Balaklava to pick up whatever supplies we could carry on our backs, then return to camp. I passed out on a walk to camp, and that’s how my captain realized I was ill.”

“How did you survive?”

Dennis kept silent for a moment. “A Jamaican named Mary Seacole had set up a sort of hotel near the front. She and a French chef served hot food when they had it. And she would travel to the frontlines, even during a battle, to dispense medicine. She saved me. My captain left me at the hotel. I slept in a corner of the kitchen with two other men, and she cared for me.”

Relief came so sudden and strong it brought tears to Blanche’s eyes. “An angel.”

“Yes,” Dennis agreed simply. After a long moment, he admitted, “People assume my worst fears are memories of battle. But not for me. At least in battle you’re moving, you feel some small measure of control. Cholera and fever are worse. They’re invisible, silent, and killed more soldiers than battle. Lying there, waiting to die, listening to the death rattle begin in your neighbor’s throat…that’s what my nightmares are of. So you see, I’m not a hero. I’m just some poor bastard who missed his bullet.”

Blanche wrapped her arms around him as best she could, tightening her grip. “I don’t believe that. You’re more than that.”

“I’m not a good man, Blanche. I stood up there and received medals and a knighthood and all I wanted to do was run from the stage. All the good men died in the war. It killed the kind, the gentle, the brave, the courageous. Only cowards and murderers survived. So which am I?”

“No.” The word tore out of her throat. “No. You’re not a murderer or a coward. How did you earn your Victoria Cross?”

She could practically hear him roll his eyes. “I just did what plenty of other men would do. After the Russian surrender we stayed to ensure an end of violence. Our battalion camped near an old mill where we stored all our explosives. One day something exploded a few hundred yards away. I still don’t know what it was, but it killed two of our men. The mill roof was made of wooden shingles, which caught fire.”

“If the mill caught fire, everything would explode,” Blanche murmured in understanding.

He nodded, his chin bumping into her forehead. “It would have killed all of us. I jumped up and ran for the mill. I tore off my coat and began beating out the sparks. Several men joined me, and I shouted at others to begin clearing the area, warning the companies beyond us of the fire. We saved the ammunition, thank God. No one else died that day.”

“You are no coward,” Blanche told him fervently. “And your conduct toward me this day, even when you could rightfully despise me, shows me you don’t have the heart of a murderer either.”

Dennis sighed. “The whole war was a grand display of the absolute bravery of the British army and the utter incompetence of its leaders. I sold out as soon as I returned home.”

“You went in as a second lieutenant,” Blanche said. “And left a first lieutenant?”

“As second lieutenant I commanded a section of ten men. When my first lieutenant perished at Inkerman, I was promoted and suddenly in charge of a platoon of fifty.” He paused. “Good riddance to the army officers. I was glad to have the five hundred pounds for commission returned to me. I’m going to invest it.”

He would be a very wealthy, very respected man one day, Blanche knew. With a knighthood due to war bravery, every social door would be open to him. After everything he’d gone through, he deserved it. If her uncle didn’t kill him at dawn.

“I heard there’s an inquiry into the practice of purchasing commission,” she mentioned. Another thing she’d learned from her uncle’s forbidden newspapers. “To investigate if purchasing officer command over soldiers contributed to the disorganization of Crimea.” She paused, thinking over what he had shared. “The newspapers report Florence Nightingale has scarcely left her home since returning from the war. If she is so altered after being a nurse in army hospitals, I think you’re more than allowed time to wrestle with the war. I think you’ve survived something terrible. And I think you’re the most courageous person I've met.”

Dennis didn’t speak for a moment. Blanche desperately wished she could see his face. Was he angry at her presumption? Embarrassed?

“It’s easy to talk to you,” he said finally. “My family loves me so much that I cannot show them how broken I am. I cannot bear to disappoint them or to worry my mother even more. She thinks since I came home, it’s all over and we can continue as we were before. No one understands I brought the war home with me. Thank you.”

Blanche’s eyes watered, and she nuzzled deeper against him.

“Enough of me.” Dennis stroked her head. “What will you do tomorrow?”

Blanche inwardly winced. “You mean after my uncle attempts to kill you because you refuse to marry me?”

“Because I refuse to force you by my side.”

Maybe I wish you would. Blanche pushed the thought away. He didn’t want to be forced into marrying her . “You should find someone better than me,” she whispered. “Someone worthy to be your wife.” Worthy of your love.

Dennis’s hand stilled on her head. He slid it down until he held her chin between his thumb and curled forefinger. “You are right and true and good and worthy. Right now. Right here. All on your own. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise, especially your uncle.”

Blanche’s heart ached. “I’ll believe I’m worthy when you believe you’re good.”

His chest rumbled with laughter. “Very well.”

“How close is dawn, do you think?” Blanche asked.

“I neither know nor care,” Dennis replied. “I have a beautiful woman in my arms and that’s what I’m focusing on.”