Chapter Two

She did not return the next day. Or the next. David had promised her he would try to move his toes, but he found he could not bring himself to put forth the effort. He would spend hours convincing himself she did not return because he was a monster because she was afraid of him. Somehow, the power in his life had swung off its access. In London, he had never had to seek out female companionship. It was only in the past year or two that he had begun to feel something missing, this void that led him to run off to war and purchase himself a commission in a haze of idealism and gallantry. And now, here he was, desperately waiting for one woman to whom he was only one of many wounded men. He sighed. Mayhap this would be good for him, humble him. He needed to make sense of everything that had happened. Here he was, alive when so many had died needlessly. He had to find some good, something to walk away with. Because if he couldn't, what had it all been for?

The doctor gave him more laudanum for the pain, and he felt that yearning to find something good begin to slip away. That night, he thought, if only I could take just a little more. Or he could ask the angel.

She came back on the third day. The screens were up again, and the sky was dark, so he could not tell what time of day it was. His joy at her appearance quickly gave way to an inexplicable anger. He looked away when she entered.

"I brought the book."

"I thought you were coming ages ago." He had barely used his own voice in days, and it came out in a harsh whisper. He realized he hated the sound of his voice.

"I'm sorry, I was delayed. There was an outbreak of cholera, so Mrs. Raeburn and I went around the camps to help. She knows how to treat cholera better than almost anyone here."

He knew he had no right to be angry, no claim to her, but he couldn't control the melancholy that was swallowing him, that made him discontented when he had only ever been even-tempered before. He saw she had a satchel with her this time. It looked to him to be filled with bottles.

"Do you have any laudanum?"

"Laudanum? But I spoke with the doctor…you have had enough already."

He still looked away. "Well, yes, but I could always use some more."

"You need to take only what is given to you. If you take too much, it could kill you." He was still looking away, but he could hear strength and conviction in her tone, even through her heavy accent.

"Would that be so bad?" He despised the note of self-pity in his voice, but there it was.

"Yes! Will you look at me, David?" It was the first time she had ever used his Christian name. The shock of it alone made him turn toward her slowly.

"Do you have any family?" she asked him, her gaze not leaving his. He had thought them warm before, but now they gleamed molten. He nodded, fixated on her glowing irises.

"Yes, my sister and my aunt."

"Do you love them?" He thought of his little sister, Irene, and how much she looked like his mother, how her face lit up as she played the piano. His aunt Sophie, brave and funny, unwilling to suffer fools. He nodded again. Elena knelt to look at him, eyes at his level.

"I would kill to have my family back. I am no soldier, and I do not say that lightly. Your family, you would be leaving them alone in this life. This world…you men have it set up so you leave your women unprotected. The things we must do to survive." She shuddered, her golden-brown eyes losing some of their luster. "Yes, we suffer, and horrible things happen." She appeared to touch her scar inadvertently. "But we must think of the other people who depend on us. We must think of ourselves that we deserve to survive. So yes, it would be so bad."

He had never heard her speak like this, and he couldn't tear his gaze away from her face. It was the most she had ever spoken to him at a time, and unlike before, her words did not have the usual pauses in between but came out in fiery benediction. His first reaction, anger, slowly gave way to a greater sense of awe. She straightened and sat on his bed, which she had also never done before, as if her speech had drained her of energy. He summoned his strength, reached up, and gently stroked her scar. She froze.

"How did this happen to you, Elena?" He had never used her Christian name either, but it seemed they were crossing many boundaries that day.

She was silent for a long time as she stared at her hands, then she began to speak very quietly.

"I suppose I owe you that much since I yelled at you." She sighed, still staring at her hands, spreading her fingers across her lap. He wasn't sure if she would continue when she began. "I had a match with another merchant's son in my village. It would have united both our families. I did not love him, but I would have tried to be a good wife for the sake of my family." She cleared her throat and continued. "But then I met a new man who came to my village from Russia. I thought myself in love. That finally, I was having the adventure I had always dreamed of. I forgot my duty to my family. All I could think of was him. Us. I was so selfish." Even though she spoke rather evenly, as if recounting a story that happened to someone else, she couldn't hide the bitterness in her voice. "He convinced me to run away with him. We tried to leave the day the Imperial Russian army invaded Dobruja. I see now he thought we could take shelter with the Russians, maybe go on to Moscow. I did not realize the invasion was to happen later that day. I suppose it does not matter now." She was speaking almost to herself now as if she had forgotten David was even there.

"But after a few hours, I changed my mind. I begged him that we should return to my family to receive their blessing. Whatever happened, I did not want to part with them like that, to bring them dishonor or never see them again." She added the last part quietly, and with such sadness, he felt a pang in his chest for her. He saw her tighten her hands in her lap as she brought them back together.

"But he went crazy. He said that if he couldn't have my love, he would make it so no one else would. So he pulled out a knife to carve up my face." David was both chilled by how matter-of-fact she was in her retelling of this event and enraged that this had happened to her. "If I hadn't turned my head, hadn't run…" She touched her scar again, running a finger from the top to bottom. "He almost took my eye. But I got away. I ran for hours back to my family's home to beg for forgiveness. But when I got there, they were all gone. They had fled. Or worse." Her hands in her lap turned white from how tightly she gripped them. He wanted to reach out and touch her again, but he felt like she would break apart and dissolve into the air if he did. She shuddered and paused for a moment but then went on—

"I asked around for days, but no one knew whether they were dead or alive. Most of our neighbors had fled as well. I stayed until the Russians left Dobruja, then I fled to Varna. Eventually, I made it to üsküdar, what you call Scutari, where I finally found work. Mrs. Raeburn found me as a washerwoman in üsküdar. She helped treat my wound and took me with her when she came here. I started doing what I could to help her build the hotel, to organize and run it. I translated for her to deal with merchants, builders." She stared out the muddy window in what he assumed might be the direction of the hotel, then glanced over at him. "She applied to be a nurse, you understand? But she was denied. She is not from England originally, but she didn't let that stop her. If it wasn't for her…I don't know what would have become of me. But she never let me fall into my sadness. She always gave me something to do to keep me from despair." She looked over at him, so brave and so sad. "You see, I know what it is to lose everything. It is not the same as you, no, but if I had people counting on me, people who loved me, I would give anything, anything, to get back to them." Her mouth twisted ruefully. "So, find something that keeps you safe from your sadness. For them."

He thought she might cry then, but she just bowed her head and stared at her hands again. He had never felt so humbled in his life. His self-pity and anger had slowly melted away in the presence of her honest grief and remorse, this sad, wounded angel. Warrior angel, more like, with her warm glinting eyes and her inability to give up, even in impossible odds. He couldn't believe that she had made it all the way to Balaclava. He had not considered how she had gotten here, which he realized now had been from his own selfishness and focus on his own predicament.

Before, he had felt a thread beginning to weave in his chest, but he hadn't known what it was. He now recognized the feeling, but the sudden realization crashed desperately into the despair of knowing he might never be able to act on it. To be able to express it. To know her as deeply as a man could know a woman. With that thread, she had pulled him back from the precipice, from the brink of something he might never have returned from. She seemed to snap out of her reverie, and he tried to pretend he hadn't been staring at her. She pulled out a thick book from her satchel and looked over at him with her eyebrow raised in question. He swallowed and bobbed his head in response as she opened to a page she had marked, moving gingerly off the bed.

She read to him quietly until he fell asleep. Other than her slow reading, they spoke no more that evening, both lost in their own worlds. What an old chestnu t this was, a wounded soldier falling for his nurse that he could never have. Would never have. Ah, well, she wasn't technically a nurse, and he would likely forget her when he left, but somehow, he doubted that he ever would.

The following morning, he stared at his feet until finally, after several hours, he thought he could see a slight movement. It might have been nothing, just a trick of his eye or imagination, but it kept him from despair. He could do this. He could give himself small tasks to keep going. He had to. He had promised Elena he would. He grinned internally, knowing he should be excited to tell the doctor, but her smile was the first he wanted to see.

****

At this point, David had been there well over three weeks, though Dr. Austin conveyed to him that they would soon need the bed and he would be transported shortly. The scant few possessions he had brought to war had been collected from the hut in the camps that he had previously inhabited. He had a feeling that being here was different from the main army hospitals in Scutari. From what he had read in the newspapers before he left, the army had not been ready for the medical needs of the war. While chaotic, he was grateful for the informality of the space. Otherwise, he doubted Elena would have been able to visit him.

Elena came almost every other afternoon. He felt selfish for taking her away from her work or her time for herself, but the hours he spent with her got him through long, lonely days and the nights he spent anticipating talking to her and listening to her slowly read. She always read everything carefully, as if she wanted to absorb every word and every letter. It was slow going for the story, but he enjoyed her occasional comments or insights.

"These names do not make sense to me," she muttered to herself one afternoon.

"The rest of the words are translated, but the names are mostly French," he offered.

"Some make sense. You say it how it is spelled, Es-mer-eld-a. Quas-i-mo-do." She pointed out the syllables on the page as she spoke them. "That I understand."

"And Frollo? Is that too difficult?" He couldn't quite keep the teasing out of his voice.

She gave him a look he had seen on his aunt's and sister's faces many times when he had vexed them, but it quickly passed. "Do you often read books like this? Novels?"

"I haven't had much time for stories, really." He had spent all the years since his father's death wrapped up in his dual roles of gentleman and man of business. "When I was young, I liked hero stories. When I was older, there was a Classics scholar who often met with me and my friends. We used to call ourselves the Round Table."

Elena's clear confusion at this statement almost caused him to bark out a rough laugh, but he reined it in so as not to hurt her feelings.

"It's from a story," he explained, grasping in his mind for some way to describe something that seemed like common knowledge but would not be to her. "About a long-ago king of Britain, King Arthur. They tell stories about him and the knights of the Round Table."

"They tell stories of the table?"

"No, they sat at a table. Look, the table isn't important!" he sputtered at her bemused expression.

"And yet it's what you called yourselves?" There was a mischievous glint in her eyes he didn't see very often, but he definitely wanted to see more of.

David was halfway between irritation and amusement. "They sat at the table, and they discussed important matters of the day."

"Sounds very exciting," she said, though her tone implied the opposite.

"No. Yes," he corrected, as amused as she was but trying to keep a straight face. "Yes, it was exciting. It was about justice and what was right, but also magic…it's, why is it so hard to explain?" He looked at her in frustration but could tell from the appearance of her dimples that she was close to smiling.

"I do not understand this table, though I can understand having a hero to tell stories of. But I do not like your knights so much. My father always said that the Sack of Constantinople was the beginning of the end for the Byzantine Empire."

He racked his brain for what he knew of the Crusades. "Well, I'm not sure how many Britons participated in the Fourth Crusade."

She shrugged as if it made no difference. Likely, many Western Europeans were all the same to her, much as those who lived in the Ottoman Empire were all the same to him before he went to war. He hoped he knew a little bit better now.

"And the Ottomans did not take control until four hundred years ago when the Crusaders sacked Constantinople over six hundred years ago." His good friend, Lord Michael Northam, was a human encyclopedia, so to keep up with conversations, it often benefitted David to stay abreast of his history.

"But the Crusaders still betrayed the Orthodox church, the Byzantine empire." She then shook her head as if to clear it. "But I do not suppose it matters now. The Russians are supposed to be Orthodox, but they invaded my homeland. My religion and my home are now at war. I do not know what to think." They lapsed into silence. He opened his mouth and closed it, wanting to say something profound or pithy about war, but nothing came out. It didn't matter, as she suddenly stood and spoke.

"I ought to tell you. I will be gone for a few weeks, if not longer. I will not be able to read to you anymore. I am sorry we did not finish the story." She gave him a small, sad smile. "You will likely be gone when I return."

The warmth that David felt from their playful banter withered and died in his chest.

"A few weeks? But why will you be gone?"

She took a breath and reached to her throat, which he had noticed she did rather a lot. "It seems the allied forces are launching a new offensive. We were finishing the hotel the last time when you were fighting. But now Mrs. Raeburn is going to the battlefield to tend the wounded and help bring some back here. I should be of some help there." While she still spoke with the usual pauses, as if thinking through what she was going to say, she stood tall and proud, and he was rocked again by the strength of her. Though his first impression had been soft and angelic, she had a spine and a will to survive, which he greatly admired. Even so, he had to talk her out of this. The battlefield was hell. It stank of blood and burning flesh, with the cries of the wounded ringing in your ears. Look what had happened to him, and his regiment had only arrived in the Crimea as reinforcements in the Spring. No, he must stop her at all costs. He better put his silver tongue to good use.

"Elena…you can't go. The battlefield is no place for you."

"Because I am a woman?"

"No, no, it's not that," He was going about this all wrong. "I wish I could describe it to you. It is worse than hell, Elena. You don't belong in that. Don't you see?"

She was shaking her head, about to say something else, so he cut her off.

"You can't go. I won't let you."

Her eyes flashed. "I will never let any man tell me what to do ever again."

He wanted to howl. He felt vulnerable and raw, but something within him whispered that he owed her honesty, especially if it would save her. "I didn't mean it like that, but…I care about you, Elena. You helped me come back to myself. How could I let you go off to a place worse than hell? Didn't you tell me we needed to live for other people?" As if to accentuate his point, a distant cannon went off.

Elena started at the sound, then softened a little. Her shoulders fell, and she hung her head for a moment, then looked up at him. "You don't understand. It is not the same for me. I have nothing and no one to live for anymore. I had nothing but for what Mrs. Raeburn gave me. If she goes to the battlefield, I will follow her to whatever end. I do not know what to do if she isn't here, what the hotel will be like."

He saw how she always left the hospital before dark, as it was still relatively new to have women tending to wounded men. He remembered the articles in the paper about the supposed impropriety of nurses staying among so many men overnight. David also understood what she was saying under her words: That she didn't feel completely safe at the hotel without Mrs. Raeburn's protection. But he could do that. He could give her protection. Certainty surged through him, and the rightness of it sank into his bones.

"Marry me then."

She stared at him in what he would not like to think was horror.

"What?"

"Marry me. I can protect you. I'm a peer of the realm. Well, not this realm, but a realm. Relatively recent peerage, I'm afraid, my great uncle was in the Peninsular wars, and he was awarded a barony…" He recognized he was rambling and changed tactics. Trying to explain the British peerage system would not convince her. "My mother's family was in trade, and we have done very well. You would want for nothing in your life. My sister and aunt would adore you. You could keep doing good work. In England. Away from the battlefield."

Elena kept staring. Then she shook her head. "You are delirious. That must be it. You know that I would be considered fallen, ruined. I ran from an elopement."

She put the back of her hand to his forehead. He shivered from the contact but sought to hide it by taking her hand with his.

"I am in deadly earnest. Let me do this for you. I don't care that—" He tried to snap with his fingers but did not quite have the energy or panache he had before his injury. "That you eloped. And who in my world would know such a thing anyway? For all they know, you are a beautiful foreign merchant's daughter." He saw something briefly cross her face, and realizing it was fear that he found her beautiful, he decided to change tactics again. "Look, I may never be able to be a husband to you in truth." He dropped her hand as he gestured to his legs. He knew she understood enough of his condition to hear what he was saying. She had seen many wounded and sick men. She was no sheltered innocent. "But I can give you protection. Safety. Please, Elena, my life…it's been such a waste. Let me do this one good thing for you. I will be officially invalided from the army for obvious reasons. I'm leaving shortly, and I'm sure I can pull some strings and take you with me. I plan to travel to Switzerland after I return to England to see some doctors about my condition." He had not yet articulated his plan, but after several conversations with Dr. Austin, he had been considering travel to meet with doctors in Switzerland who had been studying spinal injuries in miners. "I will likely stay there indefinitely. You could live in wealth with my aunt and my sister. You can have as much freedom as you wish. What do you say?"

She was no longer staring at him in horror, which he took as a good sign. "This is almost too much to consider. But what if you recover? What if you want a child or another wife someday?"

"If you desired it, I would grant you an annulment and make sure you were well settled. Or if we find your family, you could return to them. But if I was able to recover, and you wanted a child…maybe someday that would be agreeable to you."

He let his words hang in the air, much more a question than a statement. She seemed as if she was carefully rolling the idea about in her head. He wasn't a complete idiot. He saw how she recoiled when a man was near, as she occasionally jumped if a doctor or orderly accidentally brushed against her. He had realized several days earlier that she probably felt so comfortable in his presence because she had judged him not to be a physical threat to her. He would never press her for anything or pressure her, but if someday he could recover in body, maybe she could recover in spirit.

Finally, she nodded and looked him in the eye. "Maybe someday."

Warmth, a soft golden warmth that started from somewhere deep, seemed to suddenly spill over from his chest to his entire being. For some reason, that warmth made him feel tethered to the earth, to her. He didn't care that his face ached from smiling or that with his beard and bandage, he likely looked a fright. He didn't care one whit.

"I need to discuss this with Mrs. Raeburn."

He kept smiling. "Of course."

She gave a nervous laugh and looked away from him. "I'll return later today."

"Of course." He could feel his smile grow even bigger.

"You have to stop smiling at me like that."

He couldn't stop. "Of course."

****

When he next awoke, a new woman was standing in the sunshine. She was taller than Elena, but not by much, and she looked like she might be around fifty years old. She was also darker than Elena, her skin more a light brown than golden bronze. She wore a blue dress with an apron like Elena, though hers had a little dried blood on the corner of her sleeve. As her satchel was twice the size of Elena's, he felt he knew who this was.

"Lord Grayston." When she spoke, she had a slight lilt to her voice, likely somewhere in the Caribbean, he couldn't quite place.

"Mrs. Raeburn." He tried to stand and then remembered he could not do that.

She held up a hand to excuse him. "As no family can speak for her, I am here to represent Elena."

He made a small bow, and, with a sharp glance, she strode over to stand next to him.

He gestured as well as he could. "She said you come almost every day. You supply what the army cannot from your hotel?"

The woman softened before him. "Elena helped me, you know. She could translate and knew a little about healing from her grandmother. My mother was a healer, so I understand learning it from your elders." She paused as if uncertain if she should elaborate, then appeared to make a decision. "My mother was free, but she treated those who were enslaved on the plantations in Jamaica. Like me, she had her own hotel, too. If you can imagine, the disease there was sometimes worse than here with the heat, so I'm not unfamiliar. Thanks to my friendships with officers at that hotel, we were able to come here, as we have a decent supply of medicine, which the army--" She glanced around, then finished. "Does not always have at the ready."

David thought back to reading the scathing articles about the lack of readiness for this war in the papers, but even more, her statement made him realize how small his world had been of late. He tried to make a joke and gestured to his legs. "I haven't seen much of the world to tell lately."

"It's been better here than Scutari, I think. They are losing many to disease. Every day. As I said, I am no stranger to disease, but still." She sighed a long, heavy sigh as if the weight of the world pressed on her shoulders, then squared her jaw and looked at him. "Let's return to why I'm here."

"When I found Elena, she had nothing, no one," she began. "Thank goodness she wasn't cut to the eye, and I was able to fix what I could. I have Elena to thank for communicating with local laborers to help us. We built the hotel from almost nothing." Like Elena often did, Mrs. Raeburn looked out the window in the direction of the hotel. "She has some remarkable gifts, but…" She stopped for a moment, something he got the impression she did not do very often. She looked as if she was trying to find the right words. She turned her head sharply and looked him directly in the eye.

"Life had made her small. I will not let you make her small."

"I would never dream of making her small. I do not think she would ever let herself be made small."

"I know English society. I know how they can treat those on the outside. Those they consider inferior." A flash in her brown eyes betrayed nothing else in her tone, but he got the deep and agonizing sense she spoke from experience. He remembered Elena said that her request to be a nurse had been rejected. How extraordinary that she still came into a war and built a place of refuge. He tried to find the words.

"I seek only to protect her. I know what the battlefield is like. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, let alone the woman that I--well, one who has seen me through my worst times."

The look Mrs. Raeburn gave him was a little too knowing, but she seemed to let the moment pass.

"You will honor her terms?"

"Every one of them."

"Even if your circumstances change? Don't most aristocrats want an heir?"

He swallowed. He had been prepared for this question and knew his answer needed to be worded carefully but honestly.

"I'm not most aristocrats. I knew the risks when I went to war. If I do not have any offspring, a distant cousin will inherit the title, but my business and fortune will stay with my family. If my circumstances change I would only attempt to change my marriage if that were what Elena wished and desired. If she wanted an annulment, I would not object."

"I have your word."

"Yes, my lady."

She scoffed at the honorific. "I think behind that bandage, you may be a charmer."

He grimaced a little, remembering his old self. "Mostly a fribble." He felt his mouth twitch slightly as he recalled his earlier conversation with Elena. "I imagined myself doing something good but never actually did good." He shrugged, not knowing why he had shared so much with a stranger, then looked up at her. "Let me do this one good thing. Let me see her safe. Let my waste of a life mean something to someone of worth."

Mrs. Raeburn regarded him slowly. "So poetic," She gave a small huff and then looked up as if in thought, and he got the sense she was reasoning this with herself more than him. "I know we're not quite so formal here as in Scutari, where they would discourage a union between an officer and a nurse. But I suppose Elena is not quite a nurse. And besides, the superintendent of the nurses has been after me about her, as, according to her, Elena is a distraction." She muttered the last part more to herself, then turned back to David. "I would see her safe. She doesn't need to add the battlefield to the horrors she has seen."

She took a deep breath as if coming to a decision. "Never make her feel indebted to you. In a better world, she wouldn't have to do this."

David saw the wheels turning behind Mrs. Raeburn's eyes and started to smile.

"You give me your blessing, don't you?"

"You wipe that smirk off your face, or so help me, I will take it back." She looked much younger when she smiled, as if that weight of the world slipped from her shoulders just a little, but she turned serious again. "I will likely go back to London when this war is over, and if I am still on two feet, I will seek her out and make sure she is happy."

"I hope you do. I will see her situated, and then I want to travel. To find…" He felt foolish but didn't know how to finish his sentence.

"A cure?" she offered.

"Something like that." He grimaced. He loathed talking about his condition, as it made it a more concrete reality, but Mrs. Raeburn saw too much. She was too sharp for him to deny it.

"Well, there's nothing more to be said then. That girl. Life has taken too many of her choices away. I just want her to have something back."

"She will. I swear it." He knew he couldn't control the future or his recovery, but this was one thing he could do, one small thing he could make right.

Mrs. Raeburn regarded him, seeming to understand he was not the kind of man who would make a vow lightly and straightened. "I'll talk to her and send her in."

As if by Providence, Elena tentatively walked down the ward, then stopped and looked at Mrs. Raeburn. Something looked to pass between them as Mrs. Raeburn gave her a slight tilt of her head, and Elena threw her arms around the woman, desperately holding on.

"I don't want to leave you, but I think I have to take this chance," he heard Elena whisper.

"I'll come find you, Elena. I'll make sure you are taken care of," Mrs. Raeburn whispered back. "If I survive this war, we'll build something else. We'll have our own hospital."

"You will," Elena murmured. "You must." Elena brought her head up and noticed David watching them. "I'll let you sleep and come talk to you later this afternoon."

He smiled in agreement and looked at the ceiling. This felt like the largest hurdle, he thought, as he stared up at the makeshift ceiling and began to drift into sleep.

When he awoke, Elena was sitting by him, sewing. She was humming softly to herself. It was that same song she always sang, the song too sad to be a lullaby. He watched her while her eyes were down, her golden-brown hair glistening in the early evening sun, again braided on top of her head like a crown. Even her eyelashes, which were a deep, sooty black, reflected the gold of her hair and skin in the fading sun. The warmth he always felt when he looked at her overlapped with a feeling of great tenderness and responsibility. He might never be a real husband to her, but she would want for nothing. They would likely have no children and may never live together as man and wife, but he could do this one thing with his life and take her out of the hell of war. England might not be heaven, but there should be no cannons or explosions that could blow her to bits or break her body.

He must have moved, for she looked up guiltily. "They're dolls," she said, misunderstanding the scrutiny of his gaze. "For the children here. I used to make them for my sisters, but…" She looked slightly shame-faced, "My mother would help me with the pattern, and they looked more like dolls. These look like…"

He eyed the fabric in her lap, which more resembled a rag pile than a doll.

"Like?" He bit his lip to keep from grinning at her embarrassment.

"Well, I bet you have never made a doll before."

"No, but my sister used to make me play with her and her dolls and have tea parties."

Elena seemed to find this amusing because she spent a good minute trying to catch her breath. "My apologies, but the thought of you sitting with your sister and playing with her dolls. I cannot imagine it." After a few more chuckles, she caught her breath. She looked up at him thoughtfully.

"I am supposed to answer your question."

"Yes," he answered softly. He felt his heart pounding as if his life were on the verge of foundational change. He knew he ought to be shouting caution, but this felt right and true. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so sure about anything. She looked at her so-called doll carefully, then back up at him.

"I think, if you hold to your word, what you said to Mrs. Raeburn, then…yes. Yes." He released the breath he did not realize he had been holding. He took her hand and kissed it lightly. He saw her brief recoil at the contact, but when he glanced back again, she looked like something important had just occurred to her.

"But we are not of the same faith!"

He had his response ready. He had thought he would have to use it earlier. "Marriage amongst different denominations is tricky but not impossible. The English have been marrying Russians for centuries, and Russians are Orthodox, yes? I'm sure I can figure something out. I am a peer. After all, that must be good for something." He realized how pompous he sounded and attempted to change his tone. "We'll marry here, and I'll work out the legal and spiritual issues when we reach London."

She nodded, and her hand seemed to go unconsciously to her chest for a second. She caught herself and looked up at him, and he was struck, like he always was, by the mix of warmth and sorrow in her eyes.

"Mrs. Raeburn said I can stay with you until it gets dark. Would you like me to read to you?"

Now that he had accomplished his goal, he felt like all his energy was sapped from the events of the afternoon.

"No, I'm too tired today. Could you just sit with me? You can keep working on your, uh, dolls." He couldn't keep his mouth from twisting up as he said the last word, even though it caused him a twinge of pain. He closed his eyes and felt the tiny sting of a doll being launched at him. His smile deepened. His last conscious thought was that he hoped she got better at making "dolls" for their children, then he remembered there would be no children.