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England, Warwickshire
Lakeside Manor
Monday, January 11, 2016
Shoulders rigid, Hugh walked through the grand hall of Lakeside Manor. His echoing steps clicked on the marble floor, but sounded like war drums in his ears.
After a footman silently swung the tall wooden door open, he went down the wide, old stone steps and walked to where his mother, Martha, his brother, Richard, and Richard’s wife, Giulianna, were eating breakfast.
“Good morning.”
“Morning,” were the three answers, followed by his mother tapping her cheek for a kiss that he dutifully delivered.
“You’re late,” she said, as he sat beside her and poured a mug of coffee for himself. Then she noticed his clothes and her eyes narrowed. “Are you going somewhere?”
Hugh licked his dry lips and glanced away from her stare before saying nonchalantly, “I was summoned by General MacDonald.”
His mother’s hands stilled before she cleared her throat. “To active duty?”
Martha Smith was thin and small, with a will of steel and the generosity of a born philanthropist. It couldn’t have been otherwise for a woman who had lived her life as a daughter, wife, and mother of military men. But he knew that after Richard’s accident, she was hopeful neither of her sons would ever return to active duty.
“No, Mom, he needs me for a…private service.” He could see the relief coursing through his mother as she resumed eating her eggs.
“Hmm. What service would that be?” asked a curious Richard.
“His granddaughter needs my…help.” Hugh didn’t have to explain to them how Bradley and Bridget MacDonald had been brutally murdered by the Taliban who had invaded the general’s house, but failing to find him, beheaded the couple instead. And how Bridget was able to hide their daughter, Anneliese, in a very small secret room Hugh had helped the general build in between the walls of their house before she herself was found and killed.
More than all the blood and the beheaded corpses of the adults, Hugh, who was in the first group of soldiers who arrived at the house, still remembered the ghostly visage of the girl when he found her in the secret room and took her out of there.
“How is she?”
“According to the general, she still hasn’t recovered, really.”
Even though she was in hiding when her parents were killed, no one knew for sure if Anneliese had watched it happen or not, because she had never spoken a single word after that day.
“Poor girl. I saw her briefly four years ago at her grandmother’s funeral. She looked almost…autistic,” Martha said. “But what can you do for her?”
“The general wants to try some equine therapy,” he lied, not very comfortable about doing so but that was what they had agreed on saying to Martha. And since it was not entirely a lie, it quelled his guilty conscience. “She still hasn’t regained her voice and her doctor thinks it might do her some good.”
“I’m glad you still care about him enough to help. I’ve never understood why you two suddenly became estranged,” said Martha, finishing her tea. “You and Anneliese were good friends once.”
“I still care for her, Mom.” He blew out a long breath and looked around, his eyes stopping on the impressive Jacobean facade of Lakeside Manor, knowing he would miss his house.
Catching his mood, Richard frowned and opened his mouth, surely about to ask what was going on, but Hugh discreetly signaled for him to wait until their mother left the room.
When Richard was injured, Hugh took an extended leave of absence and watched over his brother like a Grizzly bear mother over her cubs and somehow he had discovered a new Hugh inside himself. One he liked much more than the hardened man he’d become after Nalini’s betrayal but still a far cry from the young Hugh who had left Lakeside Manor with the dream of defending his country against evildoers.
As soon as Martha rose and made her way further into the house, Richard asked, “What’s wrong?”
“The general thinks someone is trying to kill her.”
Giulianna’s breath caught and Richard’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“According to the general, Anneliese has been finding little things that remind her of the time she lived in Afghanistan. Insignificant things, except for the fact that they’re appearing out of the blue, inside their house. Like someone is sneaking in and putting them there. At first, he thought she was just trying to get his attention…” He looked away. He didn’t know if he should tell them everything, but they had always been honest with each other. “He’s not sure if she’s going crazy or if a loose end from his past is back for revenge.”
“You knew her before, right? Did she seem like she might be mentally unstable then?”
His impressions of Anneliese came easily to his mind. She had loved to talk to him and tease him, but it was only a teen infatuation which he had indulged. “Not at all. At least nothing like that ever made itself known. I remember her as being a normal nice girl, I guess. And then…after…she was shy and quiet as a mouse. Black and white.” His mouth twisted humorlessly. “Oh, yes. She’s very, very rich now.”
Giulianna’s eyebrow rose. “That’s it? Nice, quiet, and rich?”
“I scarcely know the woman she’s become. I only know that General MacDonald is concerned that her wealth might attract gold diggers and he also asked me to act as her…protector.” He thinned his lips. “I’m not even sure I want to do it.” Especially when just the thought of her makes me want to punish myself for my stupidity.
“No one can make you do anything against your will.” Giulianna frowned, not understanding why he was about to head off and do something he didn’t want to do. “So, why are you doing it?”
“I owe my life to him.” Even though he tried to keep the bitterness away, it toned down his voice. It was more than his life that he owed. His assessing gaze scanned the soft hills of Lakeside Manor land as far as the eye could see. The only reason he was sitting here, and not in prison, was because of General MacDonald. He could hold his head high only because of the general. He owed everything to the general: his honor, his pride, his life. His heart and his very soul. And the general’s cryptic words—Anneliese is in grave danger—left him with a bad premonition.
“There’s more you’re not telling us.”
Hugh shrugged.
“Don’t even bother,” Richard added when Giulianna opened her mouth, clearly intending to ask more. “Hugh could give a rock lessons in silence.”
Yes, he could. He’d kept most of Nalini’s shameful betrayal from Richard, which had created a deep wedge between them that had only been bridged by Hugh taking care of him after he lost his legs below the knee from an IED explosion.
But then Richard had kept things from him, too. Or maybe the bridge had been fixed by Giulianna. But he had been sworn to secrecy by the general.
Richard regarded Hugh gravely. “If you need something, all you have to do is call.”
“I know.”
“I mean it. We’ll take care of everything around here. It’s good that you didn’t let mother know there could be danger…but really, Hugh, take care.”
“I will.” Hugh nodded. “I’ve gotta grab my bag and head out.”
A few minutes later, as he hoisted his baggage onto his shoulder and closed his bedroom door behind him, he was struck by the sense that he was locking away the Hugh Smith he had come to know over the last several years that he had spent at Lakeside, away from war, away from military secrets.
From this moment on, he was back to being Group Captain Lakeside, the arrogant, billionaire earl who killed terrorists without blinking an eye; a man who was utterly sure of his place in the world until it had all came crashing down on him, in the form of the woman he had held in his arms and made promises of love to, betraying him—and then, him killing her.
The thought was surprisingly upsetting. He didn’t like that man.
He’d scarcely thought of Afghanistan anymore—or what had happened there. General MacDonald and seven years had helped disguise his invisible open wounds and the ugly, great scars.
And every time he remembered, he was chilled to the heart.
That was also what had made him avoid Annelise.
He feared the paralysis that crept inside him, icy cold and midnight dark, threatening to make his emotions turbulent and uncontrolled.
He feared one day looking inside himself and finding a heart of steel pumping black oil into plastic veins, he exerted so much control over those emotions, and made so much effort to avoid entering in contact with them.
Sometimes he thought the general knew more about Nalini Al-Amuli than he did. And maybe that was true, because he had never learned any of her secrets. The woman to whom he had given his body, his heart, and his soul.
The woman who had betrayed him. The woman who had made him a betrayer. And the woman he had killed in cold blood.
That was the real reason he was going to Scotland for as long as the general needed him. That was the real reason, regardless of how he felt about it.
Because he needed to know the truth about her, about their relationship.
In the end, he needed to know the truth about himself.