“Montgomery, stop the fire and let us fix the placement.”

The gunner came from a good village family and was the proud father of four. He turned and saluted but had not registered the command, as he continued and placed his match cord on the cannon’s touch hole. Reggie bellowed again, “Stop firing, squad eighteen.”

The punt burned down, and all of a sudden, the world exploded.

He yelled, “Take cover!” as he was thrown to the ground.

Screams filled the air, the coppery tang of blood hit his nostrils, and then there was nothing.

Part I

Introductions

 Chapter One

Dunvreck Castle, Shire of Ardern, Scotland, August 1810

A sharp bark of laughter shook him out of his morbid contemplation. Reggie rubbed his legs. They were noticeably thinner. Atrophy, the army physician called the change. Reggie called it hideous and embarrassing. Soon, his once-muscular legs would turn into little more than bone and skin. Heaven knew, Thomas did not stay long enough to see the horror caused by the shrapnel. No indeed, before Reggie recovered consciousness, his lover requested a transfer and was already serving in a different regiment under General Lord Wellesley in Portugal.

If not for his worthless legs, he would also be fighting battles against the French in Portugal. Proving his valor, one of many steppingstones to promotion. The prestige of field marshal, his ultimate goal, gone forever.

Damn ugly, treasonous things. He balled a hand into a fist and punched one of the traitorous limbs. His fingers ached, but the leg only tingled.

“Wait, don’t excite yourself, Reggie. My remark was not so clever as all that. No need for theatrics; you might hurt yourself.”

“Hurt myself, Nick! Really?” He snorted. Why bother worrying about that now, after so much damage already done? He leaned his head on the hated Bath chair’s back and blinked away the sting in his weary eyes. He detested the hideous three-wheeled contraption created by some degenerate in Bath so that cripples could be wheel around in a most humiliating fashion.

Nick switched back to his favorite topics, but Reggie only half attended the one-sided conversation. Most of the comments had to do with horses or the fine whisky they opened that morning. Nick could spend the rest of the day on those two topics. Sometimes Reggie thought he only talked to hear his own voice. Granted, it was a nice, clear English bass, smooth and cultured enough to lull him into a near doze, especially with all the alcohol coursing through his veins.

He’d always been healthy, a sportsman. How could his body betray him like this? Took a shot and refused to heal—

“A curricle jaunt, that is what you need. Just the thing to shake off the stiffness from yesterday’s journey in that damned post-chaise.”

So true. He winced, remembering the excruciating trip to the castle.

“You made the right decision about the ship, and then the ferry. Much more comfortable way to travel, but are you ever going to tell me why you were in such a bloody hurry that we had to rent the post-chaise and travel at night?”

Against everyone’s best advice, Reggie had insisted on finishing his journey as soon as their ferry docked. He soon realized transport by road was a new kind of hell. At least on ship and then ferry the journey was relatively gentle, but with the sympathetic looks the crews cast his way, it was untenable. At that point he’d have run the full twenty-some miles to his beloved Highlands if his damn legs still worked. He punched them again.

He had not known the sailors who carried him off the ship and set him in the tightly sprung post-chaise pulled by two mismatched horses. They’d traveled over cobbled roads and then on rutted trails. A quick meal in a passable inn and more rotten roads before arriving at Dunvreck, one of his family’s less used estates.

He looked at the smoke-stained ceiling, but recalled from memory the external structure. Not quite deserving the title “castle,” it was more like a bloated, five-story stone phallus perched on the side of a hill. A grotesque eyesore towering over the green and brown countryside. By the time they arrived, his pain throbbed all the way to his marrow, so he did not protest when Nick carried him into the castle, to the spacious library, and then later to a bedchamber, which the servants hurriedly prepared for his stay. They shared the bed, which they had done many times over their boyhood. Nick said it was so the servants need not make up a second room, but Reggie knew it was so his friend could watch over him.

Nick prompted, “So, a curricle ride, then?”

No sane person in his condition would agree to that mad suggestion, so of course he said, “Sounds like a brilliant idea,” and tightened his jacket against the library’s blasted chill. “You know, this room is exactly as I remember.”

“What? Still cursed with loose-fitting windows, still outdated and neglected?”

“Still seems as if a blazing-haired, gruff laird should charge in at any moment, exclaiming, Ten years, laddie. Ten long years ye’ve been gone. About bloody time ye came home.”

But there had seemed no reason to visit after his beloved grandfather died, which had been a mistake. He loved this dreadful old place; it held his favorite memories. With Grandfather, there had never been any censure. Stay here at the castle until the rumors are forgotten, laddie. If your father knew what to do with the pizzle God gave him, there’d be none o’ this asylum nonsense.

When he’d been caught with his trousers down in the hayloft with the strapping twentysomething stable hand, his father had threatened to kill him. The man had been beautiful, Reggie had been too young, and the gender, of course, had been all wrong. And the only person in his family who made no issue of the “unnatural act” was Grandfather.

A year. It had taken a year for the rumors to subside, and Reggie was called back to England to continue his education. He’d not wanted to go.

“Reggie?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes, right. The countryside around this whole area is spectacular. I believe you will enjoy exploring. When should we depart?”

Nick handed him a glass of whisky, and Reggie tossed off half the contents. The fire in the drink had stopped burning about three glasses ago. Since Nick kept up with him measure for measure, it was a sure bet that neither of them should be handling a curricle, or any other vehicle that moved faster than a child’s wagon pulled by a doddering uncle. So why had he agreed?

“Better not wait too long,” Nick said, “or this blasted country will decide to rain on us. Why did you choose to stay here of all places, anyway?”

“Because this is the least likely location to see any of my family.” And the place reminded him of Grandfather. Of happier days. The old man had always spared time for his second grandson. Even gave him a substantial inheritance when he died. What would the wizened Scottish laird have to say about his favorite grandson’s current predicament? Probably tell him to get off his lazy arse and start walking. He laughed and managed to jar his left hip. Damn, that hurts.

“Ah. Good choice. Your family is a challenge at times. Let us have a spot to eat, and then we’ll be off. We can scamper you up to the dining room and see what your cook can do for supper.”

Scamper you up to… That was the reason he’d agreed to an outing. He still could not accept being an invalid, and the fresh, humid air, along with the grassy hillsides overlooking shadowed valleys, would distract him and help him forget. If only for moments.

“Very well, then.” He smiled his full-faced smile to convince Nick he was fine, but this time he had to look a half-mile up at the tall man instead of being right around eye level. Before the accident they were much alike. People used to confuse them for brothers, before Reggie spoke and his Scottish burr slipped out. Before leaving for the army, before getting hit by shrapnel and being damaged beyond repair. Now people looked at tall, strong Nick with sympathy for being forced into association with a cripple. Saw him as a saint taking care of a poor, injured relation.

“Just one more whisky before we suffer this Scottish fare. Been years since having to subsist on oat cakes and milk at teatime,” Reggie said. “Don’t expect too much today; they did not know we were coming. But more of what we already sampled will be available, of course. And starting tomorrow, we will probably see some of what you are used to in your soft London life.”

“With so much to choose from, I suppose both of us will grow as fat as a lap dog while here; not to mention, there is always more of your grandfather’s fine whisky. From the Highlands, I have no doubt. It’s too good to be the local stuff.” Nick rambled on about the food they’d sampled so far since landing in Scotland, but Reggie paid no attention. He looked down, realizing he would now have a perpetual pain in his neck.

It took three more brandies before they attempted the stairs to the dining room. Nick farted when he knelt at the chair, and they both guffawed like adolescents.

“Told you to avoid the pickled herring at breakfast.”

“Not eat the herring? But that was the only recognizable dish to be found.”

Reggie curled his lip. “Never could abide by the vile dish myself. Especially secondhand.”

Nick doubled his drunken laughter, sending Reggie into a renewed fit of mirth.

The alcohol washed away his pain, his disgust, and he felt, for a few moments at least, like the world was not conspiring against him and his body was not traitorous.

For a few brief moments, he felt as though he could walk again.