Suzanne Robinson by Lady Hellfire Read Free Book Online Page B

much just being home. Home was too green, the air too clear and fragrant. It hurt for home to be so beautiful when inside he was still on a battlefield sodden with mud and blood, stinking with burning flesh, gray with smoke from artillery that chopped men into bits of flesh-covered bone.
    Crumpling a fistful of grass, Alexis hissed under his breath. “Stop, damn you. Don’t think about it. God, don’t think about it.”
    That was why he was there, because Ophelia would help him not think, and because if he didn’t keep busy, he might give up. Sometimes he felt so dead inside he couldn’t even hear the shrieks of his old devils and sins. Their quiescence was Fate’s ultimate insult. A shared horror had silenced his private demons. Dear God, he craved peace at almost any price, even the price of nonexistence. He couldn’t give up though, for Val and the others needed him. He may have given up on himself, but he couldn’t abandon them.
    “Alexis, what are you doing?” Ophelia appeared in the doorway of the Tower. “Alexis.”
    Only Ophelia could contrive to plead and scold at the same time. Wearily he resumed his swirling motions with the makeshift brush. He needed time.
    “I’m busy.”
    She floated over to him. Theseus gave her a contemptuous snuffle and shook his head. She watched Alexis groom the horse for perhaps forty seconds before she put her hand on his to stop him.
    “You’ll get all smelly from doing that.”
    Alexis looked at his mistress and raised one eyebrow. “It never stopped you before.”
    She touched a damp lock of hair that clung to his forehead. “No.”
    He shoved the hair out of his face with the back of his forearm, then led Theseus to the stream that ran behind the Tower. Ophelia tripped after him. Her presence annoyed him. What did she know of the real world, the atrocity that was his own life?
    “You might at least speak to me,” she said.
    Feeling guilty for his rudeness, Alexis glanced over his shoulder and tried to smile at her. Her response was all out of proportion to the amount of enthusiasm he had to offer. She fluttered and almost danced as she came to him. Standing on tiptoe, she offered her lips. He kissed her lightly and stepped away to tie Theseus to a tree. She was waiting for him when he finished. He took her hand and started walking toward the Tower while she chattered to him.
    He was used to her empty conversation, used to ignoring it, and he let his own thoughts wander to the wounded men under his care back at the castle. Val and the others had suffered more from the incompetence of the high command than from the enemy. One man had gone withoutwater for two days before someone bothered to help him.
    He shouldn’t be thinking of the men. There was Ophelia to consider. Alexis forced his mind away from the wounded waiting at home.
    “Alexis, you aren’t listening,” Ophelia said.
    “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
    “I said that your mother hasn’t called. You know how much it means to me that she approve of me. And until she calls, I can’t come to Richfield. What must I do to gain her approval? After all, every leading family in the county receives me.”
    Alexis bowed before the door to the Tower and allowed her to precede him up the stairs to the roof. He found himself smiling as he listened to her. At least she was a consistent little blight. As she informed him of how high she stood in the estimation of the social paragons of the neighborhood, he leaned against the wall that topped the structure and surveyed the landscape.
    “Alexis, answer me.”
    He took a deep breath and let it out. “My mother and I have little in common, but one trait we do share. We dislike being used.”
    Ophelia put her hand on his arm, and he looked at her for the first time since gaining the roof. Her usually bright expression had vanished.
    “I’m not using you,” she said. “Or if I am, I allow you to use me in return.”
    “I know what you want from