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She whispered to him in that sing-song
nickname he’d waited to hear each time he came home, “Damon the
caveman.” She gave a snorting little chuckle, nose wrinkled, before
her face relaxed and she died.

“Why caveman, Clare bear?”

She’d rubbed his stubbled chin with
both of her chubby little hands and gave her snorting little laugh.
Nose wrinkling in amusement until he kissed it straight
again.

“Cause you’re all big and hairy.” She
turned solemn. “Momma says one day when you learn how to shave
without cutting your face off and can tie a good cravat, then
you’ll be gentlyman.” She frowned then, “But that won’t be no fun
because gentlyman doesn’t rhyme with Damon at all.”

“Neither does caveman.” He pointed out
and watched her scowl.

“Mine is still closer than
momma’s.”

Clara had always thought herself
terribly clever for that little turn of phrase.

His hand reached out, to stoke her
face, maybe touch her hair or rearrange those gangly limbs so she
wouldn’t look so much like a broken doll. But just as his fingers
were hovering over her cheek he registered the blood on his hands,
still wet, still dripping and his hand clenched and jerked away
from her as if he’d been shocked. Several times he reached for her
and each time he found he couldn’t bring himself to touch her with
her killer’s blood on his hands. Couldn’t bring himself to soil her
with his touch. Because in the end, he and that man were the same
weren’t they? He hadn’t raped little girls but he’d slaughtered.
He’d just wasted precious time doing just that instead of killing
the man swiftly so he could try and save his sister.

But he was no different. He was no
better. He’d failed to make it in time. He’d killed his Clara. He’d
killed her, along with everyone else in this house.

He was a monster.

Because he couldn’t touch her he
pressed his face against the tiny hill of her stomach and gathered
her as close as he could with forearms and elbows. Then he breathed
her in and nearly jerked away because he had to search beneath the
smell of hard drink the Mahratta had spilled on himself sometime
during the day, along with the smell of blood and sex, before he
was able to catch the elusive perfume of Clara’s soup.

But he didn’t pull away, didn’t have
the strength anymore. Instead he wept until his mind ran dry and
the world was a void of white noise. Empty and meaningless. Then he
got up and went back into town. He waited outside the bar where the
man he’d murdered had been earlier and was rewarded when his
friends came stumbling out into the gathering dusk.

The ugliest wore his father’s signet
ring. The other had his mother’s pearls strung around his head like
royalty. There were four of them, five in all and he didn’t know if
these were all the men responsible, but they would do for a night’s
entertainment. Their regime had gone on already after all, while
these men were still here. In Damon’s mind, that was desertion, and
desertion was punishable by death.

.

* * * *

It was three days before he was done
with everything. It had taken a good two of those days for the men
to finish dying and while he waited, Damon had gone back to the
estate to clean the bodies as was his right. He washed each body
careful, murmuring the sacred hymns as well as the Christian
blessings beneath his breath as he worked. He didn’t feel anything,
not really, and he wondered why that was as he laid out his
family’s bodies in their now clean beds. He’d changed the sheets
but then he’d had to clean the rooms and the rooms had turned into
the hallways, and the kitchen. He’d cleaned the entire house and as
he went back through it, checking on each beloved face, he couldn’t
help but think with the signs of struggle and blood gone, it looked
as if they’d been sleeping.

He had no time to contemplate that
though. Instead he moved on to the servants, for most of them had
moved to Bengal to work with his family, leaving other relatives
behind. Anyone else who could’ve performed the ritual was dead with
them so the job fell to Damon. He treated them all with the same
respect and thoroughness he’d treated his family and knew his
father would have been proud. He had to get spare blankets and
sheets to lay out all the remaining bodies but when it was finally
done, they stretched across the length of his home like a trail of
macabre breadcrumbs.

He considered Ellenore carefully,
before straightening her clothes and moving her into Damon’s own
room. He would have to write a letter to her father. The man was
very proper and would want his daughter readied and prepared for an
English burial. The thought saddened Damon, but again he couldn’t
seem to work up any strong emotions on the matter. He was bone
weary by the time the letter was done and sent off and he was
gathering the necessary things needed to complete all the funeral
rights, when the soldiers came.

* * * *

They must have ridden after him
immediately after he’d left. Once they knew where he was headed
they had no reason to rush and had taken their time getting to the
estate. Now he was in chains and being dragged to the nearest
military base to await execution. They were British soldiers and
didn’t understand the importance of finishing the rights
immediately after death. The only thing these men understood was
that he had deserted before a battle, whether he was following a
gut feeling and that feeling happened to be right, made no
difference.

They traveled for the good part of the
week. Damon didn’t know where they were headed and he didn’t care.
He shuffled behind the horse he’d been shackled to with his head
bowed and his mind blessedly empty. They put him in cell and that’s
where he stayed for the next month unless he was taken out for
beatings. These punishments had more to do with entertainment
though because the General and most of the commanding officers were
still in the field fighting. The enemy was becoming too volatile
for the higher ups to just sit back and give orders. Then one day
news reached them that soldiers had been captured by the enemy and
were being held until Tipu could give orders to kill them. The
regiments didn’t have enough men to spare to go and save them and
the Governor General decided that since there were perfectly good
former soldiers in the prison who were scheduled for execution
anyway, then they might as well be put to work. Damon traveled
obediently behind the rest of the prisoners as they were all filed
up and led out, thinking as many of them must have, that they were
lucky to have the chance to die as soldiers rather than dogs. It
was the first real emotion he’d had in a very long time…

* * * *

“What happened after that?” At some
point during the telling Damon had gotten to his feet to stand
behind her at the barre. She moved in simple steps that he could
copy easily, her hands warming under his when he placed them over
where she gripped the smooth wood. She liked being enveloped in him
like this, liked being swallowed in his warmth and spicy scent. But
she felt as if this closeness was more for Damon than anything else
so she leaned against his chest as she stretched.

His breath fanned her neck and she
shivered.

“We were taken into Mysore where the
prisoners were being held. Tipu had a habit of killing anyone he’d
caught and these men were good soldiers, some of our best and many
of them had dozens of decorations for the lapels of their uniforms.
It would have been a cruel blow to the men’s morale to see their
bodies hung up as examples as others had been.”

Turning her face she rested her head
against the bunched muscle of his arm, trying unsuccessfully to
hide the tears his words had brought to the surface. He gripped her
chin and angled her head backwards so he could look into her
eyes.

“Ah, Princess. Are those tears for
me?”

She nodded and gasped sharply as her
body began to tremble.

“For them too. I’m sorry. I don’t mean
to make it worse.”

He tsked and kissed her, his tongue
darting out to taste and then wipe away the evidence of her
pain.

“Don’t you know,” he said against the
corner of her mouth, “how good it feels to have someone else grieve
for them? After Ellenore’s father took her back to England there
was no one who remembered the Burleighs. No one who cared enough to
weep for the rich family who lived up on the hill. That’s why they
were attacked you know, when the Mahrattas came through the city
they hit where the pickings were good. The estate was like heaven
and it had the added bonus of offering entertainment.”

His mouth twisted in bitterness, and
she pressed her lips against his before that old hatred could take
over his face again. His face softened immediately and she
demanded, in a low controlled voice to show that she was fine,
“Tell me what happened.”

His grin was feral this time and there
was a dangerous glint in his eye that she’d only ever seen when he
was killing or about to kill. Jocelyn wondered if she should feel
afraid, but she didn’t. Instead she felt relieved and a little
proud. She’d noticed before that Damon’s mere presence made her
feel a lot of ways she normally wouldn’t.

“We died of course.”

The words shook her.

“What?! But you’re not-you
didn’t--”

“Of course not. Because I was the best
out there. We went in and followed the orders given to us by the
Governor-general. I doubt he thought we’d succeed, and he was right
because we didn’t, but he wanted to make a showing for the
men.”

“But you made it out of
Mysore.”

He nodded and began to sway against her
until her body heated, slow but hard.

“Yes, I did get out. And I brought your
father with me.”

“Oh my god! Pappa? He was in that
horrible place? Why?”

For the first time there was true
amusement in his eyes.

“He was one of those decorated soldiers
I’d told you about. You know we became friends because we both
fought under General Wellesley. When I saw him in that place
something just woke up in me. I knew that he had daughters and a
wife waiting for him and I just couldn’t help thinking that had I
been there on that field that day I might have been able to stop
him from getting captured in the first place. So we got out but it
was a close thing. Your father’s legs were broken and another man
and I had to carry him out. We were nearly safe when three guards
came around the corner and fired their guns.” He laughed, “Your
father was a lot heavier back then and he threw all his weight into
dragging all three of us down before the shots hit us. We saved him
that day, and in return he saved us. The man who was with us
actually fought with General Harris, the Commander in Chief and
along with his and John’s recommendation they decided to discharge
me rather than kill me. Because of his injuries John couldn’t
exactly stay and fight so he took me with him to England where he
picked up you and Ava, and then from there we all traveled to
America.” He sighed. “The rest is history.”

Her eyes were wide and her mind
reeling. “That’s….” she began to laugh, ‘That’s simply wonderful.
Pappa never told Ava and I that story.”

“I doubt he would have.” Damon said
with a heavy trace of irony. “That wasn’t exactly his greatest
moment. He had to travel in a litter and he complained loudly and
frequently that just because he had a few scratches didn’t mean
everyone had to keep treating him like an invalid.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

She looked over her shoulder at him and
quirked an eyebrow. “For cleaning that up. I’m sure my father’s
language at the time was more than a bit colorful.”

“You could say that, yes.”

He turned solemn and for the second
time Jocelyn glimpsed something vulnerable and frightened in his
eyes. Others probably never saw that look on his face.

“What’s the matter, Damon?”

“
I did everything wrong that
day.”

“Damon--”

He shushed her with his mouth. “I did.
I left my men, my friends. They trusted me and I ran.”

She was shaken by the rage that hit
her, she’d never felt the likes of it before and it stole her
breath.

“That’s not true! Your family needed
you--”

“Those men needed me.”

“You would have died along with them.”
Was that snarling voice really hers?

He nodded, “I probably would have. I
didn’t just fail my family, Princess, I failed those men and my
country. I deserved the execution and for the longest while I
regretted not dying like I should have.”

Jocelyn’s body flushed cold and she
pressed tighter against him for warmth. He continued in a
despairing groan.

“
I couldn’t save Clara even
though she was right there, and Ellenore trusted my family to keep
her safe. That’s why she’d agreed to stay with us until the
wedding.”

So they hadn’t been married. Jocelyn
was afraid that the brief flash of relief that spread through her
was enough to buy her a ticket into hell.

He shook her to break her out of her
musings. “The only good thing that came out of that day was the
fact that I killed the ones responsible. But that doesn’t bring
them back. It doesn’t fix what happened. It just proves what a good
monster I am.”