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there was room in his thoughts for only one subject. He kept waiting for his father, his brother, or his brother-in-law to broach it, but they did not. Apparently, it did not interest them.
     
    Or perhaps they avoided the word “Belgium” deliberately, out of some misplaced sense of delicacy. If that were the case, he ought to introduce the topic himself; but he couldn’t be sure, and moreover, he rather thought he had made enough of a fool of himself for one day. He had pounced upon his brother-in-law almost before Sir Henry had descended from his carriage to ask if there were news in the London papers from the Continent. There was not—or at least, no news more recent than that which had already filtered into Kent—and Sir Henry had raised his eyebrows at William’s urgency.
     
    “Well.” William’s father set aside his napkin, setting aside with it the problem of roof repair upon which he had been expounding. “Perhaps we ought to join the ladies, hey?” He scraped back his chair, and his son George and son-in-law Henry followed suit. William trailed behind them across the passageway and to the drawing room.
     
    He entered to hear his sister Caroline’s voice raised in a complaint. “And the Duchess is giving a ball! Has given it, by now, for that notice in the paper was many days old. I really do not see why I should not have accompanied Christopher to Belgium. I should have enjoyed myself greatly with all the other officers’ wives.”
     
    “Will you have some coffee, William?” Mary cut in, rather obviously passing over her father and her husband to distract William’s mind from the subject of Belgium. She held the coffee cup toward his right hand, and he reached without comment to take it with his left. Mary flushed and looked away.
     
    Mary was Lady Anderson, wife of Sir Henry Anderson, and Caroline was Mrs. Palmer, wife of Lieutenant Christopher Palmer. Before William Carrington and Christopher Palmer had been brothers-in-law, they had been brother officers; but the Lieutenant had returned with their regiment to the Continent when Bonaparte escaped from exile, and William, who had left the Peninsula with his right arm dangling as limply as the sleeve that encased it, had not.
     
    There was no hope of discussing openly the happenings on the Continent with Caroline in the room, for she was in delicate condition and must not be upset with worry over her husband. William therefore took his coffee cup over to the window and out of the circle of conversation. His father’s estate spread before him, green and golden-brown against the dark blue sky.
     
    He tried to focus his attention on the richness of those colors. On the taste of real coffee, sweetened with cream. On the smell of earth wafting through the open window. On the soft-voiced conversation behind him, concerning the everyday trivialities of country life. Under the brass-hot Spanish sun, he had dreamed about this. He had wanted nothing but to make it back to this. He ought now to devote at least a portion of his attention to this, rather than allowing his thoughts to always wander back to the warfront.
     
    But perhaps he could be forgiven for considering the warfront the only matter of any real importance. Napoleon had burst the bonds of his prison. The monster who had cast a shadow across William’s childhood was once again on the march. When news of his escape had reached the shores of Britain back in early spring, William had only just surfaced from his latest relapse, and to his fever-drenched mind it seemed to him inevitable that Bonaparte should have escaped. Bonaparte was like nothing so much as one of those menacing dark things out of a country tale, the sort that haunted the wood and followed in your footsteps and could not be killed...A few days later, William had shaken his head sternly at himself for even entertaining such nonsense, but supposed it was an understandable delusion for a man in the grip of fever. After all, he