Read Online Return of the Viscount by Gayle Callen - Free Book Online

truly help him. You have to trust that he will gradually come to this conclusion. Most men do.” She hoped. Although she was afraid to trust Lord Blackthorne regardless of her father’s praise, she found herself saying a silent prayer that he could help her brother be a better man, a better husband.
    Penelope kept her eyes downcast as she nodded. “I appreciate your opinion.”
    â€œBut regardless, I’ll stand by whatever the two of you decide.”
    â€œJust like you stood by us when we became engaged.” Penelope smiled.
    â€œYou didn’t need my support. Your mother was happy for you.”
    Penelope giggled. “Thrilled, you mean. She always hoped I would catch the eye of a peer.”
    â€œWhat mother doesn’t wish that?” Cecilia said with a chuckle.
    â€œSurely yours wanted the same for you? And you’ve succeeded.”
    Cecilia hid a wince. “My mother . . . yes, you are right, she wanted the best for me.” Was that even true?
    â€œLord Blackthorne is a knowledgeable man of the world.”
    Cecilia eyed her with faint amusement. “Are you saying you think Oliver should become such a man?”
    â€œOh, no! Oliver is a man comfortable in England, at ease in drawing rooms or in the countryside. I think he still fights the memories of his time in India but wants to overcome them.”
    â€œAnd Lord Blackthorne? Tell me your impressions of him.”
    â€œI think you were very brave and in love to marry a man you’d never met.”
    â€œYou may say it without hurting my feelings, Penelope—you wouldn’t have done the same.”
    â€œI am not brave like you. Lord Blackthorne . . . he seems a stern man, with a strong feeling of duty to his country. He will go wherever his regiment sends him, and you’ll be separated once again. Have you ever thought of traveling with him?”
    Cecilia’s eyes widened. “No, my dear, my place is here. I had enough of India.”
    â€œThen you will be separated much of the time.”
    â€œHe writes compelling letters. We will get by.” If she even stayed married to him.
    L ate that night, Michael came awake with a start. He didn’t know where he was at first until the shadowy gloom revealed the bedroom where his wife had banished him.
    His very skittish wife.
    But he couldn’t fault thoughts of his wife for why he awoke in the middle of the night. It had been happening long before he met her. Dreams clung to the corners of his mind like cobwebs. He saw his friends, the three his military decision had doomed to death. In his dreams, they were alive again, even Lord Appertan, taking his son in hand and making a man of him.
    With a sigh, Michael slid his legs to the side and sat on the edge of the bed. These dreams weren’t nightmares. No one haunted him, or berated the decisions he and his superiors, the Duke of Rothford and the Earl of Knightsbridge, had made in all honor.
    But the sadness of those lives cut short could not be denied, and he felt a debt of honor—not one of guilt, as Rothford and Knightsbridge foolishly insisted on feeling—to try to help those left behind. Guilt had no place, once a battlefield decision had been made to the best of one’s knowledge and ability. And he would never allow himself to be ruled by emotion.
    Lady Cecilia’s family had been altered by a decision he’d help make: Three men had died because Michael and his fellow soldiers had thought it was noble and humane to release prisoners—including women and children—about to be tortured for information in a secret encampment. He, Rothford, and Knightsbridge had turned their backs while their prisoners slipped into the jungle, and thought themselves making the honorable choice.
    But their regiment had been attacked by the prisoners they’d released, and three soldiers—good friends and mentors—had died. Rothford and Knightsbridge had