He let his gaze rest on the vast and lovely view down the dale. It was better here. He liked working with Bing and the animals. Here, no one gazed at him with wistful curiosity, wondering when he would go back to the way he used to be. He couldn't go back to that man. He couldn't even find that man. He would never be that boyish Worthington prankster again, that laughing flirt who ran off to play soldier as much out of boredom as out of patriotism.

But perhaps in a place like this — this windswept, silent place — he could simply be as he was. A silent man. A man without some other self, some past self, to live up to.

Iris had most of the Worthingtons to help her, and more would have arrived by now. Gemma had a lame soldier and a three-legged dog.

And him. A commotional toff with a lame horse and tendency to tilt at windmills — or at least, joust with goats.

CHAPTER 12

Chapter 12

THE LONG DAY OF work ended, leaving Lysander feeling a sense of satisfaction that his endless frenzied walks about London had never given him. His injured head pounded but he ignored it in favor of having dinner with Mrs. Oakes. On Bing's advice, this time he cleaned up in his room using the bowl and pitcher of water and donned his good coat.

Dressed as well as could be expected of him, Lysander hesitated in the doorway to the kitchen to watch Gemma.

He liked her name. It was sensible and yet rather poetic. She was a gem, gleaming softly yet without ostentation. A pearl perhaps. No, an opal, simple on first impression, yet when one looked more closely, full of secrets of light and color.

She managed quite competently despite her sling as he watched her. Then came a memory, out of nowhere. Iris, younger and slimmer and with a quick bright clarity in her gaze. She stood in the front sitting room of Worthington house, with the draperies pulled back, and the sunlight streaming in. He could not have been more than eleven years old, for Iris was painting with one hand and the other kept tiny Elektra balanced on her hip. Iris's eyes had been bright with fascination as she brushed brilliant colors on canvas. Elektra's hair was a halo of pale, flaxen curls and Iris's was more warm maple than the silver it was now. It was just a flash, a moment out of time. A moment when his mother spotted him and flashed him a smile and called him Zander.