The moment he was on his feet his back arched until his hand touched the ground behind him, stretching his belly taut. He swayed, then cranked himself back up and jerked his movements like a marionette controlled by strings.
He’d gone mad, alone on a battlefield of pointing fingers, whispers, and laughter. He’d had nothing to fight the emptiness within. It was so much worse than the loneliness outside of him. He understood that he’d lost his mother and grandmother, but there were other things. He couldn’t remember any of them.
Dreams of his mother’s dulcet voice changed the melody to one of haunting beauty that made his smile deepen and match. He brought his arms together as if to hold someone close, but there was no one there, and his smile began to fade. The serene sound of her began to echo his loneliness. Why had she left him, in life and in his dreams? She wasn’t the only one who had abandoned him.
How could anyone blame him for resenting them all and making him hate who he was?
With a pained expression, he beat his fist against his breast, then he pushed out his chest and sank it with a groan.
He’d gone off to fight France when he was eighteen, hoping to get killed quickly. He killed instead—with his pistol, his sword, and his hands. He never found a moment of comfort or peace.
He leaped high doing a double pirouette, then a grand jeté that felt as if he could reach heaven if he stretched just a bit more.
“Grayson!”
Harper’s screech rang through Gray’s ears, and he landed a few inches from the short wall. He shook his head, then set his eyes on her. “I would have landed before leaping over the wall.”
“Really?” she asked doubtfully. “For whom?”
“What?” he asked, running his fingers through his hair to clear it from his eyes.
His grandmother had left Harper Black to take care of him when she was twenty-three. No matter how much he’d defied her or how hard he worked at ignoring her, she never left his side. She played the violin, and she played it well. When he was twelve, he began letting her play for him while he practiced. After that, she became his friend. When he returned from battle two years ago, she was there to welcome him home.
The only one.
“For whom would you be keeping yourself here?” she clarified and tossed his coat to him. “You were close, Grayson,” she said, softening her voice. “If I hadn’t stopped you, who would have?”
He couldn’t think of anyone. Not a single lady who’d ever occupied a thought of his. He didn’t have a friend besides Harper. He didn’t want any. He had saved the lives of the men he fought with so many times because it was his duty to keep them alive.
“Not who, Harper. What.” He put on his coat and took a step closer to the door, and her. “Dancing saves me. It always has.”
He watched her sigh with resolve. She knew he was speaking the truth. More than anyone, she knew.
“Why didn’t you send for me to play for you?” she asked.
“It was spontaneous,” he told her, leaving the rooftop. Then, “What brings you up here?”
“Your guardsman Ector was looking for you to report that the woman staying with the Gables left the perimeter.”
Now Gray stopped and turned to her.
“What?” she asked. “Who is she?”
“A woman who is lost and alone. She turned up here…” in a blur like a wrinkle in the way the world was supposed to work.
“Yes?” Harper asked, her interest piqued. “She turned up here…?”
“She turned up out of nowhere. That is, nowhere that I know of.”
“I see,” she said after a moment and a slight breath. “Well, according to Ector, when your men tried to stop her, she kicked two of them in the jaw and sped away before the others reached her.
He felt the insane urge to laugh. In the jaw? She wouldn’t be constrained. Very well.
“She’s quite a delicate looking creature,” he mused on a soft breath. “More like a feral cat.”
“You like cats,” Harper remarked.
“I like all animals,” he countered with a playful smirk.