Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

London, January 1816

Richard Sharpe sat at his large desk and stared out of the window that faced onto the back garden.  He could see a cold January sky, grey with cloud and as he sat in silence he watched the low morning light rise and filter through bare branches to settle onto the film of dust that lay on the windowsill.  The garden these days was not an enticing sight, being dark with winter mud and having no real space for much of anything that could be called useful.  But sombre as this morning’s view from his study was, Richard still preferred it to any other from the house.  He sometimes liked to pretend that the thin branches and shrubs actually hid a large estate of apple trees, farms and rolling countryside.  It did not, of course, but looking out from the front of the house where tall buildings towered over a cobbled city street full of noise and dirt and dung was an even worse contemplation.

The townhouse was situated in the heart of London’s Mayfair and had been bought with some of his proceeds from the battle of Vitoria.  It was part of a new and fashionable terrace, and it had been very much Jane’s choice of accommodation.  After Toulouse, when the army had left France to return to England, she had begged Richard to allow them to stay in London and landing in off the boat with all their baggage and with the clamour of the city all around them, Richard had only wanted to find somewhere to stay nearby while they reoriented themselves to the confusion of peacetime and England once more.  And so he had acquiesced for the time being, and for doing so he had been rewarded with her best and brightest smiles, covering his face with kisses.  Her happiness at having all her desires fulfilled had been so contagious and his heart had filled with warmth and love at the very sight of it.  He lived to see her so happy.

And Jane had been very happy, carried by the whirl of London society that was her natural home, and Richard had been happy to indulge her with all the fortune that he possessed.  The loot he had accrued in battle brought them such a dizzying freedom and there was more than enough in his accounts even for all of Jane’s ideas and requirements for their home.  Richard signed away guinea after guinea in exchange for highly carved furniture, exotic wallpapers, swathes of curtains and a delicate new pianoforte; and then even more went on running the servants, the carriages, the kitchens and their laundry to the standards that Jane deemed necessary.  He had never quite realised the quite incredible amounts of money that it took to run a society household, but in the army everything had been covered by his mess fees and he had never really had the opportunity to make choices or organise anything for himself.  If he ever did bring up the cost of it all for discussion, Jane only smiled sweetly at his ignorance and kissed him again until he was too distracted to care anymore.  He loved Jane completely and he trusted her taste, and so he gave her promissory notes and control over the accounts so that she could run the household and fit out herself and her husband to the level to which she was accustomed.

And the clothes were a marvel in themselves.

Since Richard was no longer required to wear a uniform, his wardrobe suddenly expanded exponentially.  There were rows of shirts and jackets and waistcoats and coats and breeches, not to mention smallclothes and socks and cravats and tall hats and tight boots; all of which Jane had insisted upon, being as they were a couple new to town who were trying to make their mark in society.  And although he told himself that he was only going to the tailor because it was important to her, he had to admit that he had twisted in pleased surprise in front of the mirror at the perfect cut and fit of all the outfits that Jane had chosen for him.  

Her own wardrobe was full too, with pretty muslin day dresses that swirled around her ankles, diaphanous evening gowns that shone in the candlelight, pelisses and shoes, bonnets and parasols, not to mention the diamonds, pearls, combs, feathers and myriad other trinkets that she spent so long with at the dressing table.  It was a good thing that they lived in the very district that housed London’s finest tailors and jewellers, Richard thought, otherwise their carriage and delivery fees would be even more astronomical.

But truth be told, he loved spending on his wife.  He loved her radiant beauty as she modelled the fashions for him, he loved the way that she looked up at him with her rosy smile and her bright, adoring eyes, and he grinned as she clapped her hands with glee when the servants came back to the house laden down with yet more packages from the modiste.  But as time marched on and the house became filled with clothes and furnishings and accessories and trinkets, Richard’s dream of perhaps moving to the countryside to start a family fell further and further away.  Each time he tried to bring it up again, Jane responded as if he had spoken of wanting to travel to the wildest deserts of China.

“You really want to move to Dorset?  You want to live on a farm?” she asked incredulously.

Richard took a long breath and he tried to explain again.  London was of course London, but after so long fighting a dirty and drawn-out war, he felt a longing for the peace of the countryside and the idea of green fields, woods and water.  But given that he had no specific place in mind nor any definite roots to return to, he was only ever able to set out for her a vague, imagined vision of what life in Dorset might be like for them.  And Jane was always able to sweet-talk him around each time, exalting the excitement of living in the capital, how much she loved everything going on around them, and the benefits for both his career and their social advancement.

“There’s nothing in Dorset, Richard!” she said.  “We would miss everything if we were to go - the whole season!”

Richard could not give her any exact answer to this.  Because for him, that was nearly the entire point.  In those heady days after Napoleon’s defeat, London had been full of victory and the social season had provided hundreds of returning officers with entertainment, frivolity and scandal.  They had attended summer balls, dinners, card parties, promenades in the park, plays at the theatre - it was everything that Jane loved.  But Richard had nearly wanted to walk out of each one in frustration. 

Initially he had thought that perhaps these social engagements merely reminded him too much of his early days in the officers’ mess.  But he argued with himself that this time around he was a full colonel rather than a junior lieutenant, and now he always had the beautiful Jane on his arm too.  He was still always proud to walk in with her as his wife, all eyes turned to their entrance.  Her eyes sparkled with delight at all the attention and at times he still could not quite believe that he had been lucky enough to marry her.  He knew that on paper he was as rich as anyone else in those salons, carried high rank and wore all the right the clothes.  But he also knew that he held within him things that he would wager no others in the assembly rooms ever had to even consider; dark memories of his childhood and of the harsh ugliness that he had dealt with day in and day out during the long and bloody war against Napoleon.  Not that anyone would want to hear about any of that at an evening’s soiree, and away from the fading talk of war, Richard found that he could not contribute much to any conversation other than a small shrug or grunt. 

And as much as Jane loved him and enjoyed having a decorated officer for a husband, Richard felt a small, growing sensation that he was somehow failing her.  Because as well as a soldier who had fought and won battles, Jane also wanted a peacetime husband who could converse and amuse and dance.  Not one who so obviously hated being out in society and whose professed aim in life was merely to grow a few vegetables in the peace and quiet of a Dorset farm.

“Mouldering away,” she teased him with a flash of her lovely smile, and Richard had given a weak smile in return, pushing his dream even further down for the sake of his wife and his marriage. 

But as much as he tried, as the summer season went on and Jane accepted more and more invitations, he knew that he was never quite ‘cutting a figure in society’ as Jane thought that he should.

“I never see you talk to anyone, Richard!” she had admonished him gently as she stepped forward to rearrange his new cravat in preparation for yet another party.

“I never really have much to say,” he had shrugged in response.

Jane had sighed with a little frustration.  “Talk about court news, politics, books - whatever the other gentlemen want!  Because if we are to make a mark on London society, it’ll take more than a few jewels and a well cut coat, Richard.”

He rested his hands on the smooth skin of her arms and looked down at her clear, fresh face with her blue eyes and her rosebud lips.  He could still hardly believe that this loveliness was his to see each day, and once more he felt he could want for nothing else ever again.

“You’ll do the talking for us both, my love,” he said.  “I’ll just stand aside and -”

“And look wonderfully handsome,” she had interrupted him, resting her hands on his chest and looking up at him with adoration.  “Standing at my side like my knight in shining armour.  My heroic warrior home from the wars.”

Richard’s heart swelled with pride at these words.

“You just think too much, Richard.  It’s really very simple,” she continued with her charming smile as she started to pull at the soft silk around his neck again.  “They are gentlemen, and you are a gentleman now too.  You only need to act the part and then you’ll be fine.”

“It would be easier if we could just get out of the city…” Richard started off again, and Jane firmly shook her head.

“No.  It didn’t help when we went to Lady Bentinck’s for the weekend, did it?  You had as much countryside as you could ask for all around you there, and you still felt the same.”

He sighed in reluctant agreement.  But, a small voice in his mind said to him, at Lady Bentinck’s you were trapped inside a house with a party of aristocratic boors, only looking out at the farms and fields through a window.  Not outside, digging it, tending it, feeling it. 

At this he had to shake his head.  He had no idea about farming really, even though he had always thought that he might like to try it one day.  But he had heard from Harper and from others about the devastation and hunger that could come from even one poor harvest.  Perhaps Jane was right, and farming was not the life that he had thought it might be. 

But for all the ease and luxury that surrounded him, this peacetime life in London was not quite what he thought it would be either.  In many ways the army had been an easier existence, he thought with a grim smile.  Or simpler, at least.  Back then, he had an enemy, a sword and a rifle, and a job to do.  A job that he had been good at.  But now?  The career opportunities that Jane had initially been sure would come from high army command had never quite materialised, and Richard had been too stubborn and proud to approach Horse Guards himself.  He faced into a life of idleness - something new to him again.  Although at least this time he had the love of his wife here at his side.

Jane interrupted his racing thoughts by patting at his cravat in satisfaction and reaching up to leave another delicate kiss on his cheek, and then she turned away to take her light summer cloak from a waiting servant as if the argument were fully settled.

But Richard was left with only the cooling mark of her lips on his skin and an uneasy sense of his own social inadequacies. 

His eyes followed Jane’s elegant figure disappearing out to the waiting carriage and he tried to set his mind once again to his new mission here.  He would do this for her.  His love and his honour and his pride would not allow him to do anything else.  He would use any strategy that was needed and all the money that was at his disposal to succeed at the life that his wife loved so much.

Chapter Text

Sitting now at his desk in the grey January morning, Richard sighed listlessly at those memories of their early months in London, when he had thought that fighting for Jane’s happiness would be enough to keep him happy forever too.  But that had been during the heady days following the army’s victories at Toulouse and again at Waterloo, when returning officers were honoured and feted everywhere they went and no matter who they were.  But as the summer had rolled past and the winter days had set in, the public’s interest had turned away to other diversions, his uniform had been once again put away into a large armoire in the spare room, and the reality of life in London had hit Richard hard.  

He had grown to hate living in this over-decorated and over-stuffed house; a place that Jane loved but that he himself felt had never really managed to become a home. 

He had come to truly dread the dinners and balls that he was reluctantly pulled out to, where society talk and scandals were the order of the day, but where he often ended up sitting back silently with a plate of congealing food in front of him, watching as his young and vibrant wife glittered in her gowns and jewels, flirting and gossiping and delighting in herself and others. 

He hated the day trips out to visit people with whom he had nothing in common but whom Jane insisted could help in their social advancement. 

He now refused to play croquet again after his first ever game, when the rules had been explained to him and he had knocked his opponent’s ball off the grass and into the far shrubs with such force that when the ball had eventually been retrieved it had had a large crack running all the way through it.  He had thought it quite a good shot himself, but Jane had admonished him for taking it so seriously in front of their new friends.

“It’s just a game, Richard, not a battle,” she had pouted and Richard had shrugged in embarrassment.  He himself had wanted to win.

At one large house which looked very much like all the others that they visited, he had found himself once again alone and his attention had been commanded by an intricately inlaid chessboard placed by a large window.  It had been set up with one side painted with the red uniforms of England, and these were lined up to face against pieces that had been painted in the blue of France.  Richard stood for a few minutes to take in the delicate details of each moulding and he smiled as he recognised the largest piece at the back of the French as a tiny figure of Napoleon, his hand resting in his jacket and his grey cocked hat set sideways.  The now-defeated emperor stared across the polished wooden board towards his opponent, a tall piece with a large fore-and-aft hat whom Richard supposed to be a model of the Duke of Wellington.  But the face didn’t look haughty or cold enough, Richard thought.  His gaze moved along the different cavalry, artillery and officer pieces which stood in line at the back, and then moved onto the row of indistinguishable red-coated infantrymen who crouched in front of their betters as pawns waiting to be sacrificed, and he wondered how even battles for life and death could be turned into a game by those rich enough to do so.

“Do you play, Mister Sharpe?”

Richard turned suddenly to look at the gentleman at his side.

“No,” he answered curtly and he had walked away tensely, feeling his myriad inadequacies turn to a cold anger inside him.

And that anger was mounting.

He hated that he and Jane no longer spent much time together as a couple, but the truth was that he had started to pull away from their engagements just as Jane had started to go out even more.  She came in late at night, giggling as she stepped lightly up the stairs in her delicate velvet slippers while he pretended to be asleep.  And during his waking hours there seemed to be so many calls on Jane’s time that did not involve him; trips out in the carriage, shopping and fittings for new gowns, social calls to drink tea and exchange gossip with new friends.

While Richard - well, these days Richard spent his time as best he could.  He would often wake in the dark, cold mornings with his muscles taut and his jaw twitching, and as he opened his eyes his stomach would sink at the thought of where he was and the long empty hours that lay ahead of him, and he really had no idea what idle gentlemen might do to prevent themselves from sinking further and further into a life of boredom and loneliness. 

He spent some days at the club that Jane had insisted he take membership of, and he admitted that this did at least take him away from the house for a drink or a meal.  There, gentlemen often talked of politics and played cards, but he had no interest in the legislation needed for a country at peace, nor in gambling on something as small and superficial as the number on a playing card.  He spent hours perusing the club’s library for volumes of war history and regimental tactics and every so often he had a brief talk with someone with whom he shared memories or acquaintances of the peninsula.  But these days the few younger club members who tentatively approached him only had ridiculous requests for influence or for promotions, and many of the older gentlemen did not even deign to acknowledge him when the reality of his birth and his accent had hit home.  And the more Richard was rejected by his fellow club members, the more he snarled at them like a trapped animal until they left him alone and even warned others not to approach.

He continued to attend a few evening functions with gritted teeth, purely for Jane, who was always quickly whisked off to dance or to play cards with friends, leaving Richard standing alone in his expensive clothes, holding a cut glass of wine filled by silently obliging servants and with the evening stretching out interminably in front of him.  As he watched the same well-dressed and well-educated people that seemed to attend all of these events, he often wondered how he had ever ended up here and he wondered what he could do to make the evening a success for Jane and bring her sweet smiles and kisses back to him.  

And so he endured feeling like a token curiosity, ignoring the ill-hidden snubs from the gentlemen and brushing off the way that the ladies hid behind their fans to whisper at his few attempts to speak, as if they had never before seen or heard anyone like him in their parlours and assembly rooms.  He tried, he really did, but no matter what good intentions he might start the evening with, he always seemed to end up glowering in a shadowed corner of the room, looking to all the world as if he was planning the painful deaths of everyone there.

He hated that he once again found himself in society’s no-man’s-land, being neither a gentleman soldier home from the wars with witty conversations and stories, nor an impoverished discharged ranker who could look for some other occupation for his skills and his strengths.  He had never thought that he would hanker back to those days of hardship and brutality, but with the war over and his commission no longer active, he hated the fact that he was starved of opportunities to show others what he might really be capable of.  He would do anything for Jane, he really would, but there was no getting away from his deep seated feeling that he was a fish out of water; and a fish with no purpose in life at that.

So during the day he preferred to walk.  He walked the streets of London just as he had walked the roads of Spain; with determination and his head held high, but with no real idea of where he was going or what he might find at the end of the journey.  The streets held no real comfort for him, holding as they did so many memories of a dirty childhood full of cold and hunger, and it did not take a walk away from the comfort of their Mayfair address to see that the city was still nothing but a cesspit of corruption where the rich continued to gamble and play and where the lives of the poor were worth nothing.  But as he had nothing else to do, he continued to rise early, look for the sun’s rising through the dark, smoky haze and walk, wrapped up in the warm scarf and the good wool coat that Jane had bought for him for the English winters.  He didn’t dislike it - it had been an expensive coat and was apparently the very height of fashion, but if he was to be fussy then it was a little tight and restricting in the shoulders and chest and he was irked by the full skirted excess flapping around his legs.  But still, it made Jane happy to see him pull it on, and along with his new leather boots and his top hat pulled down low over his eyes it gave him a certain anonymity in this well-heeled district of London.

The long days’ exercise kept him from sinking too far into the shiny, soft life of the gentry, drained some of the anger and pent up energy from his muscles, and allowed his racing brain to take in everything around him, from the underfed young urchins sweeping the streets to the society carriages wheeling their way around the sights of the city. 

But even as he walked his days away, he could not push away the fact that this peacetime life was very much not what he had thought it would be.  And he could not ignore the widening gulf between him and his wife, and Jane’s growing frustration with what he had become.  He had started to catch her small looks of exasperation as he yet again took a sip from the wrong glass, held his fork differently from those around him or made only an awkward grunt in response to some ridiculous conversational overture.  And each time he saw it on her face, he felt torn between desperately wanting to change and do things better for his wife’s sake, and wanting to damn the whole lot of them to hell and walk away from the table. 

He and Jane had started to bicker over this and over nothing and everything in their lives; his obvious reluctance to go out and meet people, her love of stuffing the house with gaudy knick-knacks, his lack of interest in pushing his career at Horse Guards, her flirtatious behaviour as she danced with a series of well-educated and well-polished gentlemen. 

This friction had crept up on them, but to Richard it now seemed to be never ending.

He had hoped that the room upstairs that had been designated as a nursery might one day have an occupant who would help to unite the couple again and fill their hours of free time, but there had been no news on that front.  And nor was there likely to be any these days, seeing as they now barely spent much time together in the same house, let alone in the same bed.  As the months passed the nursery upstairs grew neglected and dusty, until Richard did not like to think of it too much.  

He still loved his wife.  But he had come to hate what his life with her had become.

Chapter Text

The icy winter had held the city in its grip for what seemed like weeks now, and this morning Richard had woken once again in the dark feeling his teeth tight with tension.  He had slipped out of the house to walk his way through the early morning on London’s hard streets, only returning to the house as the grey sky had lightened.  He had then taken his seat in the un-warmed study at the back of the house, leaning back in the angular wooden chair and staring out the window, not wishing to see or talk to anyone, even Jane.

He glanced over the few books that were scattered over his desk, but he did not feel like reading any of them today.  His gaze slowly moved up towards the flimsy presentation sword that hung over the study mantelpiece, and he wished that it was instead the battered cavalry sword that he had carried for so many years.  But after Waterloo Jane had insisted that his hefty, hand-hewn weapon held too many grim and cruel memories, and so it had been hidden away in one of the many unused rooms upstairs.

He missed the sight of it, and yet he knew that it would not belong here.  He let out a long sigh and continue to stare out at the damp garden as his thoughts continued to roll on.  

Officially England was his home, but he often felt that as if by coming back here he had been cast adrift into a foreign land.  It was all so different from everything he had ever known previously.  There was a dizzying freedom in living outwith the army’s strict regulations, but at times he felt that his life now was nearly so unconstrained that each step into it was a precarious one, as if even the ground beneath him could not be relied upon to hold him steady.  Nowadays he never had to kill anyone to stay alive.  He never had to be cold and he never had to go hungry.  And yet even with all his daily comforts, he still felt that there was something missing. 

He stopped himself there with a grim smile.  Because if there was anyone who knew that freedom from cold and hunger was never something to be sniffed at, it was him, and he was well aware that the riches that paid for the luxuries that he enjoyed today had been so hard won.  But on this listless and grey morning, he recognised the creeping feeling that there had been much about life in the army that he might not have fully appreciated at the time.  The routine and the drive that it had given him.  The responsibility and trust that he had enjoyed.  He realised now that he missed even the small everyday things that he had taken for granted for so long; things like the sunshine and the oranges, or hearing so many different tongues around him each day in the mash up of men and women and children that made up the army abroad.  He missed the faces of the tough men of the 95^th and the South Essex and the 60th Rifles; he missed people like Frederickson and D’Alembord and Price.

He missed Harper.

His stomach clenched and his eyes grew hot and he quickly stood up, pushing away the discomfort and looking around him for the means to make his first cup of tea of the day.  He could ring for a servant, but he was still reluctant to do so for something that he could solve himself.  So instead, he turned away from the desk with its view over the small, damp garden and he made his way through to the breakfast room where each day a table was set for two people who now rarely ate together.  There he was surprised to see that this morning Jane was already awake, sitting at the table and pouring coffee into a delicate cup.  

He hesitated for a moment in the doorway but then grunted a greeting and pulled out his chair.  He ignored the large silver pot that she held, still preferring tea and even at times hankering for the bitter taste of gunpowder remnants mixed in with the leaves, and instead he stabbed at a bread roll with a silver butter knife.

Jane’s eyebrows raised.  “Did you enjoy last night?” she asked pointedly.

He tried to ignore the barbed question.  The previous evening’s dinner party had been even more excruciating than usual and he had left as soon as he was able to do so.  Jane had tried to cover up her annoyance in front of their hosts but she had given him the silent treatment the whole way home.

“You sat next to Mrs Palmer and you didn’t even open your mouth to greet her,” she continued, sipping delicately at her coffee.  “You didn’t say a word to her.  Not one.”

Richard sat back at Jane’s accusation.  He had tried to explain so many times before that he could never think of anything to say to the perfumed and bejewelled women who spent their evenings picking at sugared morsels and screeching with their friends over society gossip.  He recalled the days when Jane had answered his feeble excuses with an affectionate kiss and when any chastisement had been sweetened by her soft, innocent loveliness,

But these days the smiles and kisses seemed to have disappeared as Jane’s expectations of her husband had continued to soar.  Her criticism had become more and more bitter, directed at his lack of peacetime ambition, his lack of financial acumen and his lack of influential friends.  His general lack.  This morning was panning out to be no different, and Richard once again found that he had no answer for her. 

Jane gave a frustrated sigh at her husband’s conversational shortcomings.  “You are such a philistine, Richard!” she hissed, as if to hide her annoyance from the servants.  “You should always be able to find something to talk about!”

She leaned forward over the edge of the table so that Richard was momentarily distracted by the sight of her breasts pushed up under her morning dress. 

“Don’t you even know who Mr Palmer is?” she asked scathingly and he raised his eyes again, gave a small shrug and shook his head.  He did not know, and to be honest, nor did he care.

“I don’t understand you!”  Jane spluttered with indignation.  “He is one of many men of means and connections with whom you could have spoken last night.  They could open so many doors for you if you would only open your mouth and be polite to them for once!”

Richard sighed.  He usually let Jane’s berating words flow over his head, but this morning her voice rose in his ears and he sat back further in his seat to listen, gazing at her pale, beautiful face as she continued.

“We have the money, Richard!” she fumed.  “We have prestige and rank and everything going for us!  Why don’t you want to do something with it all?”  Her harsh whisper had reached a near screech by the end.

Richard remained silent, staring at his wife and trying to sort his thoughts out in his mind.  His lovely Jane, sitting opposite him in this opulent house surrounded by luxury, was now twisted in frustration and anger.  Her pale face was no longer full of delight at her husband, but was instead hard and accusatory, and as Richard continued to stare he tried to focus on what it was about her that he had always loved so much. 

And then, suddenly, he felt as if scales had dropped from his eyes.  As if he was seeing his wife clearly for the very first time.  He took in her soft, innocent beauty, her carefully curled hair and her rosebud lips that had previously given him such delicate smiles and kisses, and he realised with a sudden jolt that these things actually did nothing for him anymore.  Because a world full of big house, fancy clothing and sophisticated dinners would not make up for the enormous gulf of differences that lay between them.

“I can’t do what you want me to,” he finally said in a low voice. 

Her mouth hung slightly open at his reply.  “What on earth are you talking about, Richard?”

He hurriedly tried to find the words to continue.  “We want different things, my love.  I think we always did.”

Jane scoffed as if to dismiss his morning’s realisation and sat back in her chair.  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It’s true, Jane.  I think when we married, we didn’t really know each other well enough to see it, but now...”  He trailed off.  He could not quite bring himself to describe how things were now.

“Well I married a career soldier,” Jane replied petulantly.  “Someone who knew what they wanted and where they were going.  And to be honest with you, I have no idea where that man went.”

Richard swallowed hard at this accusation.  “I’m still here, Jane.  And I married you because I wanted to.  Because I loved you.”

Jane gave a snort of laughter.  “Did you?  Then perhaps you were as blind as I was.”

At these words, Richard felt his heart sink even further.  He had never wanted to think about it too much, but he had to admit that on this, Jane was right.  They had been blind.  He had thought that she had been a young English rose, his ideal woman, a beautiful young maiden whom he had rescued from a harsh future.  But of course, she had been so much more than that.

“I still love you, Jane.  I want you to be happy."

“Do you?” she asked harshly.  “And did you ever consider that perhaps the things that would make me happy are the very things that you won’t give me?”

“I’ve given you everything I have,” Richard answered in confusion.  “I buy you anything you want.  I even live here in London for you and I go out to all those dinners and the club and everything.  I do it all for you.”

And he would do it all again, he thought.  But Jane was hearing none of it.  She glanced around the highly decorated room with distaste.  

“We could be so much more than this, Richard.  But you won’t talk, you won’t dance, you won’t take part in society, and you certainly don’t seem to see what you could have in life.”

“We just want different things, my love,” Richard repeated, his voice growing tenser.  “I never even wanted to live in bloody London at all.”

“You and your vegetables!”  Jane screeched again.  “What about your wife?  Doesn’t it matter what she wants?”

Richard could not answer.  It did matter, of course it did.  Before he could say anything, Jane gave a short, dismissive laugh, and threw down her linen napkin onto the table.  He hung his head in frustration and cursed under his breath.  This was not what he had expected at the breakfast table this morning.  But it seemed now that he could no longer avoid the fact that the differences between them had always been seen as uncommon; ridiculous even.  And now he had to concede that despite his efforts, the thin fabric of their marriage had been slowly unravelling ever since the war had ended and they had returned to England.

He cursed again, trying to think if there was any way to bring Jane back around to him, but his dismal thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of an obsequiously bowing footman holding out a creased and crumpled letter on a small silver tray.  Richard licked the crumbs from his knife, ignoring Jane’s rolled eyes, and sliced the paper open.  As he scanned the words and then re-read them again and again, a wide grin grew on his face.  The letter was written in the hand of an obliging priest, advising Colonel Sharpe of Cork Street, Mayfair, that the Harper family of Eden Quay, Dublin would be soon on their way to London and that they would be honoured if he would care to renew their old acquaintance. 

Richard’s tongue darted to the corner of his mouth in delight.  This news was the first thing that had made him smile in weeks.  He scanned through the words once more just to make sure, and told an impatiently waiting Jane with a grin that the guest rooms should be aired and made ready for imminent visitors.  But he was not prepared for her reaction.

“Here?  Absolutely not, Richard.  I won’t hear of it.”

Richard frowned.  “But it’s Patrick.  He’s coming with his family.” 

“I know exactly who it is.” 

Richard heard a haughty tone in her voice that he had not recognised before, and he stared at her in disbelief.  

“I am mistress of this house and I will not have him stay under this roof,” Jane continued petulantly.  “There is space in the servants’ quarters or he can take lodgings as he has done before.”

Richard’s jaw tensed as a cold anger rose inside him.  The interminably long dinner parties and the ridiculously enforced society rules were one thing, but this was another entirely.  He placed the letter onto the table.

“Patrick Harper is my friend,” he said tersely.  “He and his family will stay here in the guest rooms.” 

“And bring his filthy boots up the stairs?  His little brats’ fingers all over my pianoforte?”  Jane snorted with defiance.

Richard’s face turned darker.  “You be careful what you’re saying.”

She scoffed in disgust.  “I would have thought better of you, Richard.  And you pretend to be a colonel?”

Her eyes said what she did not and Richard’s fury rose further.  He welcomed it; it was the first heated emotion he had felt in months.

“Say it, Jane,” he growled.  “Tell me what you really think of me.”

“Fine!”  Jane leaned forward to face him fully and her eyes glittered with disdain.  “You shame me, Richard.  I am doing everything, absolutely everything I can to keep us up in the world, and you do nothing but drag us down with your sullen face and your ridiculous lack of manners everywhere we go.”  She took another short breath and continued her tirade.  “And now this on top of it all.  You are nothing but a philistine who would be happy for us to sit in the dirt on the street, because that is where you came from and that is all you know.”

Richard sat still, suddenly feeling like a young ranker being berated by a senior officer.  He kept his face as slow and blank as possible and then he gave a short laugh of disbelief.

“You wouldn’t know the dirt in the street if it landed in your lap,” he finally said bitterly.  “You wouldn’t even last an hour where I grew up.  We have more here than I had ever thought possible.  All of this,” he broke off and gestured around the room.  “It’s what you wanted.  I’ve done it all for you.”

“You do nothing for me, Richard,” Jane spat out with venom.  “Because you are nothing, you came from nothing and you want nothing.”

“What else can I give you, Jane?” Richard asked in furious desperation and confusion.  “What exactly do you want?”

“I want out of -” and here she waved her fingers roughly in his direction “- this!  I’ve had enough!  Whatever this marriage might have once been, I simply cannot do it anymore.”

Richard only stared at her in shock.  He could not answer.  There was no love in her eyes, no kisses on his cheeks, no gentle sparkle in her words.  When had it tipped over into this?  Had it all been a sham?  He could not answer these questions, but whether it had ever been real or not he knew that he had somehow been sucked deep into a life that he hated.  And now, despite all his efforts and all his love for his wife, he could see in with a growing fury that he had failed at it. 

Everything was falling apart in front of his eyes.

Jane snorted in disgust at his silence, stood up from the table and left.  Richard pushed back his chair with a violent shove, sending the breakfast cups rattling and hot liquid spilling onto the tablecloth.  He hurriedly crossed the floor to look out of the window onto the cold winter street, only to see his wife’s back as she hurried down the front steps, taking his money and his carriage into town once more. 

He remembered his dream of a peaceful country house in Dorset, with a loving wife, a nursery full of children, and none of the demands that London society wished to put on him.

The very idea of this seemed ridiculous to him now.

He cursed again, snarling with anger and misery as he slammed the study door behind him once more.

Chapter Text

Patrick Harper arrived into London with his wide smile and hearty embrace, his frame widened and softened by years of agreeable living but his strength and character still undiminished.  He laughed as he admired Richard’s new and fashionable coat and hat, recalling the infantry officer’s years of torn overalls and threadbare jacket, and he immediately insisted that he and his family would stay with his cousin instead of in Richard’s Mayfair townhouse. 

“What would we be doing in Cork Street?” he asked incredulously as they unloaded their bags onto the cold city quays.  “We’ll maybe take a dander along there one day to gawp at the fashions one day, but Mary would be insulted if we said we weren’t coming to hers.  No, we’ll be staying in Southwark while we’re here.”

And Richard had reluctantly agreed with a small bit of relief; annoyed that once again he had unwittingly capitulated to Jane’s demands but also gratified that Patrick seemed to still have a sergeant’s intuitive sense of the action that would best suit any situation. 

He helped to settle the family with their young children and all their luggage in Southwark, and as he watched the small family’s ups and downs he gave a grim smile at his comparison of the Harpers’ marriage with his own.  Patrick might bicker and jostle with his fierce Spanish wife over nothing and everything, but it seemed to be always with a deep undertone of affection and understanding; things that were sorely lacking from his relationship with Jane.  He looked away as pain suddenly hit him in the gut at the realisation that this was something that he had missed for a long time, and perhaps was something that he might never come to know again. 

He headed back down the stairs and into the street in an attempt to protect himself from his thoughts.  He leaned back against the shadows of the cold brick wall, trying to keep up a pretence of being alright as Patrick joined him outside with his usual chat as well as a new tobacco habit.  Richard felt his words and tongue moving slowly in his responses, as if he had not spoken freely in a long time, and he hoped that Patrick would assume his stiffness and hesitancy were all merely due to many months that had passed since they had last seen each other.  Having no war to fight would change any man, he thought, and they had both had to get used to life outside the army and find something new to do.  But he knew deep down that if there were any man to see through his act, it would be Patrick Harper.  And as the winter sun set over the city Patrick pulled Richard away from the house in Southwark and tried to buoy him up over drinks.  Not at the members club - Patrick would never be allowed to cross the threshold there.  Instead they went to Drury Lane, where the air was noisy and the ale was cheap and the two men’s still fearsome appearances meant they would be left well alone as they talked. 

“So what exactly is it that you’re doing with your time now?” Patrick asked as he carried a dark bottle and two large pewter mugs of ale through the crowded room to their table.

Richard assumed that he was eager to hear more of life in London and the excitement that it might bring.  But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to make up a pretence of enjoying a London life of means and status, and he only managed a small shrug and glib answer.  

“Whatever any gentleman does with his time.”

Patrick had to smile at this.  “Dancing and dining with the wife, is that it?”

Richard did not smile in response, but only looked away at Patrick’s perception.  If Jane had her way, he would never be here in a dirty tavern, drinking ale with an uneducated Irish sergeant.  Instead, he would dress up in his finely cut clothes and dandy around with the upper classes who jabbered to each other, dealing in gossip and promoting fools with too much money.  He would drink fine wines and gamble and laugh at the younger gentlemen who indulged in all that life in the city had to offer until they were packed off to finish their education and take in the great sights of Europe.  

But he knew deep inside him that no matter what he did or how hard he tried, he would never be able to do things Jane’s way.  It was not his world.  They might accept his wife because of her upbringing, her charm and her sparkling beauty, but not him.  Never him.  Whatever he might have once achieved on the battlefields of Europe was all well and good, but no amount of plundered riches or playing catch-up with volumes of books bought in job lots would ever make up for his start in life and his conversational skills that were so unsuitable for the drawing rooms of England.

“Never thought I’d see it.  I mean, it’s not exactly you, is it now?” Patrick continued with a smile.

Richard gave a quick shake of his head in response.  “I don’t have to do it much.”  

It was a feeble protest, and he turned away to rub at his chin in discomfort before taking another long draught of ale.  Speaking with a friend who knew him so well was bringing a new clarity to his real thoughts and feelings on the matter.  He blinked hard and continued to stare down at his mug, avoiding the keen eyes that he knew were watching him with care.

“Have things got that bad?” Patrick asked.

Richard stayed quiet as Patrick continued to look over at him softly, and the minute stretched out in silence.

“I hate it,” he finally confessed.

“And Mrs. Sharpe?”

“She loves it,” Richard sighed.  “But to be honest, we don’t really talk anymore.  Only to fight.”  He rubbed at his face and his words tumbled out.  “The truth is that Jane wants out - she wishes she’d never married me.”

“Jesus,” Patrick sighed and he sat back in his seat.  “I’m sorry to hear that.  And after all you did for her as well.”  His eyes filled with compassion and he leaned in to top up their drinks again.  “And how about you in all of this?  What is it that you want?”

“I don’t know.”  Richard gave a soft shrug, attempting to mask his hurt at his shattered dreams.  “I wanted - Christ, I don’t know what I wanted.  But whatever it was, it’s not exactly working, is it?  Maybe it never did.”

Patrick took in a long breath and sucked at his lower lip, as if he did not necessarily disagree.  “Would you ever leave her?” he asked hesitantly.  “Go off somewhere else?”

Richard stared at him as if the thought had never occurred to him.  Then he shook his head.  “I can’t do that.  And even I did, I’d still be responsible for her.”

Patrick agreed.  “But still, if things are that bad then you might be better off out of it.  Would you think of a divorce?  Or an annulment or something?”

Richard was appreciative of Patrick’s attempts to find him a way out that went against every grain of his Catholic being.  But a divorce was prohibitively expensive and the wedding may have been quick but everything had still been done in the right way.  They had thrown themselves into it, thinking that they were so ridiculously in love.  At the memory of all of it, Richard gave a deep sigh that ended up in a low groan. 

“God, Patrick, I was such a bloody fool.”

Patrick gave a reluctant grin.  “Well, a fool always thinks himself to be wise, isn’t that what they say?  And a fool in love wouldn’t be much different now.  There would have been no stopping you, even if I'd tried.”

Richard rubbed at his face in frustration, hating not only that his friend was right but that he seemed to have seen so easily what he himself had never really wanted to admit.

“But I don’t know, if only I had…” he started, before he lost track of his thoughts.  What could he have done differently?  What should he have done?  He loved Jane.  He always had.  He had been so ridiculously happy when she had agreed to marry him.  And when he was fighting, his rank and sword and victories had made up for anything that he might have lacked in the officers’ mess.  But now?  In a peacetime London he had become nothing.  And Jane resented him - hated him - for that fact.

“If only - ” he started again, but was interrupted by Patrick’s short shrug.

“There's no call for ifs and buts now,” said Patrick.  “If my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle, so she would, but she doesn’t so she isn’t and there’s no more to it than that.”  

And Richard had no answer for this other than a soft, bitter laugh.

Patrick poured out from the bottle and sighed as he tried another tack.  “She’s your wife and you say you love her and there’s no getting away from that,” he said.  “And I know it might not be what you wanted from life, but look it - haven’t you the freedom of your money and a lovely place to live?”

“Do you think so?”  Richard wondered again at Patrick’s pragmatism and how he could always look for some bit of contentment in any situation. 

“I do.  It might be the only way to look at it.”  Patrick leaned forward as he handed over the mug again.  “But if it really doesn’t work out, you know that there’s always a place for you to stay in Dublin.”

Richard gave a wan smile.

“Thanks.”

“Forget about her tonight.  Drink up.”

And Richard did.

--//--

The Harpers were only staying in London for a short few days, but while they were there Richard found himself laughing and talking more than he had in months.  He and Patrick walked the wide streets of the cold, winter city, slipping on paving stones white with frost and dodging the carts and carriages pulled by the steaming horses whose every breath beaded white into the frozen air.  They warmed themselves over the smoke of the braziers on each corner and they ate at cheap taverns where Richard sat back into the cushions of the benches, feeling his shoulders creak as they released a tension that he had not really noticed holding.  He laughed at Patrick’s antics and the stories that he had nearly forgotten, and he sighed at their bittersweet reminiscences of years gone by; of friends they had known and friends they had lost.  He smiled at the way that Patrick enjoyed every new view of London, exclaiming at the sights that greeted them around each corner.  He stood at Patrick’s side by the wide, slow-moving Thames with a poke of roasted chestnuts, and they picked at the hot, floury bites as they stared down into the river’s muddy waters for eels and fish, surrounded by the shouts of the dockworkers, the creaks of the ships’ miles of ropes and sails and the echoing crashes of the huge cargoes that were being brought in from every corner of the world.  And as the days went on, Richard started to see the city through new eyes.  He found that he liked showing London to someone who had no preconceived idea of his place in it.  Someone who never asked him to change to fit into it.  Someone who never wanted him to act a part.

They talked and walked away the winter days together and then drank together in crowded alehouses late into the night.  On the nights when it was too late to make it back to Mayfair Richard slept in the corner of Patrick’s cousin’s room in Southwark, sunk into a pile of blankets and snoring deeply.  There was no fine glassware or silverware there for him to make mistakes with; only an honest bowl of something hot, plenty of drink and excellent company, and then back out again the next icy morning with a fresh energy in his step. 

On Patrick’s last night in London they headed out for one final night, pushing their way into a busy tavern to buy another round.  This one was a dark and dingy place, frequented by those whom might be familiar with the inside of a prison or the workings of a rookery, but although it was lit only by a few dirty lamps it was still warm with bodies and talk and wood fires and it gave a welcome relief from the streets’ wintry wind. 

The crowd’s eyes flickered over the two men’s appearances in suspicion as they walked in, and the innkeeper frowned as he poured mugs of foaming ale and wondered who the well-dressed strangers were in his establishment on such a winter’s evening.  Gentry would very seldom come in here, for good reason, and Richard’s scarred face and hard stare did not exactly marry with the fine cut of his clothes and hat.  But the innkeeper only shrugged as he slipped the easy coins into his apron.  At the end of the day, money was money wherever it came from, and it was not up to him to protect a stranger from his regulars.  And it looked like there might be plenty more coin to be had from this particular gentleman.

Richard scowled fiercely, hating the judgement that he saw in the innkeeper’s eyes and the familiar antipathy of the other drinkers; hating them for hating him; hating that he was dressed as something that he had never really wanted to become; already anticipating with a pull in his stomach the Harpers’ imminent departure and only wanting to sit in quiet and enjoy his friend’s last night in the city.  He turned towards one of the wooden benches, but as he did so he was violently jolted by a tall man, shabbily dressed but with a sneering lip and a drunken fighter’s stance.  Richard immediately shoved him back as a bitter resentment continued to rise inside him.  He spat on the floor and moved on towards the bench, but then felt powerful hands pulling at his wool coat and an angry voice calling him out. 

“Perfumed ponce!”

Richard whirled around, fuelled by drink, frustration and the sudden return of his explosive anger against the world.  Right now Patrick did not matter, and the ale waiting for him did not matter.  All that mattered was the rough, blistering fury that suddenly coursed through his veins once again and the hatred and violence that had arisen in him.  Because he was not and never would be the rich, pampered gentleman that this accoster assumed he was.  Time and the crowded tavern around him ceased to exist.  All Richard’s anger, all his disappointment in himself and in his marriage and in his peacetime life flowed through his fists and his feet and his hissed curses at the unwitting stranger who was now suddenly on the floor, his head and torso kicked and punched until he lay still, blood streaming from his face and an unconscious moan dripping from his lips.

Richard stared at the downed man’s battered body with a wild and wicked grin, and yet still he did not stop.  He felt as though he had been floating through the last few months as numb and as useless as a ghost, and now he was suddenly real and alive again.  The physical sensations of the fuggy air of the tavern, the roar of the crowded room around him and the pain that he could inflict on this man were all so immediate; and he was here, his blood was hot, his scowl savage, his punches viciously fast, again and again; all until he heard the Ulster voice and felt Patrick’s hands and arms gripping him at his coat.  He tried to turn back to the fight once more but found himself being pulled strongly away by his friend and he only managed to give one last kick to the man on the floor before he was hustled away from the scene of blood and smashed bottles and upturned chairs.  Cold air suddenly hit his face as they stumbled out onto the street and the door was slammed behind them. 

He angrily shrugged his torn coat back up onto his shoulders and turned to face Patrick with hostility.  “What the hell did you do that for?”

Patrick nearly laughed.  “Did you not see the poor bugger on the floor, sir?  You nearly had him bloody killed!”

“It would serve him right, bloody ponce himself,” Richard growled.

“The man was so drunk he could hardly see a hole in a ladder, sir,” Patrick answered.  “He’s half-dead already and I’d hardly want to see you swing for the sake of a fool of a nothing like him.”

“It weren’t nothing, Patrick.  You heard what he said.  What he called me.”

“Pay that no heed, sir,” Patrick shook his head.  “We know its bollocks and it’s certainly not worth killing him over.  Come away.”

Richard grunted with resentment, but he turned and strode away down the dark street, anger still coursing through him.  Patrick easily stayed at his side, matching him pace for pace, and soon Richard found himself relaxing into a rifle-time march.  His blood was pumping quickly around his whole body and his fists held a pleasurable ache from the fierce contact. 

It had felt good, it really had.

He had missed it.

He glanced over at Patrick by his side who seemed as content as if they merely were taking a stroll by the Serpentine, and he could not help but let out a long breath at the release of energy and joy that the evening’s fight had seemed to bring him.

“I’d say you haven’t lost it like that in a wee while,” Patrick commented lightly.

Richard smiled ruefully.  “No.”

A smile threatened at Patrick’s face too.  “Maybe it was needed.  Maybe it was a long time coming.”

And maybe Patrick was right about that, because Richard somehow felt more alive than he had done in months.  He let his grin spread across his face. 

“It felt good,” he admitted.

Patrick’s broad face was awash with amusement at Richard’s simple answer.  “It’s good to hear that, sir,” he said.  “But even so, but we might not return there for a while.  Plenty other places for us to go, so there are.”

His cousin’s house in Southwark was close, with the taverns and alehouses of the dockworkers nearby, and so they slept there again for one last night before the Harpers were to leave again.

--//--

Richard stood at the dockside, watching the sunlight rise up and flash along the Thames to hit the bows of the early morning boat.  His hat was lost, his fists were bruised and his coat had only been hurriedly mended, but as he took in a deep breath of the cold, damp air he realised that during the last few days with the Harpers he had enjoyed himself more than he had in a very long time.  He had felt more like himself that he had in a very long time.  It was as if his high-society life was all some kind of strange, faded dream, and that eating and drinking and fighting with Patrick had all been true and real.  And while he had been busy in these few days of his real life, he had hardly thought of Jane at all. 

And he did not think of her now; not until the dark shape of the boat had disappeared around a wide bend towards the estuary and the open sea, and he had finally and reluctantly returned once more to Mayfair.

And there he had to think of Jane, because he came home to an empty house.