The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

"Of course," he said, and left the room promptly. John Paul fumed a bit over the way that his nephew never seemed to care to respond to anything. Here he was, trying to bring his nephew into his life, and the boy simply would not play along. What was he supposed to do, exactly? Constant argument, or ignored remarks, or whatever sort of annoyance the boy wanted to raise next.

It wasn't fair, John Paul supposed, to think so harshly. He had spent a while where it was only the two of them. The boy was probably annoyed, as any single child is, when someone new comes into the home. He was too young to think of things from any other perspective, and lacked the experience to simply cope with the frustration or push it out of his mind.

So it could be hardly his blame alone; John Paul had pushed him away himself, by being so distant the past few weeks. With a little bit of care and spending some time with him, he would come back around.

John Paul set up the stair himself to return to his room. It was strange being on the third floor; he could see the entire yard, stretching off into the distance, from the height he stayed at. Yet, the walls were completely bare, which was still stranger. No peeling wallpaper, nothing at all. Just bare wall. He found the effect unsettling.

There was not so much time any more to waste on the house repairs, and yet they were desperately needed; he would have to push himself to begin replacing the wallpaper in the rooms that had been completed.

Then they would be well and truly complete, and he could concentrate then on the next rooms to follow after that, and so on, until the entire house would be finished. He laid down on his bed and thought about the date that afternoon with the Wakefields; he opened his eyes a moment later to find that it had been an hour, and that he had fallen quite fast asleep.

He pushed himself upright and wiped the sleep from his eyes. He would need to dress and get ready. He had the date that afternoon, then a doctor's appointment the next day, though the doctor would be calling on the house, so he would not need to be up overly early for it.

He had Thomas draw a bath for him, and then thought through once again his afternoon plans. He would meet Lydia and perhaps her brother in the park, they would walk. Hopefully, Simon and Henry would have the good taste to leave them more-or-less to themselves.

John Paul thought that should be the way with newly engaged couples, and they would walk through the park for a while. He had seen it before, from a distance, but it would be the first time seeing it up close. Before, he'd never had a reason to spend any time there.

He imagined his fiancee's face again; the thought of her brought to mind the look she made when she plotted mischief. It was a distinctive look that she wore. Distinctively hers. A sharp, almost dangerous smile that she would hide as best she could, but anyone who knew her well enough to recognize it at all would know it the moment they saw, hiding or not.

A part of him wondered how far it would go. Would so he push it to the length of actual danger for someone? Probably not, he thought, hopefully, but there was always the risk that he was underestimating her, and that was a risk he had no desire to take. Underestimating her, he thought, was perhaps the most dangerous of his options, and he smiled at that thought as well.

Lydia, dangerous. He laughed out loud at the very notion of her presenting any sort of danger to him, but in the back of his mind he knew that she was capable of far more than he gave her credit for. She was, he feared, smarter than him in the womanly ways. He made it a rule never to underestimate anyone who he knew to be his better.

Smarter to keep them at a distance, observe them, and make sure that in the end, you wouldn't be left in trouble while they laughed off into the distance. Even with a chaste, wonderful young woman like his bride-to-be, he could not completely ignore his instinct to keep people at a distance. His way of keeping an objective view of things had saved his life more than once.

He imagined for a moment what it would look like to have her raising their children; her smile, her mischief. They'd grow up to be little rascals, he thought. With a little bit of guidance, that would hardly be an issue for anyone.

Children should be a little bit rambunctious. John Paul had never been given to rambunctiousness; he always thought that he had been just a bit too cautious. Better to be aggressive and bold. Those were the qualities that made for a good leader, so long as they were tempered just enough.

Caution made for good strategy, at times, but it hardly ever made for a likable or interesting man, and the Colonel had never felt himself to be either of those things. He wondered why Lydia had consente

d to the engagement.

He decided to stop wondering about it. Never try to figure out why someone did something, after all it always winds up being a great big goose hunt with nothing to show for it but a lot of worthless thoughts.

He stood from the bath, letting the water fall down him in rivulets. He did look a bit smaller than he had, he thought. Frailer, somewhat. Was he not eating enough? Not sleeping enough? He felt fine, most of the time.

When he wasn't feeling ill, anyways. But it seemed that he was now looking less and less healthy, and he wondered why. He had done his absolute best to stay in shape since he had left the army, but no matter what he did it seemed he was doomed to be reduced to a normal man.

Perhaps it was just the passage of time, and that the whole thing was unavoidable. He knew that men were supposed to grow a bit weaker with each passing year, but he thought he had a few years left in him of strength. That he was deteriorating so rapidly made him worry. He pushed his worries away.

Probably it was just stress; he was worrying quite a lot about the marriage, about his relationship with Lydia and with Henry. That must be it; he thought that it was perfectly natural to lose some weight when there was so much going on outside of staying healthy.

He dressed silently, thinking of how much he had to do, then pushed the thoughts away as quickly and completely as they had come. He needed to do nothing right this moment but to dress and prepare for an afternoon with Lydia.

That was hardly something to worry about; he should be enjoying his time with his bride to be, not pushing himself to take greater and greater responsibilities. To do that would suck what enjoyment was to be had out of marriage, and he had no desire to be tired of his relationship with Lydia any sooner than absolutely necessary.

He met Henry in the front room, where he was standing reading a magazine over a coffee table waiting for his uncle.

"Ah," he said as John Paul walked up, setting the magazine down. "You've finally arrived. We will need to be going in just a moment if we're to meet your young lady friend and her brother in the park. It's nearly three, and you said we needed to meet them at four forty. Even if we push the horses we might be cutting it a bit close on time, at this rate."

"I know," John Paul said. "I was bathing before the date, and then I got a bit lost in my thoughts, I suppose."

"Becoming a philosopher in your age," Henry teased, and John Paul forced a smile. Perhaps the joke hit a little bit too close to home for him, with the concerns over his body and what age might mean for it. Still, henry likely meant nothing by the jape, it was simply an off-hand comment made as a little joke between a nephew and his uncle, after all.

They went out through the door together, taking the horses from Mark. He'd had them saddled and ready to go for them already, and the pair of men set off trotting down the road beside one anther.

Henry seemed much more calm and collected on his horse now; he had been so nervous in the past, yet now he was commanding it quite expertly, and john Paul beamed inwardly. He tried to push the expression off his face; it wouldn't do to be too excited over something he'd played no hand in, after all.