The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

Lydia stood up and drew herself back against the wall. He could see her face, and she looked angry. It had always been coming up to this, and there was no use in getting upset now. He continued.

"And when you were gone, one of you bribed him somehow into continuing your dirty work for you. With your body, I suppose!"

He was shouting; certainly, the guests would be able to hear, but John Paul didn't concern himself with that now. Let them hear; he would have to call the wedding off, disappear somehow. Now that he had learned that there was no one who could be trusted, he could begin recovering somehow.

It wasn't about the money; he had only wanted to begin a new life, but it seemed that was simply too much to ask. Lydia stood with her back against the wall. Her expression was inconstant, changing quickly from confused to angry to frustrated and back again in a mixed swirl. She was caught out, then, and what little family he had built himself was falling apart.

"That's not true," Lydia said, whispering.

"What?"

John Paul silently dared her to deny it again. He had her caught out, absolutely dead to rights. If she had the gall to insist that he was lying…he snarled. Could she not have the courtesy to tell him the truth on his deathbed?

"Shame on you," she said. Her face was in her hands, but he thought he could hear her weeping. "I am innocent, I have done nothing of the sort."

"What, then?" He struggled not to believe her outright. She so

unded so pure, so honest, that it was hard not to accept whatever she said. He told himself that the best thing for it was just to listen to what she said.

Certainly, he thought, whatever lies she told would be caught out in the end. He had only to wait for her to utter them, and if he maintained a calm mind then he would see through them. If, by some coincidence, she was as innocent as she maintained…

John Paul didn't let himself think it. If he did, then he would be lost from the very first moment. He wanted nothing more than for her to be innocent.

"You have been sick for months!" Lydia was panicking; he could see it on her face. "Nearly a year, John Paul. You kept saying you'd get better, and then I went away and you just got worse!"

It was true; he had just gotten worse, no matter what he had done, and he hadn't missed it either. The doctor had never suggested anything else that sounded reasonable. It wasn't that John Paul hadn't asked, either. He had; it wasn't cancer, it wasn't the flu. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't.

Nothing in any of the medical literature he'd read, though he had to admit that he had read only very little of it. Now that he was sick enough to be concerned about it, he was too sick to go to a library and research.

"That's right," John Paul said, softly. "That's why it must have been more than just one person. Several people, then. In concert."

"Well," Lydia said, sliding down the wall to the floor, "I had no part of it."

"What were you doing with Henry, then? In a bedroom, no less!"

"John Paul Foster, you have just been getting worse and worse. Nothing I can do helps you. Nothing I ever do. I just wanted help. I just wanted someone to tell me what to do, and Henry's the only person you ever spend any time around!" She looked tired; exhausted, more likely. She should have been in bed by now, he knew. It was no small scandal for her to be out so late. "He said that you're just going to get sicker, that there's nothing I can do. Nothing anyone can do."

"So, what? You went to him for comfort?"

She reached out her hand and slapped him across the face. The place where her hand had struck burned hot.

"Don't you dare, John Paul. Don't you dare accuse me of that. Did you think I had no other offers?" He could see that even as the tears fell down her face, she wore a look of absolute fury. "Well, I'll have you know, I had other suitors, Mister Foster! I have stayed faithful to you from the very first time you asked me to marry you, I have turned down several perfectly good prospects, and now—"

She sat back again and started to cry.

"Your father said no, you know." He laid his head back on the bed. "He thought I couldn't be trusted."

The colonel looked over at Lydia and watched her crying. She didn't look at him, keeping her face buried in her arms. He waited a moment before continuing.

"I wouldn't tell him how I came into my money, you see. I didn't inherit it. So how does a man make such a fortune for himself without industrial connections, without any special skills, without any business investments?" He let out a long breath. "He wasn't wrong to have felt that he couldn't trust someone who wouldn't be honest with him; I couldn't have done it, either."

Lydia didn't reply. He knew she heard him, but she didn't respond, so he continued further.

"When I was in Australia…It was in October, so it would've been just a little under two years ago, I suppose. There were reports coming in of Aboriginal rebels. It was clear that they had some sort of military supplies, so someone was selling them. Or worse, smuggling them out for free, as some sort of opposition to the crown."

He waited for a response. Lydia had wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but still didn't look directly at him, and she didn't say anything.

"Under normal circumstances, there is a police force for that sort of thing. At least, regular army could handle it. But given the implication of a subversive in the British military…there was a perfectly good chance, as well, that the blame would be fairly high up in the British military, for the missing supplies to have gone unnoticed."