Colin Wareham, fifth baron St. Mawr, stood at the ship's rail watching the foam and heave of the English Channel. Even though it was late June, the day was damp and cool, with a sky of streaming black clouds and a sharp wind from the north. Yet Wareham made no effort to restrain the flapping of his long cloak or to avoid the slap of spray as the ship beat through the waves. He was bone-tired. He could no longer remember, in fact, when he hadn't been tired."Nearly home, my lord," said his valet, Reddings, who stood solicitously beside him. He pointed to the smudge of gray at the horizon that was England.
"Home." Colin examined the word as if he couldn't quite remember its meaning. For eight years, his home had been a military encampment. In the duke of Wellington's army, he had fought his way up the Iberian Peninsula—Coruna, Talavera, Salamanca—he had fought his way through France, and then done it again after Napoleon escaped Saint Helena and rallied the country behind him once more. He had lived with blood and death and filth until all the joy had gone out of him. And now he was going home, back to a family that lived for the amusements of fashionable London, to the responsibilities of an eldest son. His many relatives, at least, were pleased. According to them, as baron, he should never have risked himself as a soldier in the first place. Their satisfaction at his return matched the intensity of the outcry when he had joined up at twenty.....
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