Chapter Twenty-One
Letty reacted instinctively, putting her arms around Reid, gathering him close again, holding him tightly. His words echoed inside her head, sharp-edged and terrible. She pressed her face into his damp hair, and rocked him. “Hush,” she whispered mechanically. “It’s all right. Hush.” But she knew it wasn’t all right.
Reid inhaled a huge, shuddering breath, and stopped crying. He tried to pull away from her.
Letty didn’t release him; she tightened her embrace. “Whatever you told them didn’t matter, Icarus,” she said fiercely in his ear. “Wellesley won that battle! The French pulled out of Portugal. Whatever you told them—it didn’t matter.”
She felt him tense, felt him repudiate the words.
Maybe it had mattered. Had men died because of what he’d told the French? Letty
