Too enraged to sit, he paced the length of the sizeable study, grimacing and cursing under his breath, impatient to drown his friend in a torrent of complaint. His last turn from the window at the other end of the room brought him up before the picture of a lady from his past. Emily. He had loved her once, years ago before he had joined the navy as an arrogant youth out to destroy tyranny. Three years away had been too many, and she had married another. Her soft, lovely eyes reminded him of the way he had once been able to feel about a woman, entirely besotted and fighting to hold any other thought in his head but of her. He wondered when this part of him had died. Was it in the navy in the company of death? Had the need to kill killed his ability to love? Or had it died a slow death in the arms of the scores of plotting, greedy debutantes siphoning away his tenderness?
