Chapter 37 #2
“Will you return home?” Ana’s voice matched his.
“Of course,” the words flew from his lips without hesitation.
“But only when la armada allow it, verdad?”
“Well, yes . . .” he sputtered.
“Then I must go.”
Ana rose to her feet and Peter stood to meet her, although panic and pain made him unsteady.
“I will sell my commission, Ana. I will leave the army.”
Ana froze, halting her steps toward her rooms. Finally, the hopelessness and resignation leaked from her eyes as she turned back to Peter. “De verdad?”
“Yes. I promise,” Peter said, his chest rising and falling quickly. “I only need to return for a short time to see to this matter of San Sebastián. Perhaps a number of months. I wish to see that some sort of justice is brought to pass, even if it only be on our home soil.”
Ana groaned and buried her hands in her hair yet again. “San Sebastián—it destroy my life. It take my father. Why is la justicia so importante? O San Sebastián? And why are they more important than our life here? Than me?”
Her words scraped deep into Peter’s heart.
And he found he could no longer disguise the truth from her.
“It’s not about justice or the army. It’s not even truly about San Sebastián, Ana.
It is about you. I care so deeply because they hurt you.
” His voice broke, a groan of agony escaping him.
“And I will not survive seeing you hurt so again.”
This was what war truly was. War had not allowed him to escape the violence of his father, the cries of his mother.
Instead, foolhardy and selfish soldiers had brought that same devastation to him in an entirely new and heartbreaking way.
They had violated and forever altered the mother of his child, the creator of his future—the woman that he loved.
He rubbed a hand over his eyes in an effort to block out the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks and breathed deeply. “I fight for San Sebastián because I fight for you. For us. I will make this right. I will protect you from being put in danger ever again.”
He would be worthy of the suffering she’d endured there.
A cold resignation settled across Ana’s features now, her forehead smooth of concerned lines, her tears dried. “Vaya. If you must,” she whispered, her body slumped, defeated.
“And you will not leave?”
“I will wait. For a time.”
Peter stepped forward and embraced Ana, pressing a promise of a kiss to her forehead.
But all she had endured made her cold and limp in his arms. A moment later, she wandered, her steps unsteady, back to her room.
Only once he could see that she had tucked herself securely into bed did Peter shut their adjoining door.
Still, soft sobs drifted to him through the cracks beneath the door.
What a great mess he had made of this evening. But his desire to fight for their future was for the better, was it not? He had no question in his mind about his decision to keep Ana from joining him.
Some small portion of translating for the armies had brought Ana fulfillment, he knew.
She had seemed alive and vivacious. But perhaps that came more from being seen and appreciated by her father, the parent who had always been too quick to leave her home.
When she had witnessed the horrible realities of war stripped bare, Peter had seen that familiar haunted hollowness settle into her body, dulling her eyes and causing her body to curve around itself protectively.
Even worse, after she had survived being attacked, she had retreated completely into her own mind, something Peter had never expected from the Ana who had once fed off the liveliness and entertainment of others.
Even coming to England had not been an easy journey.
She had been surrounded constantly by soldiers in redcoats that reminded her of her attackers.
One night as they were traveling across the sea, Peter awoke to find Ana’s bed in their shared cabin empty.
He hurried up to the deck, assuming that she was stricken with seasickness yet again.
Instead, he found her, silent and motionless, at the rail, staring back across the ocean to an unseen Spain.
Peter had held her hand in a rare moment of welcomed contact as she had whispered of longing for family, for safety.
And yet Spain could no longer provide her with any of those comforts, leaving her impossibly torn between two unfamiliar worlds.
And so Peter had promised himself that he would provide for Ana what he had never been able to provide for Mother, for Matthew, or for himself: a home.
She would never be provided that security again if she joined him. But sometime in the past months, passing as blindingly fast as they had, Peter had realized that he needed home too. And not only home with Mother but home with Ana.
Words came to mind that Mother had written to him months ago when he had first shared his plight with her.
As always, she had somehow known precisely what he would need to learn in the coming months.
She had written, “There will come a point when you must decide that your future is no longer determined by your past—a past which you did not want nor choose—but instead by your decisions, which you will make of your own volition.” She had likely been referring more to his past clashes with Father and how they influenced his family relationships.
But how fitting those words were now. Finally, Peter could determine his own future.