So buy a home. Find a pretty girl to marry. Settle down…

““So buy a home. Find a pretty girl to marry. Settle down and start a family.” Bram shook his head. Impossible suggestions, all. He was not about to resign his commission at the age of nine-and-twenty, while England remained at war. And he damned well wasn’t going to marry. Like his father before him, he intended to serve until they pried his flintlock from his cold, dead grip. And while officers were permitted to bring their wives, Bram firmly believed gently bred women didn’t belong on campaign. His own mother was proof of that. She’d succumbed to the bloody flux in India, a short time before young Bram had been sent to England for school. He sat forward in his chair. “Sir Lewis, you don’t understand. I cut my teeth on rationed biscuit. I could march before I could speak. I’m not a man to settle down. While England remains at war, I cannot and will not resign my commission. It’s more than my duty, sir. It’s my life. I…” He shook his head. “I can’t do anything else.” “If you won’t resign, there are other ways of helping the war effort.” “Deuce it, I’ve been through all this with my superiors. I will not accept a so-called promotion that means shuffling papers in the War Office.” He gestured at the alabaster sarcophagus in the corner. “You might as well stuff me in that coffin and seal the lid. I am a soldier, not a secretary.” The man’s blue eyes softened. “You’re a man, Victor. You’re human.” “I’m my father’s son,” he shot back, pounding the desk with his fist. “You cannot keep me down.” He was going too far, but to hell with boundaries. Sir Lewis Finch was Bram’s last and only option. The old man simply couldn’t refuse. Sir Lewis stared at his folded hands for a long, tense moment. Then, with unruffled calm, he replaced his spectacles. “I have no intention of keeping you down. Much to the contrary.” “What do you mean?” Bram was instantly wary. “I mean precisely what I said. I have done the exact opposite of keeping you down.” He reached for a stack of papers. “Bramwell, prepare yourself for elevation.””

— Tessa Dare