It filled the storm, pounding and striking the night sky. It filled the stranger, fueling and stoking a burning lust. For a woman. A woman who knew more of life than surviving one day at a time. A woman with kindness and passion. A woman who would share with him her soul as well as her body. A woman who, perhaps, could give him back his own soul. The man raised his face to the sky and cursed the icy rain. He cursed the wind that drove it into every pore of his body. He cursed the African Boer who had used his left leg for target practice, thus necessitating convalescence in the cold, drafty country that was England . He cursed the horse that had thrown him in such a godforsaken, isolated area. But most of all he cursed the need that had driven him from the warmth and comfort of his seaside cottage. Need that a man like him, born on the streets of London , could not afford. Need that, in a man like him, haunted by the nameless dead, could never be appeased. A fork of jagged lightning split the sky; a warning shot of thunder echoed through the night.
