London, Spring of 1816

Oliver Queen, the Earl of Archer, concentrated on taking his next breath as he attempted to keep the piercing noises of the jubilant ballroom suppressed to a tolerable irritation. Draw air in, as if inhaling the pleasing scent of a blooming flower. Ease out, to attempt to relax. Draw in. Ease out. Draw in. Ease out. He repeated his personal mantra over and over in his mind. If he could keep his concentration he just might make it through the night without embarrassing himself and his family.

"Oliver?" His mother's soft inquiry of concern, and the instant withdrawal of her hovering fingers from where they had deceptively appeared to rest upon his sleeve, pulled Oliver's attention towards blue eyes that were so much like his own. Love and an unspoken understanding of what he was experiencing shown through them and gave him the strength and fortitude to reach for her hand. He ignored the discomfort and pain, of touching and being touched by someone, and placed her fingers upon his arm and escorted her further into the crowd.

He heard a gasp of surprise then a sigh of gratefulness escape his mother's lips at his rare touch and his pain intensified. He hated his weakness and the hurt it caused those he loved.

They both stood out amongst the colorful 'peacocks' of the ton, not just because of Oliver's severe yet, classic black evening wear with white downy cravat and his mother's elegant cream satin gown. But because the Earl of Archer had not been seen since his return from the war.

Whispers of why, surrounded him even as the crowd thankfully parted and he spotted a man, whom he owed a tremendous debt, across the room. As he made his way towards the similarly conservatively dressed peer, William Smoak, the son of the Viscount of Somerset who had rescued Oliver from the clutches of the enemy, snippets of gossip accosted his ears.

"I don't see any wounds,"

"We had heard he was disfigured,"

"Not like he once was,"

Oliver swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as the last words cut him as painfully as a sword. And he knew exactly what damage a sword, both razor sharp and duller, as to prolong suffering, could wield. His own screams were a testament to that knowledge.

Draw in. Ease out.

Memories of brave friends lost and the worst side of humanity assailed Oliver. These silly entitled people laughing and enjoying the evening, who drank and ate to excess, would never truly understand that...wounds were not just physical. They could not see the appalling lines of scars that ran along his body nor the crippling psychological walls that kept him from the simplest of human comfort...touch.

No, Oliver would never be like he once was. That carefree bachelor without a care in the world was long gone. Now stood a man, trying to claw his way back from the bloody battlefields of a foreign country.

#####

Lady Felicity Smoak, the youngest of two siblings, watched her older brother turn at the arrival of a tall and stunningly, handsome man who was accompanied by an equally tall older woman, whom Felicity assumed was his mother or aunt, as the familial resemblance was undeniable.

Felicity's eyes were drawn to the stranger's luxurious dark, cropped hair, chiseled jaw and innate virility, but they lingered when she instinctively felt his aloneness. He was beautiful, yet...there was something about him.

As a woman, who felt she was not a Helen of Troy, who enjoyed getting lost in a book rather than learn to flirt or be coy; who had yet to experience the romance that filled the pages of many of her favorite novels and who watched life unfold from behind uncommon glass spectacles...she understood.

She had never felt such an acute surety. His profound loneliness was an intimate realization and when his intense gaze unexpectedly swept towards her, as if he had felt the connection too, she flushed with awareness. A flash of interest and curiosity swirled in the pretty depths of his ocean blue eyes before he broke the brief link to look at William. She felt oddly bereft at the loss of his regard.

"Archer, it is a pleasure to see you," Felicity's heart stopped then raced at the name of the man her brother greeted with genuine respect.

She could now place a face to the man her brother had mentioned only once when deep in his cups of wine. Her brother had come home nine months earlier, after three years away, to find his younger sister a mature woman of the age of nineteen. Felicity had never seen her brother drunk except for that one night. It had been after a fortnight of quietly watching him struggle to adjust to the myriad of difficulties, nightmares and guilt that came from being home again when she found him in the library during a late night storm. As rain and lightening pounded the earth her brother had shared the incredible story of his last mission.

His battalion had been dispatched to locate and rescue the leader of a small unit of five men who had been sent on a dangerous mission to gather intel from a French occupied town. Four men of that covert unit had made their way back to the British line with a tale of torture and imprisonment at the hands of a sadistic enemy. Their Captain had taken the brunt of the torture and with his last reserves attacked and distracted their captors so his men could escape.

When William's battalion arrived at the isolated farm, where the man was last seen, they found his battered body that had been left for dead. Miraculously he lived. Barely a pulse under the gruesome bruises, cuts and welts that covered his skin, but still alive. William's voice had been so full of heartache, disbelief and admiration, for the broken man he had found and brought back to safety, that it had brought Felicity to tears. That broken man, was the Earl of Archer.

"You as well, Somerset. My congratulations and best wishes on your recent marriage. May I introduce my mother, Countess of Archer. " Felicity was brought back to the present as the Earl of Archer's dark, rich baritone stroked across her already sensitive skin. His voice was as alluring as its owner.

"Thank you. We are beyond happy. May I introduce my wife, the Viscountess Lady Smoak," Felicity's sister-in-law Katherine and second favorite person in the world after William, curtsied, then William turned to Felicity. "And my sister, Lady Felicity Smoak."

Felicity curtsied, the effervescent emerald green of her gown shimmered in the candlelight, and as she stood up she met the kind smile of the Countess and the enigmatic look of the Earl of Archer. She could no longer read him. He had put them all at arms length.

"Perchance we could meet for a ride one day soon, Archer," William offered as the orchestra begun to play the opening notes to the next dance.

"Oh, what a wonderful idea William. Perhaps the Earl and the Countess would like to join us at Somerset for a day of riding and visiting?" Katherine chimed in, with her usual delightfully sunny disposition. Felicity had yet to meet anyone who could tell Katherine no.

"I am sorry, I.."

"We would love to," the Countess gently interrupted her son and after a moment of silence the Earl tipped his head in acceptance.

"My mother and I would be honored,"