“I thought I would. But…” He leaned his elbows disconsolately against the stone. “No. Not much.”
“I think you should consider the possibility that you were mistaken about her part in all that. That what they told you was a lie.”
“What would you know about it?”
She shook her head at him. “Funny you should ask that after accusing me of sharing her soul all this time. Because I feel, deep down, there is more to her story than you know.”
“I know all I need to know,” he said, stubbornly.
“All you want to know, perhaps.”
“No.” Connor pushed away from the stones and started down the ancient stairway, leaving her standing at the wall.
“I thought angels were all about forgiveness,” she called after him, starting down the stairs. “You are seriously playing against type here.”
He just kept stalking through the purple blossoms, leaving a small trail in his wake. She followed him but allowed some space to come between them. They didn’t speak again until he’d reached the bottom of the hill where the trail forked between the road and the sea cliffs. There he turned on her.
“Dinna presume to judge me or what I’ve been doin’ for the last…too many years—”
“I’m not—”
“—because I ken what I saw. I ken what happened.”
“Fine.”
“Right.”
“Good. So, you should look no further than that bastard’s word. That’s fair.”
He glared at her from beneath his brows. “Dinna twist my words, Emma.”
“You mean Violet, don’t you? That’s what this whole thing was about, wasn’t it? To prove your point about my being your faithless fiancée? Maybe you thought it would all come back to me—all my soul’s transgressions—in a guilty rush, then I’d confess? And you could finally rid yourself of the bitterness that haunts you. But. Sorry. Not going to happen.”
He reminded her suddenly of a boy, denied a baseball that he’d come close to catching.
“Connor,” she went on, “in my soul, in my heart, I feel that something is wrong with that story. I think you know that, too.”
“She never came.” He shook his head. “She would’a come that day if it was a lie.”
“You’re right,” Emma said, touching his hand. “But what we don’t know is why she didn’t come.”
“Too late fer that. We canna know.”
“Did you ever ask your friend, Elspeth, the record keeper, about her?”
His jaw grew rigid again. “No. ’Twas not somethin’ I spoke of. Yer—well, yer—”
“I’m Violet, I know,” she finished. “But maybe Elspeth could help you. Maybe she’d have information in her—”
“I told you, she’s no guardian anymore. She’s fallen.”
“But you said she’s got an uncanny memory. You know where she is. Right?”
He stared at her, considering. “I might. Come. It’s time we get back.”
Emma hesitated, taking in the beauty of the land around them. “It’s hard to leave all this.”
He didn’t speak, but she could tell it was the same for him. Finally, with one last look, she took his hand. They left the country that had at once created and ruined him. The place that somehow lived in her soul.
