“He’s not without his charm,” Emma managed to say. “I do have a theory about Violet, though. One he doesn’t share. I’m not sure whatever that book says will make any difference in how he feels about her. Or me.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Elspeth said cryptically. “You could be wrong.”
She exhaled a laugh. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“I must admit, I can see now why Connor has been so obsessed with Violet all these centuries. I hear you’re the spitting image of her. You’re quite stunning, you know.”
Surprised at her words, Emma said, “That’s very kind of you to say.” She lifted her one bare foot up and wiggled her toes. “Despite the fact that I’ve come to visit a perfect stranger half-shoeless?”
“Despite that fact,” Elspeth agreed, laughing. “I know you must be feeling a bit—very—torn right now, being so displaced. I hope Connor’s been of some comfort to you.”
Emma turned to him. “Yes. He has. Mostly against his will. But yes.”
“He’s very private. In fact, until I read that book that Iris found, I didn’t know much about his history, either. I knew there was someone named Violet in his past. He kept the details mostly to himself. But there was always something percolating under the surface with him. Something that has kept him from moving on. That something is you, of course.”
“I am not Violet. But sometimes…sometimes for just a moment, I feel her. I remember her.”
“Soul memory is a thing,” Elspeth acknowledged. “I think you’re both unavoidably entwined together in each other’s destinies. I’ll tell you a secret. I felt that way about Sam. Though I couldn’t say why, I just knew he was meant to be mine and I was meant to be his. That’s all there was to it.”
“Well, I’m afraid Connor doesn’t feel that way about me at all. Even if he did, we’re from different worlds now. He has other plans.”
Elspeth sent her a sympathetic look.
“But can I ask you a question?” Emma pressed.
“Of course.”
“You’re…human now, right? Yet you can see me and Connor. But no one else can see us.”
Elspeth laughed again, rocking Anika in the glider. “I can see how that would be confusing. I must admit, explaining this to a mortal who is in the in-between is a first for me. But yes, I was a Celestial once. But I petitioned the Council to allow me to fall. To be human, but not through rebirth. Because I knew I had to be with Sam and Molly. But you see, when humans and angels interact on Earth, as Sam and I did when I was here on a mingle, they forget us as soon as we return to the Celestial world.”
“But you and Sam—?”
“Yes, that’s complicated, but it all worked out for us. Sam knows my past now. I’ve told him. But still, he’s mortal. He can’t see Connor and certainly not you, as I can. As I always will be able to. At least in this lifetime.”
“So, you’re saying I’ll forget Connor if I wake up from this…accident?”
“It’s hard to say. The in-between has different rules. You’re not exactly human in this form, and your interaction is altogether different. Your memories of this time—if you survive—might survive as well.”
If you survive…
Emma turned to look at Connor, who was poring over the book Elspeth had given him, trying to imagine forgetting all about the times his fingers had curled around hers or the way she’d caught him watching her when he hadn’t thought she’d seen—those gray-blue eyes of his probing her soul. Or forgetting that ancient ruin in Scotland where he’d taken her. Or the kiss they’d shared. Impossible to think all of this could be erased from her memory by simply waking, the way a dream might disappear on the tip of one’s tongue or the way clouds vanished into the vast blue without a trace.
But maybe there was hope at least that she would remember him. At the very least, she might be left with that.
“Now,” Elspeth said finally. “I know you’ve come about something else. So let’s talk for a moment about your sister, Lizzy.”
*
Connor sat onthe sun-warmed deck, legs folded, with the book in his hands, turning pages he never thought he’d turn, reading words he never imagined he’d hear. Violet’s words.
14 July 1802
My dearest,
Can one love better than I? Can one man be more perfect than mine? I think ’tis not possible to be happier than I am this very morning!! Even my parents are unaware of our bonds, for we mean to surprise them. We shall tell them together this Sunday’s eve, at the gathering at our home for supper. The promise you gave me at our ruins shall hold me until then! Oh, my heart. You love me!
Connor felt emotion clog his throat. How young she sounded. How hopeful. Yet Ezra Bean’s commentary that followed demeaned her hopefulness as girlish fantasy. He went on to describe Violet’s father, Lord Gray, as a desperate man who was surprisingly deep in debt from gambling, games that had included the elite of the town, mentioning several men, including Landon Sykes. This he hadn’t known. Bean noted that his debts were mysteriously discharged soon after Violet’s subsequent marriage to Sykes. A chill chased across his skin. Could Violet have known about this? But what had never made sense to him was that as her husband, Connor himself would have looked after her family. Her father must have known that.
