Uncle Henry braced his elbows on the desk and templed his fingers before him. “The twins should see their home. I should have taken them before now.”
Thomas and Nicholas had been five years of age when their parents had died and they’d been forced to make a new home with their cousins. His uncle had the right of it. His brothers deserved to know their home.
Uncle Henry clapped his hands and stood.
“When do we leave?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Jackson? What did you have planned?” Uncle Henry marched for the door, his stride long enough to cross continents.
“I had thought two days, but—”
“We’ll be ready,” Uncle Henry said. “We’ll not take over your holiday and modify your plans.”
“It is no worry, Uncle.”
“Zeus, don’t pretend it’s not a hassle. I am pleased though.” His grin, wide and toothy, showed it, too. “We’ll finally do right by your father’s memory, my boy.”
“Of course.” Jackson managed a smile as he turned and slapped his thighs. An act of mirth to pacify the only father he’d known for the last six years.
“Quite right. Now”—Uncle Henry rubbed his hands together and backed into the hall—“lets start preparations!”
When Uncle Henry vanished from sight, Gwendolyn cast a glance at Jackson and sauntered closer. Her scent teased him—mint and flowers.
“Seastorm Manor?” Her voice a hesitant sort of question, fine as a hair. “A rather fanciful name.”
“Yes, well, my mother was in a rather fanciful mood when she named it. And before that, my father found himself in an even more fanciful mood when he bought the crumbling castle and land the manor was eventually built upon.” He grabbed a handful of sun to shove between his words, lighten the freeze he knew they carried. He rubbed the outline of the watch in his pocket. He’d left his father and mother buried in the past, unable to confront the enormity of his loss.
It was time. And while he’d wanted to do it alone, perhaps it would be better with family nearby.
“You do not seem entirely pleased about this.”
He grinned, held his arms out wide. “I’m perfectly fine.”
She frowned at his wrist. “You’re missing a cuff link. You’re always missing a cuff link.”
He lifted his hand. “So I am. Well, if my sleeves aren’t fine,I amanyway. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I think I have a pair of them in a trunk somewhere. I’ll have them sent to your room.” She lifted her gaze, hazy with a concerned preoccupation that she blinked rapidly away. “You’ve never spoken of your home before. And rarely of your parents.”
“And you’ve spoken of your past?”
A sharp inhale, a swallow of a sword and a sharp glare to match.
He lurched toward her. “My apologies, Gwendolyn. I—”
She shook her head, backing toward the door. “No. Do not apologize. You’re correct. We do not owe one another peeks into the past. I…” She replaced unsaid words with a smile, tight and tense. “Good afternoon, Jackson.”
He strode after her as she disappeared into the hallway but stopped himself after no more than three steps.
Broken. Everything between them smashed.
Once, in Italy, he’d seen a master artist use fire to shape sand into glass, a fascinating process of great effort and delicacy. After he’d shaped the vessel, pouring his very breath into it, he’d placed it on a nearby table to cool, then clipped the edge of the table with his hip and sent the glasswork crashing to the floor. Gwendolyn had cried out, pulling her hands to her belly as if cut by one of the shards. And Jackson had mourned. Perfection to destruction in the space of a gasp.
In the years since meeting her, he’d tried every way he could think of to win her over—sweet words and teasing, gifts and conversations, chasing and waiting. He’d never tried… nothing. Even when waiting, he’d been stoking the fire between them, breathing life into the fragile glass sculpture of their relationship.
He needed rest from the heat of creation, from the fire of her rejection.
He needed to go home, finally face what he’d lost, and find out what he wanted other than her.
