He looked up at the vast sky this night and hoped it wasn’t so. Not because it challenged the church’s teachings and not because it sounded farcical. But because surely if the moon housed people, they would be looking down at him and laughing. Look at that poor sod who fell in love with a woman who wouldn’t have him. Har-har. Delightful joke, the best entertainment.
He shoved his hands inside his pockets and inhaled deeply. The garden still grew green in some places, but the air smelled more of winter chill than fragrant blossoms.
His warm breath fogged the too-chilly air and everything around him seemed hard and sharp with cold. Branches bare, flowers dormant. But the half-moon bright above. He paced the path again, trying to excise his unrequited love with each stomp into the gravel. Didn’t work, but damn if he could find a scalpel and pry the emotion from his chest, he would.
Boots crunched the gravel on the path behind him, and he stopped, planted both feet firmly, and did not turn around. He did not have to. His body seemed to know she’d come to him. The moon beamed brighter and the flower fragrance that had been missing before swirled around him with a hint of mint.
“It’s me,” Gwendolyn said.
Why had she come? To reject him some more?
But he tempered his anger and spoke as flat as he could. “Do you need something?”
A heavy exhale. “I need many things.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Whitlock can help you with most of them. I’m cogitating and do not desire distractions.”
She stepped nearer, the crunch of her boots announcing it, and he ached to turn around because for the second time in a fortnight, she’d come to him, sought him out. The last time had not ended well, and this time was not likely to be any different.You hear that, heart? Not different. Keep those hopes low, now.
“Mrs. Whitlock cannot help me with this,” she said. “Only I can. Help myself, that is.”
Finally, he turned. She stood just out of reach, her face one of the many shadows in the garden, the yellow-gold gown she’d worn at dinner a muted brightness in the dark. Her body seemed poised on the edge of something, as if she had wings strapped to her back and intended to take flight. Of course she would take flight, let the wind take her ever away.
“I am a stubborn thing,” she said.
“Oh? I had not noticed, Miss Smith.”
“Call it stubbornness born of necessity. It has served me well. But perhaps it has hurt me too. When I ran away six years ago, I built a wall around myself, grew thorns up its side, and put a dragon before it. But not even sharp teeth could keep you away.”
“I’m stubborn too.”
“And loyal… and you deserve better than me, and—”
“Let me decide that.”
“And let me speak.” Her dragon’s teeth in her tone. “You deserve better than me, but since I can give you no better, I can at least give you… something. A reason. I want to tell you. I’m going to try to.” She moved in the shadows, and her arms appeared from behind her back, twisted together like vines before her. “This is difficult because… because.” Her arms untwined, and she dropped her face into her hands. A muffled sob broke the night, but she ripped her face out of their palm-warm home and stepped forward into a stream of moonlight—pale, but the expected tears did not roll down her cheeks.
Her hands made fists at her side. “If I tell you all, you’ll hate me. And that makes me want to cry when I’ve not cried in six years.”
“Too long, Gweny. The body needs to mourn sometimes.” He knew that well, had cried often and violently after his parents’ death. And felt no shame for it, either. He took a hesitant step forward, his anger dissolving, his hope shivering into weak life. She’d come to him, and not to reject him, but to give him what parts of herself she could. Even though she feared to do so. After so many years of her running, him chasing, he did not quite know what to do. He knew what words came naturally, though.
“I won’t hate you. I couldn’t.”
“Where is your anger?” she demanded. “I deserve it.”
He shrugged. “Seems to have drained away entirely. So perhaps it’s watering the plants.Enriching the soil? Blown away in the breeze?”
She strode away from him,shaking her head.“Too good. Toonicefor me.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“They all hated me. After—” She roared a growl of frustration, tipping her face to the sky. “Why can’t I say it?” She dropped her head and swung here gaze to him “They blamed me. My parents said I was a fool for not knowing. The scandal sheets called me ruined. And… my husband called me naive, pitiable.”
The ground swallowed Jackson hole. A single word had dug the pit. “A husband?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No longer.”
Divorce? Death? Jove, she gave him so much she’d never given him before but not enough to paint a complete picture, only glimpses into horror.