“Atlas, we need to talk.”
He stood, frowning. “You’re feeling unwell? I’ll escort you to our room.”
“No, no. Please. A walk. We’ll be back for dinner.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it, and they made their way outside, began a slow amble across the fields toward the dower house along the same path they took every morning and every evening.
“Clara?” Atlas squeezed her arm to his side. “Is something amiss?”
Where to begin?
With the difficult task of dissection—her body from his, her heart from his unwitting hold. When she slipped from his embrace, he did not question it, merely set his steps to hers and waited.
“We are making good time with the dower house,” she said.
“We are.”
“And you will be leaving when it is done.”
“I will.”
“Why, Atlas? Why must you leave?” She stopped, turned to face him, saw so many shadows in his eyes for a flicker of an instant before he slammed a tame mask over them. “I have not asked before because I… I believe I willingly put the eventuality of your leaving away from me. We pretend well, you and I. So much so I’ve fooled myself these last few weeks.” Into believing they would always go on as they had. “But I think I should know why. Will you tell me?”
The sun sank toward the horizon as silence stretched between them.
Atlas stopped to watch it, and she stayed a bit behind him, her gaze focused on his tall, broad form, the dark of his hair and coat disappearing against the nighttime gathering above the sunset.
“I’m going to the Continent,” he said. “More specifically to battlefields, places I’ve already been, places I’ve blasted to pieces, drenched with blood.” He spoke with no intonation.
“You did not enjoy fighting.” Oh God, what silly words. Of course he hadn’t. Only he was speaking to her now, and she did not want him to close up once more.
“No. It is an honor, I know, to fight for one’s country and people. But it left a mark. No matter how worthy the fight, it… scorches the soul.”
She swallowed. “Your father must have bought you a commission, then, if you did not desire to fight.”
“No. I joined the infantry as an ensign on my own. I”—every muscle in his body seemed to twitch at once and then relax—“thought I might enjoy it. The whole of it—the fellows, the travel, learning new things, the money, and yes, the fighting. At the time, I thought— A man can be wrong.” He brought the lightness back to his voice with the last bit. “In the end, I onlyenjoyed the fellows. And the money. And neither are around anymore to enjoy.”
Hell. A handsaw through the gut, that. “I cannot imagine.”
He offered her a grin that attempted playfulness. Couldn’t succeed with something dark lurking in the corners. “I don’t want to imagine. I don’t want to remember.” He scanned the horizon before them, then pointed. “Look. Just there. See that wild tangled bush marring the smooth line between grass and sky?”
He set his steps toward it, and she followed. Didn’t take long to have its leafless branches beneath her touch.
“It’s beautiful.” His gaze drank it in, as if he would never look away. Hands shoved in pockets. “Quite lovely.”
“That? Lovely?” Barren and tangled and thorny. She could not even begin to discern what shape it took or fruit it bore in the spring.
“Yes, look again.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her closer, pointing at the bush. “See how the branches cross one another?” A hum in his throat. “A fine tangle to catch a man.” The words more sung than spoken. “Well-shaped boughs to wrap him up.”
And in the tangle of his odd little song, under the warm pressure of his much-muscled arm, she saw it—the beauty. How the branches struck up from the ground in a bunch, all together, then separated as they reached for the sky. But not in straight shoots. Their paths curved and crossed, weaving a wild pattern against the grass. She shivered, and he tugged her closer with a flex of his arm. So easy to settle into the crook of her husband’s shoulder. So right.
She pulled away, and his arm dropped like a dead branch, heavy to his side as she circled the bush.
He followed behind her. “See how the view changes with each turn? From each direction, a new thing of beauty to admire. Tol—” An L-word. The only one that seemed to exist, a good one to lock up behind teeth. Necessary, to lock up behind teeth. She was glad he’d done it. He swallowed, licked his lips. “’Tis better to seek out beauty in the world than to wallow in the shadows. And that’s what I’ll be doing when I leave, revisiting those places that give me pain and replacing my memories of them with new ones. Better ones. I want to see those fields healed. So maybe then… I can heal too.”
He cleared his throat, looked up, and she wanted to reach out to him, but words pulsed in his clenching throat, fighting for order, and she knew she’d do better to wait, to listen, to let him stand lonely under the white sky.
“I’m going for atonement,” he said. “I enlisted to help my family fill the coffers, and I returned wounded, bedridden for months. I can do nothing about that but ignore what pain remains. My soul, though… perhaps I can still salvage that. My family has been through too much to bear that burden, as well. They’ve risen from their own ashes. I must do the same. Better for me to leave and hope leaving, atonement, brings me peace. Then, perhaps”—he dropped his gaze to her, his eyes soft and deeper than the sea—“only then, can I return.”
