She wanted to be angry, bitter about him leaving. Enraged by the idea he might never return, might never find a way to rise from his own ashes. But how could she? She knew only the desire to help him any way she could. While not hurting herself. While mitigating the damage done to Alfie.
“You know,” she said, “the way you look at the bush, that is how I look at furniture.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and tilted his head just enough for her to know she had his full attention.
“It should be practical. There to serve, to be. Utilitarian. And yet, why can’t it be beautiful too?”
“Just so.”
“Most do not look at a table, a chair, a stair railing and think,My, how lovely. They think,There’s a right good place to sit my arse.”
He coughed a deep, rich laugh. “OrI wonder how many porcelain shepherdesses I can fit on that table?”
“Or, if one is Alfie,Can I climb it or slide down it?”
Only playful merriment in his gaze, now, and oh how she wanted to kiss him. No more. No more kisses.
She stepped away and said, “I think we should tell your family the truth. About us. The nature of our marriage. When you leave, they will wonder why a man besotted with his wife would abandon her.”
“Ah. Bollocks. I’d not thought of that.” Former merriment entirely decimated, replaced by a scowl fierce as a storm cloud. “What about Christmas? My mother has been looking forward to it. She’ll be?—”
“She’ll be devastated.” Clara paced. “Very well. We’ll stop pretending after Christmas. But, Atlas, another thing.”
He grunted. “Very well. Take aim and fire, Clara Bromley.”
“Alfie,” she whispered. “You should not make the toys for him. Or”—she swallowed—“spend time with him.”
His gaze whipped to her, and she saw the soldier he’d been once, hard and cold-eyed. “Why shouldn’t I? I want him to feel welcome here.”
“He does. I swear to you he does. But you must not encourage him.” Her voice so low he might not have heard her.
“Encourage him to do what?”
“Love you. When you will be leaving him.” His eyes closed, and he rocked back onto his heels as if she’d dealt him a physical blow. “What happens if he comes to love you? As a father? He’s already lost one father. But when you leave, you will have made a choice to do so. You will have chosen to leave him. I”—sheswallowed, the devastation drying her mouth—“do not wish to see such loss in his eyes. Again.”
Atlas opened his mouth. His arms hung like dead weight at his sides. She’d seen his face with a variety of expressions in the last few weeks—brow furrowed in contemplation, biting the bottom lip in the throes of creativity, jaw hard when frustrated, the corners of his eyes crinkled with mirth, and his mouth in the well-worn curve of a smile. He wore a placid mask when his wound ached, and he laughed loud when happy.
Now, his face was blank. An entirely new expression for him, different even from the mask he wore to hide his pain.
“Am I simply to ignore him in the following months?” he asked.
“No, of course not. But you must be careful with him.”
“Yes. I see the necessity. I did not mean to hurt him.”
“I know. You would never.”
“Never.” His gaze slammed into her, and she pitied any man he’d met on a battlefield. He looked about the landscape, as if unsure where and how to take his next step.
She had one last thing to say, though, and she must hug her courage tight. “Atlas, we must resist. No more…” Making love. “What I mean to say is, from now on, I will sleep in another room.”
“We cannot enjoy ourselves even after our pretending is over?”
“No.”
His jaw twitched then loosened, and a single step brought him right up next to her. He smoothed the back of his hand down her cheek. He wore the roguish grin that sometimes seemed his most natural expression.
“What were you like?” she asked, “before the wars?”
