But it was the tears, gathered and leaking at the corners of his eyes, that scorched him with shame. He was a fool for the tears. He knew that.
But he smelled Mercy in the bed linens.
And someone had returned the trunk, because the lid was open near the hearth, and the rifle John loved was propped against the mantel.
“I do not think he lied.” Georgina must have scooted a chair next to him, for her face leaned close to his, and her delicate fingers stirred his hair. “When he said…when he bestowed care upon the children.”
Too many emotions cut through Simon. Rage, grief, confusion…then sadness. Utter sadness. Like lowering Ruth’s body into the muddy six-foot hole and the sickening thud of dirt as he shoveled in her grave. Or Father’s empty study the morning after Simon returned home. Or Mr. Wilkins’ handkerchief soaking Simon’s blood.
But it was more than that.
Deeper.
The sadness twisted inside of him like raging insanity, until he could no longer keep his eyes open or his body from shaking beneath the bed linens.
If they were dead, he would die.
“They’re not.” As if she had heard his torment. As if she knew. “God would not…He would not take them. Mr. Wilkins would not have killed them. Do you hear me?”
“I have to go.” He lifted himself up on an elbow, ripped one of the leeches from the crook of his arm. Blood spurted. “I have to find them.”
“You can do nothing that is not already being done.”
“Help me.”
“I am.” She pressed his shoulders back into the mattress, then positioned the ceramic bowl on the floor and dangled his arm over the bed.
Crimson streamed down his arm, warm, dripping from his fingers.
“I will look again, and again, and again for you. I will never stop looking.” She touched his tears. She bent closer, breath soft and sweet and cool against his sweating face. “John will take care of his sister. Wherever they are. I know because”—her fingers stilled on his cheek, then crept lower, then touched his lips—“because he is as strong as the man who raised him.”
Simon was anything but strong.
He was dying. He knew. His children were lost and he could not even rise from bed and find them. He had failed in every way imaginable. He had lost everything. He was all the failures Father had predicted and more.
“I love you.” Her words washed over him, like the sweet taste of Blayney’s molasses or the moist scent of forest fog in the mountains. “I love you, Simon. I loved you before you saw me. I loved you all the years you were away. I love you now.” She slipped closer. Cheek on his cheek. Her own tears mingling with his. “I know you never wanted to marry me, but—”
“I should have—”
“Shhh.” She covered his mouth. “Please do not speak—do not say anything. I could not bear it if you were so kind as to say things that were untrue. You must not blame yourself for anything, and you must go on painting your pictures, and you must go back to those wildernesses someday that you love.” Her mouth fell on his. She roved across his lips with unrestraint—the shyness gone, bands broken, a desperate gentleness in the way she drank of him.
Heat burst. His chest shuddered, mind reeled, as she opened his dry soul with her tenderness. His burned hands longed to seep into her hair. To pull her close. To hold her. Never let her go.
“Much has happened and you must not be noble. I shall forget the kiss…in that room. I know you did not mean it. You must not feign your affections now out of any sense of obligation…or gratitude, Simon.” She mouthed the words against his lips, “I would love you less if you did.”
She ripped away from him and scampered from the room, slamming the door behind her, the rattle shaking him to the bone.
He could not think, he could not move, else he would have chased after her.
Because the kiss then—and now—had not feigned anything.
Mr. Wilkins stood before her in his dustless black clothes, extending a silvertray, smiling at her with eyes that seemed ethereal and taunting. “Miss Whitmore.” He whooshed a silk linen from the tray. A red wine glass glistened underneath. “Drink this.”
“No.” She pushed away, but the wall was to her back. Darkness closed in on her. “Where is Simon?”
“You must trust me.”
“No.”
