Lancaster stretched his mouth into a smile. “What else could it be? Just homesickness. A craving for the simple life.”
“So you acknowledge that I am only a symbol of that simplicity?”
“I do not.”
The wind whipped a thick rope of her hair free of its ribbon and dragged it over her mouth. Her eyes shifted to the sea for a moment as she tucked the hair behind her ear. It snuck free again to sneak across her cheek, but she ignored it.
When she met his gaze, he stiffened at the hesitation in her eyes. “Nick…What happened when you left?”
The wind seemed to scream against his ears all of a sudden. The cold bit deep beneath his skin as he watched her eyes fill with uncertainty.
“Nothing,” someone answered in his voice. “I went to London. That’s all.”
“That’s not what I mean. There’s something else.”
“No. Nothing at all.”
“Don’t lie to me. If you don’t want to tell me, just say so. But don’t lie.”
His lungs seemed too small. He parted his lips and tried to hide the fact that he was fighting for air. He meant to repeat his claims. To lie to her as he lied to everyone. But somehow he couldn’t. Not with her asking him for honesty. “I don’t wish to discuss it,” said the voice that sounded just like him. His hands shook at the terror of offering the truth.
“All right.” But her eyes grew more troubled, swimming with fear. “All right, but…”
He spun on his heel and began moving toward their goal. The sand crunched harder beneath his boots with every step he took. Cynthia called his name, but he couldn’t stop, not even for her. He just set one foot in front of the other and kept moving away from his past. And hopefully toward his future.
Fifteen minutes later, Cyn’s knees still shook. She didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand.
Was it true? Had he tried to kill himself? The idea repelled her. Partly because the idea of Nick dead made her gut knot in on itself. And partly because Nick wanting to die clashed with everything she knew about him. But he’d said he was a ghost. A ghost. As if he’d come back from the dead.
She wanted to pounce on him, throw her arms around him and beg him to tell her it wasn’t true.
But Nick just kept walking, silence drawn around him like a cloak. And if she threw her arms around him, he’d push away in a panic. Why?
“This is where we stopped, I think.” His voice was friendly to the point of distance. “I recognize that ridge just there.”
She nodded and swallowed back the tears pushing against her throat.
“Right then. Let’s press on.” His smile looked unnervingly genuine. There isn’t a soul in London who knows me. As they rounded a corner of rock, he winked and pointed up to a narrow crevice about five feet off the ground. “I’ll take this one.”
Ever since the incident with the animal skull, Cynthia had let him take the lead on any deep, dark holes. But she wouldn’t have objected regardless. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t behave as if nothing had happened, as Nick did. So she watched him scramble over loose rocks and haul himself over ledges, constantly checking for any deep spaces not visible from the sand.
She kept silent watch for nearly an hour, no longer sure if his good cheer was still feigned or had evolved into his previous genuinely fine mood. Regardless, she began to forget her anxiety and simply enjoy the show of Nick working, his hair mussed by the wind, breeches stretching tight over his haunches each time he stepped up.
He’d asked if she loved him. Of course she did. She loved Nick as she’d always loved him. His hair, his smile, his laugh. The way he brightened whenever anyone spoke to him. His impossibly warm brown eyes. The small kindnesses he offered without thought.
And now there was more. His strong hands and hot mouth. The crisp hair furred over his wide chest. And all the wicked things he did to her in the dark. And the light.
Of course she loved him. As if that made any difference at all. She’d loved him once before. She’d loved her father too, if those hazy memories could be believed. She’d loved her mother her whole life. And none of that love—none of it—had brought her anything but pain. Deep pain that stretched on for weeks and months and years until the ends frayed like worn cord. It never really stopped, it only spread out until the gossamer threads grew thin enough to overlook and deep enough to ignore.
So yes, she loved him. And there was nothing for it but to go on with her life. She could love him from afar, just as she had before. As long as she knew he would be all right.
But she no longer knew that.
“Cyn!” he called from somewhere far ahead.
Blinking, Cynthia realized she’d been staring at the foamed rush of water sneaking into a little pool between the rocks.
“Cynthia!” Nick waved to her from a perch about four feet off the ground. “I need your help!”