“You can’t. She has to want it.” She looked almost sorry for him. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
“I believe she does.”
“Not enough.” She looked down at where he still gripped her arm and he set her free.
“Apologies,” he murmured.
“No offense taken,” she said. Then she started down the corridor. Ashley pressed his forehead against the door of his daughter’s chambers, inhaling and exhaling there in the cold corridor, as though those breaths could be his last. Finally, he eased the door open.
The scene that greeted him made his heart twist within his chest. Sophia lay beside his daughter in her tiny bed, her body close to Anne’s but not touching her, except where her fingertips played lightly down Anne’s hair. His daughter slept, and Sophia looked at him with a tear in her eye.
“So lovely,” he breathed, a lump forming in his throat. This was what he wanted. He wanted her in his life forever. In their lives forever.
“Yes, she is,” Sophia agreed.
“I was referring to the both of you,” he said, not taking his eyes off her. “Did she have a night terror?”
“She did,” Sophia said. “But she won’t have them any longer.” She nodded toward a music box perched high upon a shelf. “The memories are in there. When she’s ready, she can open it and it will be like they never left.”
“She’s not ready for memories such as those.”
Sophia smiled softly. “Which is why I took them from her. They’ll no longer plague her.”
“I’m not ready for memories such as those, either,” he admitted.
“No one is,” she agreed, her hand still stroking down Anne’s hair. “She sleeps well.”
“Better than I have seen her sleep in a very long time.”
Sophia gave him a quirky grin. “My mission is complete,” she said with a shrug. Very carefully, she got to her feet, careful not to disturb Anne. “Helping your daughter was my mission,” she reminded him.
“But what about me?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last as he drew her into his arms.
Twenty-Seven
Ashley lifted his head and looked into her eyes.
“You were never my mission, Your Grace,” she whispered to him as she brushed that wayward lock of hair from his forehead. She would miss that lock with all her heart. A sob nearly welled from the center of her, but she forced it back. She tried to smile at him, but it was a watery, disastrous effort.
He inhaled deeply, as though he could breathe her in and make her stay. “You have some time before the morning dawn wind,” he remarked, his eyes moving to the window, where the moon still hung high in the sky.
“I do,” she said with a nod.
“Spend it with me. In my arms.” He didn’t ask her. It was a command. One she didn’t intend to fight. She nodded.
Ashley smiled and brushed her hair from her face, then took her hand in his and tugged her toward the doorway. She protested lightly, taking one more moment to look down at Anne. She looked into Ashley’s face. “She will remember me for a time. But not for long.”
“Then I shall remind her of you,” he said, his fingers twining with hers, holding her tighter, even with that small grasp. “For you shall never be far from my thoughts.”
“I’ll be a world away from you.” So close, yet so far away.
He tugged her into the corridor, as though he was anxious to get her alone. “Exactly how far away?” he asked, a sly grin crossing his face.
She shook her head. It was not meant to be. “The Trusted Few may never give me leave again. They
may never grant me leave from my world to visit this one.”
“Your wings?” he asked.