“And there is more life around these craggy rocks,” she continued, oblivious to the baffling emotions coursing through him. She dropped to her haunches, peering at the ground. He followed suit, unable to do anything but.
“You see there?” She pointed to a line of tiny reddish ants. “And there?” She motioned toward a small brown cricket, then toward a delicate spiderweb strung between two rocks. She gave a happy sigh. “There’s life everywhere.”
She was quiet for a time, looking about, her lips curved in an easy smile that he felt clear to his toes. He could have stayed there for the rest of the day, gazing at her while she took in the natural world around her. Was it always like this for her, these moments of peace and clarity? Allowing herself to do nothing but sit and observe and appreciate even the smallest lives? His heart ached, and he rubbed at his chest, confused. What was this emotion that was quickly taking over him? Regret? No, that particular feeling he knew only too well. Longing? But for what? To experience life as she did, to slow down and live moment by moment?
It was not something he indulged in. Not since his mother’s death, when his innocence had been dashed to pieces. Since then he had kept moving forward, throwing himself into his work, the better to forget his origins, and the shame and guilt his memories never failed to expose. Brimstone had been the foundation of all that busyness, a beast that had constantly needed tending, and he had welcomed the labor it had required from him. Never once had he been tempted to take stock of what was going on around him and sit still and justbe.
Until now, here with Bronwyn.
She looked up at him, eyes bright behind the lenses of her spectacles. “Shall we eat?”
She chose a flat, shady spot near the largest pool, beneath the only tree that had dared to grow in the rocky ground that surrounded it. He might have wondered that she did not choose a more sheltered spot—despite the peculiar starkness of the ground surrounding the water, the area that cradled it was lush with vegetation, with a thick wood on one side and a vast meadow on the other—but as he laid out the blanket and sat beside her, he was glad she had decided on this place. The water splashed merrily into the basin beside them, the sound of it washing over him, relaxing his muscles in a way he could not remember ever feeling before. As Bronwyn busied herself with setting out the food, Ash found himself utterly transfixed by the ripples in the water. Such chaos under the falls, churning into a white mass, then spreading out to gentle waves that lapped ever so softly at the pool’s edge. It made the myriad-colored stones beneath the water appear as if they were dancing. As if the elves the pools had been named after had cast a spell on them.
“I think the girls would like it here, don’t you?”
Bronwyn’s question snapped him back to the present. Of course, the girls. They were the entire reason he was on Synne, after all, and married to Bronwyn. His time on the Isle was short-lived, mere duty, and soon he would return to his old life with an easier mind, now that he had someone who would take care of them.
Yet the thought of going back to London alone was like a knife to his gut.
He looked down to his plate, frowning, hardly seeing the chicken leg and pile of berries and hunk of cheese Bronwyn had filled it with. It should be a relief, knowing he no longer had to worry quite so much about his wards. Yet it only made him feel hollow.
But Bronwyn was waiting for an answer.
“Yes, I think they will enjoy it here.”
“Nelly told me it has been years since they have visited the countryside, that they have never seen a place like Synne.”
Ash glanced back to the pool of water. “I don’t think there’s a place quite like this anywhere in the world.”
She paused. And then, “Won’t you tell me more about them?”
He looked to her sharply, feeling the walls he had erected about his heart surge back up around him. “What do you mean?”
But she didn’t back down from his gruff tone. Instead she nodded, as if he had confirmed something. “You are very protective of them.”
He shrugged, suddenly feeling horribly exposed. “They are my responsibility,” he replied, taking a piece of hard cheese and biting into it. But it was too dry in his mouth. Taking up the glass of lemonade she had poured for him, he took a deep draught, then immediately regretted it. The sour and the sweetness of it, so at odds with one another and yet amazingly compatible, was too much like Bronwyn.
All the while she watched him, silent. As if he were some specimen that she was studying.
Finally, she spoke again. “Most men would not take responsibility for children they were not related to, much less marry a woman to see they were cared for.”
He flinched, an instinctual reaction. Had she guessed? But no, her gaze was steady, curious.
Clearing his throat, he placed his plate aside, all the while wondering how much he could tell her without revealing the truth. Yes, he owed this woman the utmost honesty. But no one, not even the girls, knew the full truth of their parentage; it was a secret he would take to his grave.
There was one thing he could tell her, however.
He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “The girls grew up without parents. It was difficult for them; though Mrs. Hargrove, my mother’s old nurse, did what she could to fill the void, she was elderly, and not at all well, and the girls had to care for her as much as she cared for them. Most of the responsibility fell to Regina, as she is the oldest. Yet she was only eleven when she came to me, and so you can imagine the burden she had on her shoulders. In truth, none of them have had much of a childhood at all.”
He fell silent, unable to continue, remembering the lost look in their eyes when they had arrived on his doorstep. That shadow had never disappeared and broke his heart whenever he happened to catch sight of it. It sharpened the blade that scored his guilt, torturing him down to his very soul.
And he would do anything to make certain the grief they had experienced was not compounded by the shame they would no doubt feel, that same shame that sat so heavily on his shoulders, if they were to ever learn the truth.
Suddenly Bronwyn’s small hand was on his sleeve, grounding him. “You’ve no need to worry about them, Ash,” she said, her voice quiet and gentle and yet fierce with a protectiveness that reverberated through him. “Though I have not been blessed with close female relations, I have always wanted some. I shall treat your wards as if they were my own sisters.”
He looked into her eyes. How was it that his chest could feel so very full? She would never know how deeply her words touched him. He cupped her cheek with his palm, rubbing a thumb over her high cheekbone. Everything about her was sharp and narrow, from the pointed tip of her upturned nose, to the stubborn line of her jaw, to the slash of her brows. When he’d first met her, he’d wondered how many people she’d put in their place. Now he knew that what lay behind her ferocious expression was a strong will and heart. And he knew he had never seen anything or anyone more beautiful in his life.
He lowered his head to hers, claiming her lips in a kiss so much gentler than the previous kisses they’d shared. Those had been hungry, born from desire.