“I don’t know. Something. Anything but what I actually did, which was absolutely nothing.”
Ah, God. His guilt was so deep, so fathomless, she did not know how to find him at the bottom of this well.
She stilled. But maybe she was not the one he needed to save him.
“Ash,” she said gently, “you have to see, now more than ever, that you need to tell the girls they are your sisters.”
He shook his head, shock and hurt saturating his features. “Did you hear nothing of what I said? I cannot burden them with such a horrible history. It is better they wonder for the rest of their days who their parents were than to know what their mothers suffered at my father’s hand, and that they share the blood of someone so evil.”
“I may be rubbish when it comes to people,” she answered softly. “But if there is one thing I know, it is that love and acceptance can heal just about any wound.” She paused. “And I know this because that is how it has been for me since you all came into my life.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, his hurt replaced with tenderness as he gazed at her. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she loved him. It was what she had come here to do, after all.
But now was not the time. No, now he had to heal the breach between him and his sisters.
She took his hand in hers. “Do you trust me?”
He did not hesitate. “With my life.”
Her chest expanded with emotion. Later, she promised herself. She would take the memory of those three words out, and pore over them, and how they made her heart sing.
Now, however, she had more important things to do, such as giving Ash the family that he had purposely denied himself for so long, and all over a wrongly held guilt that he was responsible for the sins of his father.
“They are stronger than you think, and they deserve to know the truth. Secrets won’t do anything but widen the divide between you.” She rose to her feet, holding her hand out to him. “And they need you.”Nearly as much as you need them.
She waited for what felt like hours, her breath trapped in her chest, her hand trembling as she held it suspended in the air like a marionette’s. Finally, his breath leaving him in a rush, he took her hand and rose.
“Very well,” he rasped. “I’ll tell them.”
“Wewill tell them,” she said with a small smile. “Together.”
***
Ash could not recall a time in his life when he had been more frightened. Not even when his mother had died had he felt such fear as he did standing before the front door of his town house and preparing himself to tell three young girls the devastating truth of their parentage.
He wanted to run, to flee the country if need be. His body fairly shook with it. Just when he thought he would snap from the pressure, Bronwyn tucked her hand in his. The effect of that contact, so simple and yet so powerful, loosened the constricting band about his chest. He dragged in a shaky breath and looked down at her.
She smiled up at him, her turquoise eyes sure and steady behind the lenses of her spectacles.
His heart swelled. She had asked if he trusted her, and he had not been lying when he said he did. But he had not been able to voice the rest of it. The truth of the matter was, he trusted her as he never had anyone in his life before. He had not realized how very much until she asked him. He had been a fool, a damn fool, for wasting so much time when he could have claimed happiness and love with her from the very beginning.
Well, he would not waste a moment longer. Dragging in a deep breath, he opened the door.
“Ash!” Nelly came tearing across the hall, her small body colliding with his, thin arms going about his waist. “You’ve come.”
“I told you Bronwyn would do it,” Eliza announced with self-importance, striding forward. When she looked his way, however, there were tears in her eyes, determinedly sniffed back. And then her arms were around him, too, and she pressed her face into his waistcoat, hiding her expression from his view.
But not quickly enough. Ash saw, in that heartbeat of a moment, her features twist in a silent sob. Fighting back tears of his own, he wrapped his arms about them both. Then, glancing around to see if that third beloved face was there, he finally spied her: Regina, in a loose-fitting shirt and breeches, her feet on the last stair tread and her fingers wrapped about the banister.
“Hello, Regina,” he said.
She didn’t say a word, merely pressed her lips tight and nodded. Then her eyes drifted to Bronwyn, as if to seek reassurance.
Bronwyn smiled comfortingly at her. Drawing in a shaky breath, Regina released the banister and stepped down to the marble tiled floor.
“Bronwyn says you may have something to tell us?”
He swallowed hard, his arms tightening on the two younger girls. He found himself glancing at Bronwyn as well. Her steady gaze gave him strength, and he turned back to his half sister. “I do,” he said thickly. “Shall we go to the sitting room?”