He shook his head, overcome. But there was one more question he had to ask.
“Arthur, he didn’t…my father didn’t…?” He could not even give voice to such a horrifying thought.
She seemed to understand immediately. “Not directly, no. But perhaps, if your father had been less harsh, Arthur might not have gone out to practice his riding, to perfect his skill. He forgot his jacket and scarf, the silly thing. He was forever forgetting them in the winter…” She gasped, her hand coming up to grasp the brooch at her breast. It reminded him so much of Rosalind, of the way she touched her locket when in distress.
So much this woman had gone through, and he, unaware, was thinking only what he had wished to think of her.
“How I lashed out at your father in my grief,” she continued in a whisper. “He refused to acknowledge any blame, of course. But he was not the same after that. He never retaliated when I screamed at him, never raised another hand to me again. And then his health began to fail him; he seemed to give up on life. I know it is a sin to say so, but I was glad that he died so quickly after my Arthur. So very glad.” A sob escaped her.
He did not know how she wound up in his arms. But she was there, and his hand was the one giving comfort, stroking her back as she let loose her grief. As she had done for him all those years ago.
Something in him loosened then, breaking away from the brittle ball that had sat in his chest for so long. He knew what it was in an instant: hope.
