But did all that amount to love? Did he even know what romantic love was, in the end? How it felt?
He had been obsessed with Honoria, desperate to have her beside him, to claim her as his.
The emotion he felt for Leah was nothing like that. It was more of a warm, steady hum. A sense of rightness, completeness.
He didn’t want to claim her, as much as share a life togeth—
“I thought not,” she continued in that same flat tone.
He could see it then, reflected in her gaze.
Hopelessness. Apathy, even.
His temper flared.
“I thought you loved me,” he countered. “Was that a lie then?”
She didn’t so much as twitch.
“I havenae lied to ye, Fox. I love yourself, but I’ve realized over the past few weeks that love needs to be fed. I cannae go it alone with ye.” She motioned at the space between them. “I want more, and at the moment, my patience is too worn and weary. Were I tae die, would ye even weep?”
No.The word bolted through him.
But was his reaction to the thought of her dying? Or to the thought of tears? Or both?
Fox had already cried a lifetime of tears over Susan. Over Honoria. Over Dennis.
He detested crying. It meant nothing to him anymore.
“Sometimes,” he said, letting the words fall slowly into the silence between them, “when a person has suffered loss after loss, it becomes almost impossible to open the heart to love again. It has nothing to do with the worthiness of the person before them and everything to do with the paralyzing fear of grief . . . with something being irreparably broken within.”
Leah turned from him then, gazing out the window to the rolling greenbraesof Angus, arms still folded tightly, as if physically holding herself together.
“Though there might be a thread of truth to that, I disagree. A heart can always accept love.” A muscle ticked in her jaw. She looked back to him. “Ye experienced the grief of losing your sister, of losing friends at Coorg, and yet—ye instantly scooped up Madeline and opened every last corner of your heart to her.”
Fox stared at Leah, as she was not wrong. But . . .
“You know that love for a child is not quite the same as affection for a lover,” he said. “Do you think that Malcolm will ever recover from this loss?”
A shadow flitted across her face. “That will be for Malcolm tae decide. But the heart is always better for loving.”
It was Fox’s turn to snort. “How is Malcolmbetter offat the moment?” He waved a hand toward the door behind him, voice rising. “How is his suffering, in any way, a good thing?”
“Because it means he loved! It means he faced the fear of loss, and let love in anyway!” Leah snapped. “It means he buried a piece of himself with Aileen and their bairn. That’s the price of love, Fox. Joy and grief are two sides of the same coin. Ye cannae have one without the other. It’s foolishness in the extreme tae be so consumed by the possibility of loss that ye miss the joy of love entirely. Sorrow means the heart loved true.”
Fox watched her swipe a tear from her cheek, hating the tremor in her fingers.
“But death is not the only way love dies, as I’m sure ye well ken,” she continued. “Love has tae be fed. It starves otherwise. And I fear I am starving in this marriage. Like Malcolm, I would never regret my love, but I cannae continue like this. I have given yourself so much, but I receive so little . . .”
Fox hated this distance between them, a chasm opening ever wider as he stood helpless to stop it.
He stepped forward and took her in his arms.
And for a second, she allowed it.
She rested her head on his shoulder and sagged her weight into him.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and then at her temple, and then on the soft skin of her cheek. His lips moved lower to her neck—
