My body is utterly weak. I collapse onto his chest, trembling. His arms wrap around me, warm and powerful, as we both try to catch our breath. We lie like that for what seems like an eternity.
“We’ll find a way,” he finally says, so softly. He touches his lips to my hair, stroking my back, holding me close. “I’ll find a way, Emma.”
Tears fill my eyes. I let them slide down my nose, burrowing my face in his neck. This is the man I knew. A man of kindness and tenderness and unplumbed depth. I didn’t want to find him again. I wanted to reside in my rage and fear. But I can’t help myself. Happiness, impossibly, is within my reach. And I can’t help myself.
I fall asleep and don’t wake again until morning. My bed is not empty.Malcom’s bed. He lies beside me, sleeping softly, his face beautiful and peaceful in the morning light.
Is this all that I am to you?
My heart pounds, tears threatening again. This time, they’re joyful. I stroke Malcom’s beautiful face. The sun is rising. A new life is beginning. I let all of the fear and misery of the last few years fall away. Then I rise.
I find a robe and wrap it around myself, pausing by the window to take in the storm-iron sea, the rolling hills, the hard wind that gusts across them. This land is so mercurial. Some days it’s a soft sanctum, sunlit and bursting with life. Others it’s dangerous as a dagger, glinting and steel-hard. I like it. I could love it, I think.
I look back at Malcom, smiling.
14
Malcom
She grazes in the garden, elegant and vital. I watch her from the office upstairs, my breath fogging the window.
I can’t stop thinking about her. I’ll have to leave again for work soon. I’ve been turning down more offers than I’m used to, all to ensure Emma’s safety.
But it’s more than that now, isn’t it?
When Sampson first told me of his terminal illness, and that I would need an heir to safely succeed him, the notion of love burned off me faster than a line of gunpowder. I’d never really imagined a life of love. I’d never pictured some marriage or wedding or wife. But some hope resided in me still, no matter how carefully I made myself out of steel.
Emma was the only woman I could think of for the task. At first I thought she was simply an ideal target—newly single, living alone, from a small town. She’d also always had a streak of fierce independence. I thought at best she might adjust to the strange living situation, or give up fighting if the romance of the place swept her away.
When she began to like it here, my hope took root. Not just that this would work, but that it would flourish. That she would.
But this? Falling for her all over again, and now that I know the truth about her? That she can’t possibly give me a child?
She stops in a sprawl of white roses, laughing at something Callie says. Carefully she clips a long stem and brings the bloom to her nose. The wind ruffles her long brown waves, and sunlight dapples her face through the brim of her gardening hat. She’s wearing a long white dress, simple, understated. It billows around her ankles.
I know now a horrible, horrible truth. Looking at her, it’s more undeniable than ever.
I can’t keep Emma Rosen here—as much as I want to.
The purpose I took her for, she can’t fulfill. In a way, it’s a relief. I don’t have to hurt or imprison or manipulate her. In a way, she’s simply free of me.
But the unexpected affection I feel for her is clouding my judgment. Even knowing she can’t give me what I need, I want her. She can’t bring me a child, but we could adopt one, couldn’t we? Raise one ourselves? She could stay here with me, in the safety of my care. She could be the mistress of Rosehill, and write poems and walk the hills and smell the roses.
I can’t.
Not because I don’t want to, but because it’s cruel. I’ve taken so much from her already. And I’m not vain enough to think she can look past all of my shortcomings, and someday learn to love me. I won’t ask her to.
“Sir.”
I turn and find Pete in the doorway. “What is it?”
“News of Mr. Gladwell.”
I grimace. Ever since Clarence told me Sampson’s health was declining, I’ve been avoiding him. I want to see him. Badly. After all, he’s been a father to me in the years since my own father’s death, and I know in many ways, I’ve been like a son. It pains me to know he’s suffering. I was informed a few days ago he was out of the hospital in Glasgow, and at his estate in the country. It was a matter now of making him comfortable.
But I can’t face him. Not yet. Not until I’ve figured this out. He asked one thing of me—that I ensure my line to avoid ending up like him. Devoid of family and blood loyalty, subject to mundane betrayal. Which is exactly what Clarence will give him if he’s named as Sampson’s successor.
“What is it?” I ask, bracing.
