“It’s not about what they would have wanted.”
Caris’s hand stroked over the broken skin of his knuckles. “Yes, it is. You’re so blinded by your sense of duty you can’t see how it’s rending you apart from the inside out.”
Cadoc rested his head against the sofa. “I sang to her. Right here on this sofa. I held her in my arms and I sang to her.”
“And you turned her away? A woman who made you sing? I thought better of you, Cadoc.”
He knew if he opened his eyes, her expression would be stern.
“You know what I am, Caris,” he said with a sigh. “You know what I’m made of.”
“Yes, I do, brother. You’re made of never giving up on the things you want. Of fighting for them until there’s not a shred of fight left in you. You’re made of all the dreams Mam and Griffin had for you, and all the years you’ve shown all of us the way you love us. We love you just as much, Cadoc, but you need to let her love you too.”
Cadoc let Caris’s words settle inside him. He knew he needed to be brave enough to face the way Jess Wainwright wanted him to belong to her. Brave enough to make the most of every day, just like his dragonfly.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jessburiedherselfinher work. In her teaching and her studies. She was up until nearly dawn every morning, sketching and writing. She was nearly finished with her article, and as she looked at the pile of drawings at her elbow, the bright memory of the piece of folded paper she’d found, when she thought he was finally hers, burned in her chest.
She knew her sisters worried about the lavender circles beneath her eyes and the way her laughter faltered and died when they tried to raise her spirits. Jess knew she would be fine again. Someday. She had other things to occupy her mind against the intrusion of a gaze like the wounded blue of the sky before a winter storm. Other things to occupy her hands instead of the way the stubble of his jaw felt beneath her touch. She pushed the papers aside and rose to her feet, just as there was a gentle but determined knock at the door.
“Jess, you have a visitor,” Vin said through the door.
She tidied herself in the mirror, and braced herself to face the parents of one of her students. Because she knew the one visitor she wanted would never cross her threshold again. “Coming,” she called.
When she walked into the parlor. It wasn’t one of her students. Or their parents. It was him.
He turned to face her and he looked as bereaved and stricken with grief by things lost as she felt. His eyes, that wounded blue she couldn’t forget, roamed over her in disbelief and awe.
“You haven’t changed.”
“I have changed,” she corrected as she took the seat he gestured toward.
She perched on the edge of the chair, too afraid to lean forward, too afraid to tell him more.
He walked forward and dropped to his knees. When he laid his head in her lap, and sighed like it was the only place in the world he wanted to be, she clenched her fists in her skirts. Just as she’d done that fateful day in her classroom.
“Why are you here?” She asked around the knot in her throat.
He lifted his head and his eyes were red-rimmed. That’s when she knew sleep had escaped him too. That the dreams never left him alone, just as they crowded her.
“I’m here because I’ve been an idiot. Just like my sister said. Just as your sister told me a few moments ago. I finally apologized to your murderous sister Lavinia, and I don’t think she’s going to poison me.” His mouth quirked in a half smile and his chest expanded in a deep breath.
Jess barely dared hope he was finally going to be brave.
“You are an idiot,” she agreed. “But I thought we’d already established that.”
“I’m an idiot because I can’t stay away. Because staying away from you is making me die slowly inside. I’ll take anything, dragonfly. Even if it’s only your friendship. But I want more thanthat because you’re so much more,” he mumbled against her knee. “You’re everything.”
“I’m everything?” Jess wasn’t going to let him off so easily.
He raised his head again and clasped her knee through her skirts. “Everything, dragonfly,” he repeated and pulled a rolled sheaf of papers from the pocket of his overcoat.
She took the sheaf and unfurled it. When she did, the tears closed up her throat again. “What is this?” Jess hoarsely asked.
“Your dragonflies. I tore apart my library looking for references. And when I’d exhausted it, I wrote to every scientific society I could think of, asking for more. I drew every single one of them.”
“Why would you do that?” She asked as her eyes met his.
