She’d spent years telling herself she no longer held any affection for Jacob Jamison, had spent the last few months preparing to devote herself to Thomas Hamilton. And now, with nothing more than a breath of nearness and a kiss that never happened, all of that certainty had been stripped away.
Beside her, Jacob shifted slightly.
She did not look at him.
She was not sure she could bear to see his face and find it unchanged, unbothered by what hadn’t happened.
Still, she was concerned for his low fever and the disturbing swelling of his arm. After a moment spent deciding if she wanted to speak—ever again to him—concern edged out her own misery.
“Mayhap...” Her voice sounded thinner than she meant it to. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Mayhap I should be searching for...something for your fever or your arm.” She gestured vaguely toward the darkness beyond their little cocoon. “There are plants that might help. Willow bark, perhaps—Mam used to swear by it for heat and pain. Or yarrow, if I can find it. It helps draw out corruption.” She hesitated, biting her lip briefly before adding, “Even dock leaves, crushed. They’re good for swelling.”
Jacob’s answer came immediately. “Nae.”
The firmness of it startled her.
“I’ll be quick,” she said, too quickly. “And careful. Mayhap I wouldn’t need to go far.”
He shook his head. “I willna have ye wandering the dark for my sake.”
“I can mark a trail to make my way back,” she offered.
“Elena, leave it,” he said curtly. “Neither the fever nor the swelling is so great to have this done right now.”
“Fine,” she said quietly. “But if ye worsen by morn, I dinna want ye blaming me.”
“Ye ken I would nae.”
She did know that. It wasn’t in his nature to blame someone else.
She sighed, the sound small and weary, her emotional exhaustion finally catching up to the physical fatigue she had been holding at bay for hours.
And yet, she could not let the night pass without saying one more thing.
“I was foolishly taken with ye once,” Elena said then, her voice sounding smaller than she’d intended. She lifted one shoulder in a small shrug, heat rising again in her cheeks. “A child’s absurd fancy, I suppose,” she clarified. “I was young. Ye were tall and fearless. Everything a girl of eight or nine imagines a hero to be.”
Jacob was quiet for a moment.
“Aye,” he said at last, his voice low. “I might have kent that.”
Her breath caught. “Ye did?”
He inclined his head, just slightly.
Oh.
The understanding settled with a dull, aching certainty.
He had known, and he had done nothing about it.
In truth, she’d known that, had always known that.
As a girl, she had told herself she was merely waiting—for him to catch up to her, to see her differently, to feel what she felt. She had built the dream carefully, tending it like something fragile, because admitting the truth, that he had never and would never have those same feelings for her, would have meant letting it die. And at the time, that was something she would not allow to happen.
She nodded once, more to herself than to him, and let the silence settle again between them.
Beyond embarrassed—again—she cleared her throat and said, “Probably a guid thing that I outgrew it.”
“Aye, a guid thing,” was all he said after a long moment.
