She tilted her face toward his, her smile touched with wonder. “Now I know better.”
He drew her in, and for a long, quiet moment, they watched the horizon fade together, two hearts no longer waiting.
He held her close, the warmth of her against his side grounding him in a way battlefields and brotherhood never had. This wasn’t survival. It was gentler, something that asked for nothing but presence.
The ghost he carried fell silent here, as if even they paused to listen to her heartbeat.
And for the first time in years, he gave it freely.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The garden wasstill, the air holding the hush of early light. Dew glistened on the rose petals like pearls spilled across velvet, and the ivy along the stone walls drank in the morning warmth without complaint.
Georgina stepped through the open doorway and paused beneath the archway, her slippered feet quiet on the worn flagstones. The shawl around her shoulders, once wrapped tightly in habit, now hung loose and forgotten. She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t anything but… calm.
Her eyes drifted toward the yew hedge, and there he was.
Alex stood just beyond the curve of the walk, sleeves rolled to his forearms, collar undone, the breeze catching at a lock of hair he hadn’t bothered to tame. One hand rested on the back of the old bench, with his fingers curled against the lichen-mottled wood. His gaze was distant, fixed on the horizon beyond the hedgerow, where the sea met sky in a blur of silver.
He didn’t turn when she approached. But when the soft pad of her footfalls reached him, his posture shifted. Her shoulders relaxed, head tilted slightly, as if he’d been listening for that sound.
“You’re up early,” he said, still looking outward, his voice low and warm as the sun on stone.
“So are you,” she replied.
Now he looked at her, and the corners of his mouth tugged upward. “Habit, I suppose.”
She stepped closer, trailing her fingers along the hedge as she cameto stand beside him. “Let me guess, you’re surveying the land? Calculating sheep movements? Checking for criminally lazy gardeners?”
“That and making sure the bees haven’t unionized.”
She smiled, and he gestured toward the bench. She didn’t hesitate.
The wood was cool beneath her skirt, but the sun reached them there, dappled through the branches overhead. He sat beside her, close but not crowded, his arm brushing hers just enough to make her aware of it.
They watched the light shift across the garden, neither speaking for a time.
“I never liked this corner of the grounds,” she said eventually. “Too quiet. But today…”
She didn’t finish the thought.
He turned his head slightly, not pushing, just listening.
Georgina traced the line of mortar between the stones with her gaze. “I used to come here when Rowland was away. I would sit on this bench and try to find order in the garden. Something to match the order I couldn’t find in myself.”
“And did it help?”
“No,” she said, then smiled. “But the roses were loyal.”
“Back then, the garden couldn’t answer what I didn’t yet know how to ask. But today…I don’t need answers. Just this.”
Alex leaned back slightly, elbows resting on the bench’s edge, face tipped toward the sun. “This was where you once accused me of being insufferable.”
She blinked, surprised. “When?”
“You were sixteen. I said your handwriting lacked discipline. You told me I lacked a soul.”
“I was right.”
