He went very still. “What about Margaret?”
“Ye blame yerself for her death. I can see it in yer eyes every time someone mentions her.” Iris’ voice was careful now, as if she were approaching a wounded animal. “What happened, Elijah? What really happened to yer first wife?”
For a moment, he considered lying. Telling her the same story everyone else had heard about fever and complications from childbirth. But something in her eyes, some combination of strength and compassion, made the truth come spilling out.
“She was terrified of me,” he said roughly. “From the day we married until the day she died, she looked at me like I was some monster who might devour her at any moment.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what I am.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue. “The Beast of McMurphy, remember? I tried to be gentlewith her, tried to be patient, but she just... she couldnae bear me touch, couldnae stand to be in the same room with me. After Codie was born, it got worse. She started talkin’ about voices, about things that werenae there.”
“She was ill.”
“Aye, she was ill, and I made it worse by existin’.” He turned back to the window, unable to look at Iris as he continued. “The night she died, she came to me in me solar. She was... different. Calmer than she’d been in months. She told me she was sorry, that she kent she’d been a disappointment as a wife.”
“What did ye say?”
“I told her she wasnae a disappointment. That she’d given me a son, and that was enough.” His voice broke slightly. “I thought I was bein’ kind. I thought I was givin’ her permission to stop tryin’ so hard.”
“Oh, Elijah.”
“She smiled at me, the first real smile I’d seen from her since she became me wife, and said goodnight. The next mornin’, they found her outside.” He pressed his forehead against the cool glass. “She’d thrown herself from the window rather than spend another day married to me.”
The silence stretched between them, heavy with pain and understanding. When Iris finally spoke, her voice was thick with unshed tears.
“That wasnae yer fault.”
“Wasnae it?”
He turned to face her, and what he saw in her eyes made his breath catch. Not pity, not fear, but something that looked dangerously like understanding. Like acceptance.
“Ye should be afraid of me,” he said quietly. “Everyone else is.”
“I am afraid,” she admitted. “But nae of ye. I’m afraid of how ye make me feel. How much I want things I’ve never wanted before.”
“What things?”
“Partnership. Companionship. Someone who sees me as more than just a convenience or a burden.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Someone who might actually care if I were happy.”
“Iris...”
“I ken this marriage wasnae what either of us chose. I ken ye still see it as an arrangement, nothin’ more. But I also ken I cannae go back to me parents, and me sister has disappeared. I havenowhere else to go. And for Codie’s sake, I want this marriage to work.”
The admission hung between them like a challenge. He could see the vulnerability in her eyes, the way she’d laid her heart bare despite knowing he might crush it.
She was close enough to kiss now, close enough that he could see the way her pulse fluttered at her throat, could smell the scent of her skin beneath the garden mud. It would be so easy to close the distance between them, to let himself fall into whatever this was between them.
But caring about someone meant risking their loss. And he’d lost enough.
“I cannae,” he said roughly, stepping back. “I cannae be what ye need, Iris.”
“What if I just need ye to try?”
The question pierced through his defenses like an arrow finding its mark. Because that was the real terror, wasn’t it? Not that he might fail her but that he might succeed. That he might actually be worthy of the faith he saw in her eyes.
“And Codie?” she pressed, seeming to sense his wavering resolve. “What about him? Does he nae deserve a faither who’s willin’ to risk carin’ about his happiness?”
He deserves better than me. I daenae even ken how to love him properly.
