“What did you say to him?”Bernadette encouraged.
“Nothing,” she admitted on a shaky breath.“Both times I simply pretended he hadn’t said it.That those words couldn’t exist.”
Flora covered her hand.“Why?Is it just the timing?Or the fact that he was such a close friend to your late husband?”
Valaria worried her lip.She couldn’t tell the truth to these women who had become such dear and powerful friends to her.For Fanny’s sake, as much as her own.But she needed their counsel, even if they didn’t truly understand her motives.“It is impossible to fully open my heart to…to anyone I care for if I am lying to them.”She hesitated.“Isn’t it?”
Bernadette’s expression softened.“Are you lying or keeping secrets?”she asked gently.“They are not the same thing.Your secrets may be your own.”
“What if they are both?”Valaria asked.“How in the world could I ever be happy with him, be happy with anyone, let him love me…if I am a liar?”
Flora considered the question a moment.“My late husband was many years older than I was,” she said at last.“And though many thought it an odd match, or a mercenary one, the truth was that we loved each other.And in that love, we found safety to be ourselves and to tell our secrets.Callumdoeslove you, of that I am certain.And your secrets…or your lies…would be safe with him, I think.”
“At least you would know for certain if you confessed whatever you are so afraid of to him,” Bernadette said.“He seems a gentle person.”
“He is that,” Valaria whispered as memory after memory of just that tenderness came through her mind.“But what if he hates me?What if this changes how he sees me?”
“Then we’ll work something else out,” Flora said without hesitation.“We will make sure there is another path for you that doesn’t involve a man who can’t accept you for everything you are.”
“Indeed,” Bernadette said.“We’re not so helpless as we might have been before our marriages.Our widowhoods give us money, independence, freedom.We won’t let you lose those things.”
Valaria stared at the door Fanny had gone through before.“Would you…would you protect Fanny if it came to that?”
Flora drew back a fraction.“Good God, Valaria.These must be dangerous secrets, indeed, for you to ask that.”
Valaria didn’t answer, and after the silence hung for what felt like a lifetime, Bernadette took her hand.“I promise you, we would protect Fanny if it came to that.”
Valaria stared at her two friends and tears filled her eyes.“You two have become so precious to me in such a short time.”
From either side, the women hugged her, and for a moment they were nothing more than a blubbering mass.But at last they all laughed, wiping tears and trying to pull themselves back together.
“If we are not here for each other, then nothing else in life is worth anything,” Flora said.
Valaria nodded.She had not always believed that, or thought it possible, but now those words felt very true.And for the first time she felt brave enough to attempt to make Callum understand her hesitations.
Now she just had to figure out how to tell him before her bravery fled.
