This took him to thoughts of how she was brought to hisworld, not of her choice.A world so different from her own, she could neverhave imagined it in her wildest dreams.Yet she found a way to navigate it evenhaving been ripped from all she knew.Her mother imprisoned.Her father forcingher to woo and win and sleep with a man…
He could think no further on that, for it had, since he’dlearned all of this, frequently occurred to him a number of disastrousscenarios of what might have befallen her if it was notheshe was setto woo.
And then there was confronting the image of herself.
Her twin.
Valentine had shown Loren thehimof the other world.
It had shaken him.
What shook him more was Valentine telling him something heknew.
“He is not to find his other half.She isn’t his to have.He’ll never know why.But mark this, my stubborn soldier, he’ll feel her loss.He won’t know what’s missing, but he’ll feel it in every breath until the lasthe takes in his life.”
Rattled, Loren had watched himself drinking an ale in a pubwith the twins of Marlow and Middy, Holt and Croft around him, all while theytalked, and jested and intermittently glanced at a strange box with movingimages on it.
“Unless she comes home and misses you and finds that theother you lives close.Then she’ll discover the truth.The you of this world isnot you, but heisrather amazing,” the green witch had finished.
That hadn’t rattled him.
It infuriated him.
And it did then.
Spurring him to move, stalking out of the dressing room,through his room, into the hall and down the stairs.
He found her in the parlor.
She, too, was at a window, staring at the park.
“Sa…Maxine,” he gritted.
She turned to him.
And Loren knew when she did, he’d already lost her.
He felt the bleakness that seemed always looming begin toovertake him.
The words had not been said, but he knew he loved her, andshe loved him.So, before she left him and returned to her home, she was owedthe understanding of why he was aloof and removed on a day of spectacle andfear.A day he forced her to face at his side, but without his love and care.
“I talked Father into getting her that puppy, she wanted oneso badly.”
Her lovely faced blanked.
Yes, he had lost her.
He persevered, nevertheless.
“It took years for him to convince me it wasn’t my doingthat pup went into the creek and Columbia went after him.I still don’t quitebelieve it.As Father does not quite believe that it wasn’t his fault Motherwas lost.He’d made her pregnant, of course, and her recovery from havingColumbia was slow.She did not regain her strength as quickly as she had afterme.Though, as Father tells it, there was no convincing her.She carried onwith all the things she’d done before as if she was just as robust, which onlyserved to further weaken her.Another mark on Father’s soul, according to him,for he allowed her to do it.”
“Women aren’t fond of being ‘allowed’ or ‘disallowed’ to dothings,” she said quietly.
“Indeed,” he returned brusquely.“As, from Father’s storiesof her, I deduce Mother would have also contended.It was her choice.But I bidyou convince Father of that.”
“An effort doomed to fail, I’m sure,” she muttered.
“Yes,” he agreed.He then shared, “Last night, I went toyour world.”
