“No.” Muscles jerk and ripple across his back. “It’s…not that simple. Not in my case.”
Her nostrils flare. “So, things aren’t perfect in your home. That’s no reason—”
“It isn’t that. Well, it isn’tonlythat.”
She frowns up at him. “Then what is it?”
He heaves a deep sigh and says the words aloud for the first time. “I’m missing.”
“You’rewhat?”
“Technically I’ve been declared missing in action. Presumed dead.”
Her jaw hangs open.
“So she isn’t waiting around for me. Might have even married again.”
Her jaw snaps shut. Her eyes blaze. “You cannotdothat to her!”
He stares at the spot on Florence’s arm he viciously grabbed in the shop. Shame flashes hot and cold. “I must.” His voice is rough and vicious.
Tears well in her eyes. “Howcouldyou?”
“Better a dead husband than one—”
“In the county asylum,” she finishes.
“Sorry.”
A quick tip of one shoulder, as if that’s all she can expect from life. Existing as best one can while the curse of living on this earth marches over each of our lives.
“For what it’s worth, this is why I’m chasing down the story of this painting. Because if itisa true Covington, it’s worth a fair bit, and my Helen needs that money. It’s one way to be a husband to her without…without…” Burdening her with himself. He closes his eyes and inhales, then lets it out with a long, cleansing breath. Why must the world be so broken? Why musthe? Damaged souls cannot do anything but damage others with the broken shards.
“We had two sons once. The younger fell ill when he was young, and when he was better, I snuck him out for fresh air.”
“That’s good of you.”
“Helen asked me not to. He grew worse…and he died.” He forces the bald facts out of his tight throat.
“Oh.”
He’ll never forget that sinking feeling when Pete woke the next day, feeling poorly, shivering in his bedclothes. Those blue moons beneath his eyes, his skeletal figure bent in a C shape, are forever etched upon his memory. William could hardly bear to look at his boy, knowing what he’d done to him.
And then when their Peter died, he wasn’t able to look at Helen. Not at the funeral, not at breakfast the following morning, not in the many long weeks and months and years afterward. It had become a thing between them, hard and round and impenetrable. He’d cost her a son. “She never forgave me.” He fingers the smooth band of skin on his left ring finger. “That was the reason why, a decade later, we argued over a poor investment I’d made and she left to stay with her sister in Northampton. She hated when I made decisions without her, like the investment—like sneaking out our Peter.” He paused and let the boy’s name shimmer between them. “I waited about for days, then I enlisted as an engineer in the Royal Navy.” The ring was on their bureau when he left.
Now, tucked away in Dunn Cottage with a stranger poking into the details of his marriage, he wishes he never let that precious band of gold out of his sight. Some things, once set aside, don’t fit anymore when one goes to put them back on. Yet they leave their mark on your finger. On your soul.
She’s quiet for a moment, then her voice is soft. Careful. “Then I suppose we must track down this Merryn’s story and validate that painting.”
Pressure rolls away, and the world suddenly seems more manageable. Softer. He lifts his gaze to her face, and the truth they’ve both come to know is settled there—love always slips through the cracks. No matter the heartache or inconvenience of it, love is powerful.Enduring. It can be bent and misshapen and even broken, but it doesn’t simply go away.
He nestles Persephone with his beard, kissing the rounded top of her fuzzy head. “You hear that? We’re going to figure it out.” She purrs and stretches over his shoulder.
His muscles loosen. Finally, a way forward. Somegoodhe can do. He can see Helen’s face, lit up the way it once was as she looked down upon their babes late at night, in those perfect twilight hours when she let her long hair down, her sweet hum echoing through the nursery. He sees strength and femininity and everything he first loved about her…but magnified.
He cannot let that woman suffer. Especially after what he already cost her.
“What if you could have her back?” She says, and the ache of longing leaves him breathless. Florence leans forward again. “What if someone were to help? Wouldn’t you want that with everything in you?”
