AJ levels a gaze at me. “Look, we can sort this out later. Right now, think of Cecil.”
I look into his face and let out my breath slowly. “I need to go now. Alone.”
“No.” AJ stiffens, cords tight along his neck. “Listen, Mer—”
“Will you be safe?” Rupert’s soulful brown eyes find mine.
I nod. “Quite.”
“Merryn, stop this. For once, stop being the headstrong, stubborn—ugh! You’re not going anywhere.” He reaches for my arm, but Rupert blocks it.
“She most certainly is. Come, Merryn.” One hand firmly on my back, his gaze shooting daggers at AJ, Rupert leads me away. “I’ll take you. We must speak privately on another matter. There’s something I must tell you, too.”
But that might shatter me, whatever it is.
AJ shouts, “Look, Merryn. It’s about Cecil. He’s trying to run away.”
I pause, then stare at the man who’s thrown out the one bait I cannot resist.
But that’s all it is.Bait.
This time, I’m not biting. I turn away and Rupert leads me through the onlookers.
“This isn’t over, Merryn Winthrop. I’ll not give up so easily!”
I spin, yanking my arm free, and spit all the anger firing up my soul. “You tried to kill me, AJ! You wanted me dead. So as far as you’re concerned…Iamdead.”
The music fades. The room quiets and AJ stands frozen in his tracks, bound by the accusation I threw out before all these people who are now watching his every move. His muscles flex beneath his shirt and his face is white.
“Don’t follow me, AJ. Ever.”
His face is a glorious display of passion and emotion and everything I’ve ever known him to be…and all that he hid, too. Like anger. In the silence he brims with all he is, but this time I won’t be pulled in.
Laura steps up beside us. “I’ll fetch you down to the station. A break from all men is in order, no?”
“Indeed.” As I walk away from the tension in that lodge, something releases that has been tight around my chest for an extraordinarily long time. If poor decisions are the poison, memories of truth are the antidote that keeps us safe.
Chapter 31
William, 1947
Memoriesareapoison,and new, fresh decisions are the only antidote. Everything in William’s body revolted when Florence the artist suggested speaking with her fiancé. He’d rather gut fish for the rest of his wretched life.
But the notion hasn’t left him alone. Especially when she’d admitted to hearing her fiancé, Lieutenant Carmichael, speaking of the Newlyn artist colony and Rupert Covington years ago.
He cannot stay away. It’s all because of that memory book of Merryn’s. He’s finished it now. He stares at the final lines of that book, disappointed there isn’t more, but he needs the ending desperately. He read that last entry before the others, but now, reading it at the end of her story, it nearly strangles him with all it does not say.
Honeysuckle.
They lined a window box in a flat in the city, where I was both happy and miserable.
I hear dishes rattling in the sink. A man whistling as he comes closer, his stubble against the back of my shoulder…
She reclaimed more memories, he is certain. But what did she learn? What did she decide? There are too many broken love stories in the world, but perhaps there’s one he can mend. There’s time yet for Florence and her soldier, and maybe even to save Helen’s home.
What niggles at him is the hope that perhaps a broken man can—and is actually best suited to—bring about healing in someone else.
Which is why he finds himself standing before St. Lawrence’s, the county asylum, with Persephone on his shoulder. “Lieutenant Sam Carmichael, please,” he says at the front desk, and almost immediately regrets coming. Why are his legs trembling? He’s not the one held here. Yet working towardgood—healing love, inching closer to Merryn—is irresistible.
