“I will not ever presume to tell you how to feel. But I don’t suppose you are required to think about it or to feel any one way about it. I suspect that how you think and feel about it will change over time. How you... bear it will change.”
He wanted to close the distance between them. Hold her like the precious thing she was. He didn’t know if this would be for her benefit or for his. She had taken comfort from him once before, but perhaps she might still feel raw in the aftermath of such a confession and not welcome his arms surrounding her. His uncertainty kept him rooted.
“My name is Christian,” he said instead.
She smiled slowly. “It is perfect.”
Her smile faded. “I suspect there is danger to you if you do not return me to Brundage as you promised, Christian. I think he is a bad man. And not a dangerous man like you are, but bad.”
“Bah,” he said lightly, dismissively. Though of course she spoke truth. He would have to explain the whole of it to her. But not just yet.
She smiled at him again.
“Dangerous, am I?” he said a second later. “Andhandsome?”
“You ought to lie down, Christian.”
She was right.
There was a little settee in the tiny front parlor, and he stretched out on the settee.
She sat opposite him on a chair.
He passed his water flask to her and she drank. She found the packet of food he’d brought with him. Wordlessly, she set some of it out on the table. She handed the cheese and apples to him so he could cut slices with his knife. She passed these back to him assembled with bread. Then he passed the knife to her and she cut the scones and gave him a larger piece.
There was peace and utter satisfaction in being with, and taking care of, each other in this elemental way.
“There is a well,” she said offhandedly. “And I found it. I brought in a bucket of water. You see, I am not so useless as I thought.”
“Well done. We’ll visit it again in the morning. You are not useless in any sense of the word. You areessential.”
She smiled across at him. Rather wryly. A little wistfully.
She looked away from him, toward the fire. “May I tell you something?”
“You may tell me anything,” he said easily.
She seemed to be gathering her thoughts. “I think at first I felt one thing only after... after. I felt terribly clear and filled with rage stronger than fear. I imagined killing him. I did not know how I would do this and I think it would not solve a thing, but it is the worst thing I can imagine. I did not have those feelings before and I do not want the stain of those thoughts on my soul. My parents were murdered as was my oldest brother, and here I am, thinking about taking a life.”
She said these outrageous things that, judging from her expression, she knew by rights would make most other humans blanch.
But Hawkes merely nodded, thoughtfully, as though they were having a discussion in the sitting room of The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“I know a little about being trapped in a cage with murderous rage, Aurelie. And I soon realized that rage, if I... I suppose the word is nurtured it, or attempted to stifle it, would eat me alive. It made me feel weak. Which Iloathe. And in that way, I was its captive. I think it must be acknowledged. You cannot ignore it. But I tried to... make it my servant, I suppose. To use it as fuel for determination. And honor. And... service.”
The last word he almost said was “love.”
It was there in the room with them, that word.
Saying it aloud would require a new kind of untested courage from him. He did not feel free to do it just yet. It would be like introducing yet another new weather system on the heels of the storm that had just broken, and passed.
Regardless, he didn’t feel as though he was telling her something she didn’t know. It was why she had tended him, a stranger, through the night. She hadn’t wanted him to cry out in the dark, alone.
Never again.Neveragain would she ever cry out in need, alone. He would be there, if she wanted him.
She cleared her throat. “Christian... I should be obliged if you would keep what I told you a secret. I cannot imagine telling anyone else. Perhaps... ever.”
“Your confidence is a gift and I would never dream of betraying it. You have my word of honor.”
