“Because I’m afraid.” He said the words in a low rush.
She went still. “Why are you afraid?” She stopped crying nearly at once.
He took a shuddering breath. Hers was held.
“It’s fear that makes me a bastard. Fear and shame. Because I’m ashamed of being afraid.” His voice was gruff. “And then I’m ashamed of being a bastard. Delilah, what bloody good am I if I cannot keep and protect you? What is thepointof me?”
She was stunned. “Tristan...” she breathed. “Oh my God. What on...”
He took a breath. “If we lose the ship, we’re insured, but it will take us over a year to catch up to where we are now, and that’s income that Bolt and I aren’t bringing in. And weallwill feel the effects. Delacorte, too. It wasyearsof work to buy the ship in the first place. I’m feeling a little helpless, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt helpless at all. Probably because I’veneverfelt that way. At least since I was a child. I wasreallybloody good at my job and you know it. It was who I am. Perhaps it is still who I am. And then St. Leger shows up, reminding me of a failure, and... I do not like being reminded that I am fallible.” He gave a short laugh. “In the past, if I was fallible, people could die.”
He tenderly drew a strand of hair away from her wet cheeks with a single finger and tucked it behind her ear.
“I do not know how to reconcile being afraid with the man I thought I was. The man I want to be for you. I understand now that I never felt helpless because there was never as much at stake. I love my life with you more than anything. And I love you more than life.”
“Oh, my heart,” she said softly. She gently kissed his chilled cheeks, his eyelids, his mouth. “I don’t love you for your ability to slam the heads of intruders on tables.” Which was, in fact, something he had once done in order to save her from a man who had intended to harm her. “Or because you make love like a demon. I love you because you fell completely apart and showed me your heart and wrote me a poem. The fact that you can slam heads and bark orders is a useful feature. I lovethispart of you. I love what you’re telling me now. You are safe with me, do you hear?”
She sat down hard on the bed.
He sat down next to her.
Then they lay down together, stretched out, loosely wrapped around each other.
She stroked his hair while he rested his head on her chest, soothed by the reassuring rise and fall of it. The very fact of her.
“A terrible poem,” he murmured.
“The best poem I’ve ever heard,” she sniffed.
“I trust you implicitly, you know. I do. There are two of us now, and you have enough bravery for a whole continent but even the sun can’t always shine through clouds, Tristan. When you cannot be brave, I will be brave for you. Don’t you see, there’s nothing we can’t face together? We can fight about anything you like, but you cannot use... taking yourself away from me... as a weapon. Or as a way to protect yourself. Do you understand? You can’t. I cannot bear it. You must talk to me.”
He drew in a long breath, then exhaled atlength. “You have my word. I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.”
Already the tension he’d been carrying for weeks had left his body. She could feel it, and she rejoiced.
She knew his word was as good as his wedding vows. And she knew how tremendously difficult it was for him to be open and soft. It was too close to surrender. Life had trained him to be so very hard.
“Thank you for telling me how you felt, Delilah.”
“We’re still learning how to be married,” she said.
He gave a short, pained laugh. “Humbling as hell to not be perfect at it.”
She laughed softly.
For a long time they merely lay in peaceful silence.
“He’s a good man, Delilah,” he said after a moment. “Years of commanding men, and I think I can discern a man who acts the part and a man who fundamentallyis. I think I’ve always thought he was a good man. Even a fine man. He’s certainly a singular man. It’s not about diving in and saving babies. God only knows why he did that. But that’s what has eaten at me. I saw who he could have been, and then there was what he did, and...”
“He probably doesn’t think of it as a waste, Tristan. He probably sees it as the reason he’s alive.”
She said this very carefully, delicately. She knew honor was an ironclad notion for him; it was as much a part of him as his spine. He’dbeen saved from St. Giles in a way that Lorcan St. Leger had not. He owed his life and loyalty to the navy. But the military had gotten lucky when they’d saved the ten-year-old Tristan Hardy. He’d been as brilliant and dedicated an officer as ever walked. His men would walk through fire for him. As would Delilah.
“I am struggling with whether... accepting this... is a betrayal of everything I have stood for in my life.”
“What if what you stood for... is all that is good in the world? Maybe he is good, and the path to good was simply different for him. Maybe he’s meant to do better in the world. Maybe he was meant to save that child today. Maybe... something in you never really wanted to catch him.”
He was quiet. But she knew he was listening.
