Page 120 of Her Scandalous Pursuit

She nodded. “I remember almost everything until I went sailing off the tor. After that, it’s a bit of a blur. I don’t remember hitting the lake, but I must have landed in the water instead of on the ground or I’d be in much worse shape.” Thisbe took another sip of the soup, thinking. “Then I remember darkness and cold. I thought I saw Anne Ballew again, but that was probably a dream I had while I was asleep. And then...” She frowned. “I remember light and the ground seemed to move.”

“It did,” he confirmed. “When you destroyed the Eye.”

“Did I? I wish I remembered that. How did I destroy it?”

“Crushed it to bits with a rock. It’s nothing but ground glass now and a twisted scrap of metal, which I melted in the fireplace. There’s a burn mark on the rock where you destroyed it.”

“What happened to Carson? You sounded as if he was ill or...” Thisbe trailed off. Perhaps she had smashed Carson’s mind, as well.

“He’s not sick, though he bloody well should have caught pneumonia, capering about out there in the rain in his shirtsleeves. Willoughby says Carson’s just been sitting, staring into the fire.” He shrugged. “He stopped me in the hallway as I was coming back here.”

“Carson? Are you serious? Why?”

“He wanted to apologize.”

“Well, I would think he should have done that to me,” Thisbe retorted.

Desmond laughed. “I told him that. But I believe he’s too ashamed to face you yet.”

“What did he say?”

“How sorry he was. How he wasn’t himself. How he never meant to hurt you. He seems to feel pretty wretched about the whole thing.” He sighed. “There wasn’t a single wry quip in all he said. I’ve never seen him so...exposed.”

“Do you believe him?” Thisbe asked.

“I think it’s true that he didn’t know what he was doing. He was ‘possessed’ by the Eye somehow. I have been envious of Carson, jealous, suspicious, but I don’t think he’s a bad person deep down. He was a friend to me long before he thought we could lead him to the Eye.”

“So you forgave him?”

Desmond snorted. “I’m not that kindhearted. However accidental it was that he knocked you down, the fact is, he killed you.”

“Yes, well, he tried to stab you, and that wasn’t accidental at all,” Thisbe said with some heat.

“Trust you to be more upset about what he tried to do to me than what he actually did to you.” Desmond smiled and lifted her hand to kiss it. “I told him I couldn’t give him absolution. I think that would have to come from you. Right now, I find it a little hard to care what happens with Carson.”

Thisbe was silent for a moment again, thinking. “Something puzzles me about all this.”

“Only one thing?” Desmond laughed.

“Well, one thing at this particular moment.” She smiled and squeezed his hand. It felt so wonderful, so right, to be with him like this, free of restraints or worry. “Carson was Anne Ballew’s descendant. That’s clear from his having the journal and that knife and all.”

He nodded. “I think that’s safe to assume.”

“Then why were you able to see the vision of me dead?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about that and...the thing is, we don’t really know that Anne Ballew had only one child.”

“You’re right.” Thisbe straightened, intrigued. “I should have thought of that. Even if she had only one child, that child very well may have had more than one and those children had children—there could be a number of people who are Anne’s descendants.” She paused, considering the idea. “Do you think that’s why the Eye couldn’t stop you? Carson certainly thought it should. He looked astonished when you kept coming toward him.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe he didn’t use it properly—or that power was just a myth.”

“But then why didn’t you feel its allure? Why didn’t it ‘call’ you as it did Carson?”

“It did ‘call’ me,” Desmond confessed. “When Wallace showed the bloody thing to me before you arrived, I wanted so badly to take it. All I could think of was how much I could learn, how much knowledge it held. I wanted it so much, it scared me.”

“But you didn’t take it until he forced you.”

“No. It was too seductive, too strong. I wasn’t about to let anything control me like that. That’s why I refused to take it until he threatened you.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “It was far easier to refuse when you were there.”