Chapter Sixteen
Under a summer sky, Rafe strode along a lane lined with hedgerows and lavender. He barely noticed the warm sunlight or the honeysuckle-scented breeze. Without Osanne, his empty, shredded soul longed for companionship, even if his battered heart could never love again.
Kitty, of course, had proven to be good company before she and her family went to spend the summer in Bath. But the thought of courtship left him empty and cold.
A feminine voice called out, “Ah, it seems today is a fine day for a ramble.” Kitty’s smiling face came into view. She peered at him from underneath her bonnet.
Rafe’s steps faltered. “I thought you were still in Bath?”
“We returned last eve.”
“Did you find many new diversions?” Rafe asked.
“It was the same as last year. And the year before. Parties, balls, carriage rides, tea in the Pump Room.”
No mention of the ancient Roman ruins or appreciation of the history. Osanne would have drunk it all in. Of course, to be fair, Kitty had been there several times. Perhaps the novelty had worn thin.
“I supposed you turned down a dozen marriage proposals?” he teased.
She went very still, then said quietly, “I stopped him before he got the words out.”
Rafe also went still. He shouldn't be surprised. Kitty was well past marriageable age but was still as lovely as ever. “Poor chap.”
“Yes, poor chap. But I don’t believe it’s proper to marry someone when one has formed an attachment for another, do you?”
“One can form an attachment for the person one wedded. Many married couples grow to love one another after the wedding. My own parents, for example.”
Perhaps he could, too, if his heart weren’t so utterly destroyed.
When would the room in his heart occupied by Osanne ever make way for someone living?
Despite her vow never to see him again, she still held sway over his thoughts, his heart, and his soul.
Perhaps she’d never go completely. Perhaps he didn’t even wish that of her.
Kitty’s voice broke into his musings. “Perhaps you’re right. Through mutual respect and a bit of time, two people might someday in the future find a corner in their hearts for one another.”
Her words stopped him in his tracks. Might not he someday in the future find a corner in his heart for Kitty? He shrank from the thought, drew a shaking breath, and resumed their pace.
Kitty changed the subject. “Have you finally finished your wanderings?”
“Last month, I visited the last of the men who had served under my command, and the families of the men I lost. I gave them whatever aid or comfort I could, but I’m uncertain as to whether I did any real good.”
“Why is that?”
“Many seemed uncomfortable that I came and stirred up memories best left forgotten.”
“At least you tried. It’s all anyone can ask.”
Yet, it all seemed meaningless. Still, he had done what he could. Perhaps it mattered to someone. If nothing else, the gesture had helped heal some of his inner wounds.
Since Osanne vanished last, his consuming misery had grown rather than faded.
He should have known. Those first few years after meeting Osanne, his attempts to shut out the aching need to see her had proved futile.
He had been a fool to think he would be any more successful, now that he loved her so deeply.
But she had made her wishes clear.
Kitty’s voice cut into his gloom. “I hear you bought a home in a small village.”
“I did. I had friends there and I felt a sense of belonging.”
“You speak of that place and those people in the past tense.”
“Something changed. It’s different now.” He missed Peter and Jake and his other friends, but how could he go back knowing Osanne would not be there?
“But you want to go back, regardless?”
He clasped his hands behind his back as he strolled next to her. “I’m uncertain if I can move past...those memories.”
“I understand. For years, I couldn’t walk past Ben’s bedchamber without thoughts of him overwhelming me. It was like trying to stand upright beneath a waterfall.”
How well he understood the sentiment!
“One day, my friend Jane and I went into his bedchamber together. Somehow, with her there, the memories didn’t drown me. Now I go in, touch his things, sit in front of his portrait, and the memories come at a comforting trickle.”
They walked in silence together. A time had come when thinking of Benjamin no longer left him beaten and lost. Would there come a time when thinking of Osanne no longer stabbed at him like a fiery sword?
Kitty’s trilling laugh rang out. “Do you remember how we used to try to walk across the fallen log without falling into the river? Ben always fell in. Bless him, but he never had good balance. Then as we swam, we made up stories about a water monster who lived in the river and scared ourselves so much that we got out?”
Rafe smiled at the memory. “I do remember that. You screamed a bit, as I recalled.”
“Only because you grabbed my foot.”
He chuckled.
She sobered. “Having a friend with us as we go to places that are rich with memories can be helpful.” She gave him a pointed look with a clear offer.
Could he face memories of Osanne in Madding Hollow if a friend accompanied him—if Kitty accompanied him?
Her memories of Ben and their easy laughter suggested she could help ease his grief and loneliness since Ben’s death, compounded by Osanne’s departure.
Kitty had even learned to respect his need for quiet and solitude and gave him the time he needed, so he no longer felt drained by her presence.
Peter and his wife would love her cheery disposition.
The villagers of Madding Hollow would greet her with open arms.
Despite that, everything would remind him of Osanne.
Kitty stopped walking and turned to him. “You’re different than you were at Christmas.”
He faced her. “Am I?”
“You have been withdrawn for years, but now there is something profoundly sad about you.”
What could he say to that? The deep pain at Osanne’s rejection had pierced a hole in his heart. His life slowly drained out through the wound.
She touched his arm. The contact felt strange and somehow overly familiar. “Rafe, I have a feeling that you may have loved and lost someone.”
He pressed his mouth together and resumed walking. After a moment’s silence, he said bitterly, “I suppose that makes me a ‘poor chap.’”
Frowning, she fell into step with him. After a moment, she asked in a hushed voice, “Is there a chance you and this love of your life could reconcile?”
He let out a long, slow exhale. “Not likely.”
If he had been more positive about performing the ceremony, would she have been willing to try? Had his fears influenced her, frightened her away from taking the chance?
Both of them had held a higher regard for fear than for love.
But how could he risk sending her to oblivion?
Kitty drew a breath. “You and I have known each other all our lives, so I feel as though I may speak candidly.”
“You always have.” He found it within himself to give her a wan smile.
“He asked again—the ‘poor chap’. Only yesterday. He traveled a long distance to beg me to reconsider.”
He blinked at her. “Did he, now?
Smiling, Kitty said as if to justify herself, “He’s a good man, from a good family, and he is violently in love with me. And my feelings for him are quite...tender.”
Rafe nodded, though he was at a loss as to what she was really telling him.
It seems he had lost his chance with Kitty.
The thought should have saddened him more than it did.
But really, he’d only ever thought of her as a little sister he had shared with Ben, despite those moments when he had considered her as possibly more.
He managed to ask, “Is he good to you?”
Another soft smile. “Very much. He’s warm and gentle, and appreciates my, shall we say, lack of reticence?”
Despite his numbness with grief, he managed a smile. “Yes, I’m quite familiar with your character. He must be a good man, indeed. Do your parents approve?”
“Wholeheartedly.”
“Did your answer change this time?”
“I told him I would give him my answer if he would grant me but one request: to have one last, painfully honest conversation with you.”
“With me?’
She moistened her lips. “Surely you have no question of my affection for you. I’ve virtually worshiped you since I was a child.
But you have a restless spirit and wounds in your heart that I fear may not heal, so I never truly expected you to return my affection.
But I was willing to take even a little piece of your heart, if you would entrust me with it. ”
Her frankness, a trait that had alternately annoyed and impressed him, caused him to stand still. She looked up at him, so lovely, so strong, and yet vulnerable. She had handed him her heart. Dare he take it?
Could he do her justice—learn to love her as she deserved? Or would she always be the girl for whom he’d settled when he couldn’t have the one he wanted and craved?
He gave her a sad smile. “You are a remarkable girl.”
“I’m no longer a girl, Rafe. I’m a grown woman.”
“Yes, you are.” Was he a fool to reject what was so openly offered with so little asked in return?”
“And I have only one request of you: a single kiss.”
He started. A kiss? It was a simple request, but would kissing her betray Osanne? Of course, she had already spurned him.
In addition, he had never been one to use the fair sex, and kissing Kitty when she knew full well that he failed to return her love came dangerously close to trifling with her.
She tilted her face upward and whispered, “Kiss me, and then I will know my heart.”
Without waiting for his reply, Kitty rose up on tiptoe and kissed him.
The firmness of her lips, the softness and warmth of a real, living woman took his breath away.
He pulled her into his arms, reveling in the tangibleness and heat of her body.
He kissed her deeper and deeper. She responded with equal fervor.
Desire shot through him and every part of his body woke up as if from a long sleep.
Years had passed since he’d had the unique pleasure of sharing such intimacy with a woman—a live, mortal woman.
The comfort of human flesh reminded him of the cool, not-quite-solid sensation that came when he touched Osanne.
Yet he felt none of the joy nor the love that had come with kissing Osanne. Her kisses had not brought the same physical pleasure, but had instilled a deep and never-before-known happiness and sense of home.
Kitty’s kisses touched him on a mortal, physical level only. Osanne’s had touched and reshaped his heart.
He ended the kiss, brushed his lips on Kitty’s brow, and stepped back. Kitty stood with her eyes closed and smiling. She was warm and whole and real, and so unselfishly loving.
He must choose.
Osanne had made the choice for him...but perhaps not for the reason he had thought.
Kitty opened her eyes and that familiar impish delight sparkled in her eyes. “You’re an even better kisser than I imagined.”
Rafe could not find it within himself to smile back.
He stood at a proverbial crossroads. Stay here with Kitty. Or go back to Madding Hollow and try to reach Osanne.
He had it within his grasp to free Osanne. She had described her half-life as a special kind of purgatory. She deserved to be freed from that horrible isolation and loneliness, condemned to only exist in the most fragile way possible on a single night.
The final decision lay with Osanne. He had always found the courage to make difficult decisions, to order those under his command into danger, to charge to almost certain death. Could he find the courage again to ask Osanne to risk it all...with him?
Perhaps that was his answer. His calling.
He needed to offer to perform the Ath-nuadhachadh for her—providing he could purify his heart enough to be worthy.
If Osanne came back to life, they could be together.
If she moved on to whatever lay in that light, then she would be free of the hellish half-life where she was now trapped.
Surely some new existence lay beyond that light.
Perhaps he met Osanne because only she would help him heal enough that he could open his heart to possibilities, to see Kitty as a woman, as the love of his life.
She might be the one about whom his fortune had foretold.
If that were true, then Osanne, in turn, needed Rafe to help her find the courage to move on.
Then why had he fallen in love with her? To learn what love could offer him? To show him what he could find with Kitty? With Osanne freed, Rafe might find room in his heart for Kitty.
Could he love another?
Perhaps in time. But not this time. Not this one. Kitty deserved someone who loved and adored her. Someone who had already traveled a long distance to ask for her hand.
As gently as he could, he said, “Kitty...”
Kitty held up a hand. She hugged herself and looked up at him with solemn eyes. “As I said, I don’t believe it’s proper to marry someone when one has an attachment for someone else, as you clearly do for that other woman, regardless of what has happened between you.”
He winced. “Forgive me, Kitty. Forgive my confusion and indecision. You have been more patient than I deserve.”
She blew out a soft, weary sigh and looked away.
“Patience can be a virtue. Or an act of foolishness. It’s time I ceased my foolishness.
You were a childhood fantasy; but he—the not-so-poor chap—is an adult reality.
Thank you for the kiss, and for helping me know my mind.
With you purged from my heart, I now have room for him. I will accept his proposal.”
Mingled with a faint sense of loss, a stronger relief came over Rafe. He bowed over her hand. “I wish you both every happiness.”
“Thank you. I will pray you find the answers you seek and be at peace.”
“That will be my hope, as well.” Perhaps he ought to take Peter’s advice and offer up a few prayers, as well.
The fortune teller’s words came back to him: True love.
You have it within your grasp, but only when you live true to yourself will you find your heart’s desire, the mate for your soul, and free you both from the chains that bind you each to your solitude.
Osanne had pulled him out of his solitude.
From the first moment he saw her in the pub she had drawn him out, back to living.
Free yourself, free her. If he freed Osanne, he would also free himself.
He would never love anyone more than Osanne. Death had not stopped him from loving her, and neither would freeing her from being caught between worlds. No matter the outcome.
Find love. Hold fast to it. Osanne could be restored to life. She was the love he had found. He would hold fast to her with his last breath.
He had to try. For them both.