Chapter 27
Ciaran got to his feet first and held a hand down to her.
Ava took it without a word.
He pulled her up carefully, steadied her when her legs wobbled for a moment, and let his hand remain on her waist longer than was needed.
The grass by the loch was cold underfoot, and the coat had slipped half aside in the struggle of the last few minutes. Above them, the comet still burned, pale and long in the dark, as if nothing on the ground had changed at all.
But he knew better. Everything on the ground had changed.
He bent, shook out the coat, and spread it properly again. Ava gathered her cloak close and lowered herself onto it. He sat beside her after a short pause, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin and the slight tremor still running through her.
For a little while, neither spoke.
The silence should have felt easier than it did.
Her breathing had not fully evened. Nor had his. He could still taste her on his mouth. He could still feel the shape of her in his hands, the urgency of her confession, the force of her body answering his.
He had wanted her too fiercely, and he had taken too much comfort in the wanting. He had done it under the same sky that had given her something sacred.
He looked out toward the loch and said the first thing that came to his mind. “I am sorry.”
The words fell flat the moment he heard them.
Sorry for what, exactly? For speaking of an annulment under the comet?
For forcing his own confusion into a night that should have belonged only to her mother and the sky?
For touching her with such hunger after wounding her?
For being a man who could not go a single hour without ruining what he most wanted to protect?
All of it sat behind the apology, and none of it bled into the one poor word.
Ava lowered her eyes. “So am I.”
That made him turn toward her at once.
She had heard something else entirely. He saw it in her face before he understood it in full.
Her voice held a lot of gentleness. It also held composure as well, and he recognized that pattern quite well.
He knew that she had only said that out of manners, and there was actually nothing for her to apologize for. Not ever.
“What are ye sorry for?” he asked anyway.
A small, sad smile touched her mouth and was gone just as quickly. “For making it harder.”
His chest tightened. “Ava.”
She gave a slight shake of her head, as if to say that going further would only make the situation less bearable.
The comet still drew a bright path over the water, and the coat beneath them held some of the cold from the ground and some of the warmth from their bodies.
Ciaran sat close enough to stop her from drifting further away if he chose right in the next moment.
He did not choose right.
Ava looked up at the sky for a breath, then back at him. “For what it is worth, I daenae have any problem with today.”
Ciaran narrowed his eyes at her. “What are ye talking about?”
“The comet,” she responded, her voice low in a way that made it look like she was doing her best to control it. “I wouldnae have wanted anyone to see it but ye, me husband.”
The line struck him so hard he forgot to breathe for one second.
There it was, the full trust. The fact that she was placing him inside one of the most sacred moments of her life and giving him that place freely even now, even after his apology had already bent the night wrong.
She had given him the comet. Her mother’s dream.
Her hand. Her body. And he sat beside her with a head full of fear and a mouth that still failed him at every critical moment.
He looked at her and knew she could see how deeply the words had landed. He could feel the answer inside himself, large and urgent and too slow to take shape.
He wanted to tell her that her saying such a thing made him feel both blessed and damned. He wanted to tell her that he did not deserve this night and yet would carry it all his life. He wanted to tell her that the apology had meant guilt and fear and confusion, never regret for her, never that.
He said nothing useful.
Ava waited for a heartbeat. Then another.
He saw the exact moment her softness began to harden. She gathered it inward, as if drawing a shawl around herself against weather that had turned colder than expected.
He knew what was happening. That was the worst of it. He knew and still could not reach across the gap in time.
The silence between them continued to grow heavy. He could still hear the water at the loch’s edge. He could still smell the grass crushed beneath the coat, but beside him, Ava had gone very still.
“Ye shouldnae think…” he trailed off.
She turned her head. “Shouldnae think what?”
His mouth went dry. The answer was there and whole, if he would only speak it plainly. Shouldnae think I regret ye. Shouldnae think I wish this night undone. Shouldnae think me apology meant that what happened between us shamed me. He felt all of it pressing hard against his teeth.
He managed only, “I didnae mean…”
Ava looked at him for a long second, and in that look, he saw her trying to make sense of half-words and silences and the old pattern he kept forcing between them.
The effort of it hurt to watch. He had asked too much of her already. He was asking for more now by leaving her to do the interpretation alone.
Her hand moved once over the front of her cloak, smoothing it down, though it needed no smoothing. Then she folded both hands in her lap and sat straighter.
That frightened him more than anger would have. The composure settling over her had cost something. He could feel the cost of it beside him.
“Ava,” he said.
She did not look away. “Aye?”
There was no bite in the word. No heat. Only readiness. It sounded too much like the tone of someone who had already come to a conclusion and was waiting to see whether she would have to live by it.
Under the fading comet, beside the loch, with her shoulder near enough to brush his if either of them moved, Ciaran felt the moment slipping from him and knew with sick clarity that the next words out of her mouth would wound them both.
She drew one slow breath. “I have been too selfish, have I nae?”
The question struck him before he understood it.
“Ava,” he tried.
She went on as though he had not spoken.
“It is all right, husband.” Her hands stayed folded in her lap, neat and still, though he had seen those same hands clutch him with desire only moments before. “I shall speak to me father about the annulment. I shall tell him it is what I want.”
For one second, Ciaran heard nothing. The night around them went hollow. He stared at her and felt the words land in pieces. She had taken the knife he had put in her hand and was now using it on herself with courtesy.
“Nay,” he said, though the word came out too late and with far less force than was needed.
Ava looked at him. There was so much pain under her composure now that he almost could not bear the sight of her face.
It was quite obvious from the way she looked at him that she was protecting what little dignity she had left. She was offering him freedom as if it were a kindness she still had the power to give.
“I should never have made things harder for ye,” she said quietly. “Ye were honest from the beginning, and I kept hoping.” A small, sad breath left her. “That was me fault.”
Ciaran’s mouth went dry.
Ava leaned toward him before he could gather himself. He felt the light touch of her lips on his cheek, soft and brief and devastating. The kiss held tenderness still. That shattered him more than anger could have.
“Good night,” she murmured.
Then she rose.
He got to his feet too, but too slowly, as if his body had forgotten how to move at the speed required when the danger was a woman walking away in heartbreak and not an armed man crossing a yard.
“Ava.”
She did not stop.
The coat shifted in the grass where she had left it. Her cloak hung close around her while the comet still marked the sky above her as she started back toward the castle, and the sight of her moving through the pale light felt like a punishment carefully measured to fit his failure.
He could have gone after her. He knew that. He could have caught her arm and turned her back. He could have said the whole thing at last with no shelter left around it.
I daenae want freedom from ye. I daenae ken how to stop ruining what I love. Because I do, Ava. I love ye.
He remained standing where he was.