Chapter Fourteen #2
Her gaze fixed on the mossy stones of a partial wall, and she gasped, shocked to find where they were standing.
“The trees—” She spun in a slow circle, seeing small, bare divots in the overgrown grass where they used to grow trees heavy with fruit.
She threw him a baffled look. “What happened to the grove?”
“Disease,” he said, his gaze far beyond the clearing. “The spring after—” He shook his head, but Anna knew what he’d meant: The spring after you left. “By the time the blight was discovered, the trees were too wilted and infected to save.”
Much like our relationship.
But, for once, there was no bitterness accompanied by the thought. No sense of truth.
“A fitting end,” she said around a sudden lump in her throat. Her gaze caught on the pile of limestone at the far end of the clearing. “It is a shame the wall there has crumbled.” They used to sit side by side and eat sweets on that bit of stone.
“I’ve been lax in managing this property,” he said, his brows turning downward, as if he’d only now realized. “I left everything for my mother and brother to see to at their discretion. I don’t know why.”
Because, she was sure, he hadn’t wished to think of this place. Of the last time they’d stood on this spot.
“Marry me, Anna.”
“No.”
Something twisted inside her chest. Truth.
That day came back in a rush. Her, grieving her father’s selfish actions. The passing of her aunt. The terrifying revelations of her new guardian’s temperament.
And Jackson—young, handsome, loyal, and loving—proposing, as if he’d save her from it all.
The anger she’d felt as he had fallen to one knee and professed all the silent affection between them; it hadn’t been directed at him.
All this time, she’d been lying to herself. She’d been selfish and stubborn since seeing him again, only focusing on her own feelings, on her need to protect her heart from breaking all over again.
But, standing here in what had once been their favorite meeting place, she could lie no longer.
The kiss, the shifting of awareness, his proposal, and her turning away.
Leaving him with no inkling of why she’d run from a future together.
Of the secrets she kept still. The truth was, she’d pushed him away long before he’d turned his back. There hadn’t been a choice.
Not if she was to save him.
“I have so many memories of this place,” he said.
Her heart squeezed again. She looked straight ahead, willing the burning behind her eyes to cease. “So do I.”
Countless moments ingrained in the grass, the trees, the air. Moments of laughter, of fun, of hope, and kindness, and affection.
And a single one of agony.
Anna tilted her head back and swallowed around the tightness in her throat. It was no math. An entire childhood of happiness shouldn’t have been wiped away by a flicker of time.
They’d been friends once. A relationship that had defined her for so long.
And a friendship that she’d mourned longer than she would admit out loud.
To bind herself to him, to start this marriage off right, to allow trust to grow between them once again; one of them would have to take that next step.
Phantom fingers pressed into her skin, tainting her, holding her back where no one else could see.
Trust. The boy she knew. The man before her.
Trust.
Live the rest of her life holding on to the past.
Trust.
Or brave a new future.
“I’m ready,” she said, the rightness of the two words easing the weight across her shoulders. At his hesitant expression, she stepped close and tipped back her head so he would see the certainty in her eyes. “Let’s start again.”
Want—she dared call it—longing flashed across his face. He reached out a hand, but it stopped short of her cheek.
She clasped his fingers and placed them where they belonged. “I have held on to the past too long.” Anger wouldn’t see her to a happy future or help her find her brother. “I will attempt to be an easy wife—”
“Don’t threaten me,” Jackson said, his expression bright—alive—and his tone playful. “Here, I thought you were calling a truce.”
She huffed. “We both know I’ll most likely make a hash of it. Me docile? Obedient? I’m more likely to skin my knees and inadvertently insult a monarch.”
“I’m already set on wedding you, Miss Greene. You need not proclaim your many amiabilities for my benefit.”
She huffed again, his unconditional acceptance splitting the wall around her heart from top to bottom. “Take this seriously, Duke.”
“I’ve always taken you seriously. No matter the threatened diplomatic incident.”
“But—” Anna licked her lips, the rush of uncertainty and self-consciousness too humiliating to acknowledge.
Worrying over another person’s opinion wasn’t her.
And yet she did not wish to enter the chapel without his honest one.
“Once we say our vows, there’s no undoing this.
We will be bound together for the rest of our lives.
You will be stuck with me.” There were things she must tell him, for him to prepare in case of the worst happening, but trust wasn’t so easy, after all.
If she told him everything, about her family—
He snorted. “I’ve six properties totaling thousands of acres. We’ll hardly be forced to stay in the same county, let alone attached at the hip.”
Public estrangement would make things easier, except . . .
“Is that what you wish?” she asked, her belly growing tight. A week ago, she’d have agreed without a thought. “Do you want us to live separate lives?”
Some emotion played across his face, fleeting and hard to grasp. But when his gaze caught hers, the careful mask he wore was gone. “I would not waste another day without you in my life.”
That wall around her heart crumbled into nothing, but Anna didn’t fear the fall of her defenses this time.
They would start again.
They would learn to be friends as adults . . . as husband and wife.
The war would continue, but, this time—God willing—they’d fight on the same side.
And he need never know of the shadows haunting her past.