Chapter 14
Rosaline stared up at the stars, her arms flung wide on the damp grass, her legs numb, and her feet fallen open.
In all her time here, she’d never much noticed the gardens at Hespera House. Now that she was unable to move, she wondered if she’d ever leave them.
Bury me here, she thought, beneath the rare winter stars.
It felt as though the dreary winter sky had cleared suddenly…as if the heavens heard her soul’s weary sob and sparkled for her benefit.
How many nights had she stared up at the stars, lonely tears leaking from her eyes, speaking to the constellations as if they were familiar friends?
Even when she’d known better.
Tonight was her last night with this particular sky… She’d never see it again. Some people believed their fates were already written in the stars.
She fervently hoped that was not true. Because she was a blight to all who crossed her path, and her own fate was both confusing and callous.
Though her body was deliciously bruised and her heart bleeding, she also swam in this strange, euphoric sense of relief. She’d told the truth. All of it. And the unburdening of it had made her feel as though she might survive this.
She’d handed Eli his sapphire to do with as he pleased, and now there was nothing between them but the truth of who she was and what she’d done.
The stars would decide what happened next.
A commotion filtered through the silence of the evening, doors slamming and her husband’s voice carrying through the halls with all of his unfettered American ruckus.
Smiling fondly to herself, she closed her eyes, listening to the tempestuous resonance of the man she wanted to have, but who would never be able to trust her.
Cruel, cruel stars.
The garden door slammed open, and Rosaline forgot to breathe.
Not an hour ago, he’d been inside her. And the desperate passion of that act had given her hope. A hope he’d crushed with the first words out of his mouth.
She didn’t want to face his wrath again. Not tonight. She simply couldn’t bear—
“Rosaline.” He choked out her name as running footfalls skidded to a halt beside her. She lifted an eyelid in time to see him hit his knees and scoop her up against his chest. “Rosaline. Honey. Breathe, damn you. No. No. No.”
Squirming in his tight hold, she pressed against the steely muscle beneath his jacket. “I can’t very well breathe if you’re smothering me with your chest.”
His arms went slack, and she fell back to the ground in a heap.
“Ow.”
“Shit, shit, sorry!” He reached for her, then paused, as if he couldn’t decide where his hands should go. “What have you done?” he asked, his eyes so wild she could see the whites. “Did you drink something? Did you jump?”
“What are you talking about?” She sat up, wriggling toes gone numb from the cold.
“You said you should have jumped from the roof at Fairhaven.” He looked up toward the ledge upon which their entire fate had been set in motion.
“And you thought I’d return home and hurl myself from our roof?” She scowled at him. “What sort of fool do you take me for?”
He sat back on his haunches, pale as a ghost, staring at her as if she’d sprouted horns. “You were lying here still as a corpse, not breathing, on an icy December night, what the hell was I supposed to think?”
“That I was stargazing.” She pointed up to the astonishingly clear sky, cleansed by a week’s worth of freezing rain.
“Stargazing.” He closed his eyes as if he needed not to look at her for a moment. “Of fucking course, you were. Jesus Josephat Christ, woman, you can’t just—”
“What is this?” she interrupted as her foot caught on an upended leather satchel.
“Blackwell thought it best I didn’t parade through his guests waving the underkit you shoved at me, so he lent me this to hide them in.”
Rosaline gasped. Released a broken laugh. Then another as she grappled with the satchel’s buckles. “Did you find it?” she asked. “Have you opened it?”
“No, I didn’t have time to sniff your drawers between being searched for a thief and racing home to make sure I didn’t find you in a sprawled heap on the ground,” he groused.
“Eli,” she said with an excited breath as she rose to her knees and grappled with the lace and cotton drawers until she found the seam in which she’d tucked the treasure.
His treasure.
Extracting the sapphire, she offered it to him with both hands, transfixed by the deep blue beauty of the rough-cut stone.
He stared at it. Not blinking. No muscle twitching. No expression at all.
“I overheard you telling the Duchesse it’d been taken from you,” she said, encouraging him to take it by sliding it closer. “I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted you to have the treasure that meant so much to you. The one you and your brother spent a lifetime searching for.”
Eli rose to his own knees, snatching the gem from her outstretched hand.
To her everlasting astonishment, he tossed it on the ground without giving it a second glance.
“I came to this country searching for one fortune.” He lifted his hands to her face, cupping it as if it were the most fragile, precious thing in the world. “But I realize what I found was something more valuable than I could ever imagine.”
She swallowed as her heart leapt into her chest, not trusting the brilliant shine chasing the shadows away from his dark eyes. Could he truly mean…?
“Rosaline. My little wife. My greatest treasure.” He pulled her close, burying his face in her hair, cupping her head gently as she rested her cheek on his shoulder and finally allowed her tears to flow.
“Forgive me, honey, for being like them. Like every person who was supposed to love you, and instead made you feel small and afraid. It was their job to protect you, not turn your sanctuary into a place where you had no safe space to be yourself. No control over who you were or what happened to you. Nothing but censure and perverse expectations.” He pulled back enough to gaze down at her, and what she read in his eyes made the tears fall even harder.
He thumbed away her tears, only to have the river overflow his efforts. “Don’t cry, honey. I’ve got you.”
“That’s why I’m weeping,” she explained through hiccupping sobs. “I want this so much, but how can you ever trust me? I am still so…broken.”
“We’re all broken, Rosaline,” he said, his rough features softened with compassion.
“I’ve always been a harsh bastard who tends to come out swinging rather than talking.
And that kind of thing is sometimes necessary with bullheaded miners.
” He lifted her chin as was his habit and kissed away the salt of her tears.
“But you’re my wife. I took a vow to honor and protect you.
To cherish you…and that means I got to try to listen.
To understand you. And if I don’t understand, to do my best to help you in any way I can. ”
She sniffed, as some of her despair was washed away by his words. Her fingers lifted to his dear face, tracing the brackets next to his hard mouth, scraping on his beloved shadow beard.
“I’m sorry for running off like I did,” he said, turning his cheek to nuzzle into her palm.
“I think I knew deep down somewhere that if I stayed, I’d forgive you.
That I’d hand you this hard heart and let you crush it if you wanted to.
And, like a coward, I fled. From the fact that not only could you betray me like Beau had done, but I was becoming such a fool for you, I’d lie down and let you stomp all over my pride, my honor, my fucking dignity, such as it is in this country.
” The crooked grin he offered her melted away the last of her tears, and she flung her arms around him, driving him to the ground.
“Easy there, honey, I’m an old man. I don’t know if I’m ready for another round just yet.”
She kissed him with all the love she could hold, which was more than most people twice her size. “I promise to be better,” she whispered against his mouth. “I will always be honest with you, Eli. Starting with this first confession.”
He tensed a bit beneath her, but his gaze was steady as he looked up at her.
“I love you, Elijah Wolfe.”
“Oh, honey.” He lifted his hand to extract the last of the pins from her ruined hair, so it could cascade over them both in cool waves of silk. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
“Then here,” she whispered. “Have them back again.” Her lips sealed over his, and that seal didn’t break even when he sat up, lifted her against him, and stood.
“Come to bed, little wife,” he ordered with a smile, nuzzling her nose with his own. “It’s your job to keep my toes warm in this ridiculous, eternally chilly country.”
“It’s a wifely duty I take very seriously,” she whispered against his neck.
He almost dropped her a second time when she nibbled the tip of his ear.
“Dammit, woman, you’ll be the death of me,” he muttered.
“I hope not,” she murmured against his warm, fragrant skin. “I intend to be married to you for a very long time.”