Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
“It’s all right,” Emilie breathed, trying her very best to keep herself calm. “It’s all goin’ to be all right.”
She paused outside the twins’ playroom, trying her very best to steel herself. Tears stung the backs of her eyes, and she tried to pull in deep, steadying breaths to ward them off.
I cannae believe Archer did this.
Sure, almost the entire time that Emilie had resided at Castle McGregor, she had wanted a divorce, craved it even. But now? Now everything had changed, and she could not imagine what it was going to be like going back to the abbey and not seeing this family anymore.
“Stop it, Louis,” Aurora’s voice called from beyond the door. “If ye keep doin’ that, ye’re goin’ to break our blocks.”
“Ye cannae break blocks, Rora,” Louis argued back.
Emilie smiled despite herself, closing her eyes to imagine the argument taking place just beyond the door.
I’m goin’ to miss them. Every second of every day, I’m goin’ to be thinkin’ of them.
Tears threatened to overwhelm her all over again, and Emilie closed her eyes, having to fight to get control of herself once more. When she finally felt she had some semblance of control, she pushed open the door to the children’s playroom.
Immediately, they whirled toward the door. From the look on their faces, it was certain that they thought it was their father walking in.
Both children wore expressions of worry, terrified that they’d been caught being too loud or too childlike. Emilie’s heart squeezed.
She hated the fact that she hadn’t been able to mend some of that relationship before she left. That would be her biggest regret from all of this; she knew that as surely as she knew she needed air to breathe.
“Emilie!” Louis called once he realized it was her and not their father that had just entered.
Both children’s faces relaxed at the sight of her, and once again her stomach soured.
How could she tell them that she was leaving? How could she break the news like that?
“Emilie, come play with us,” Aurora chimed, pointing to the painted wooden blocks spilled across the floor. “We’re tryin’ to build a house with our blocks.”
Emilie cleared her throat, not moving any closer. The twins glanced up, both of them giving her a quizzical look as she stared.
“Children,” Emilie started, not knowing how else to broach the subject. But her voice broke on the word, quickly giving away how upset she was over this all.
“What’s wrong?” Aurora asked, her tone going hard at the same time, Louis chimed in with a “have ye been cryin’?”
His tone had been more quizzical, no doubt filled with the same curiosity all children had when they realized that the adults around them had emotions much like their own.
“I have,” Emilie admitted, giving them a sad smile.
It would be better for them to have the truth, she quickly decided. If she lied to them now, she would regret it the moment she left. She would always wonder if they resented her for it.
And, at this point, there wasn’t really a reason to lie to them. Not when the sadness was so clearly working its way through her.
“What are ye cryin’ over?” Louis asked.
The young boy pushed himself up off the ground, immediately running over to Emilie’s side. Aurora, however, stayed put.
Her eyes, the ones that were gray and flinty, exactly like her father’s, studied her shrewdly.
Tears sprang into Emilie’s eyes again, stinging the back of her throat as they went. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear them from her vision, but they refused to go.
Louis reached her, his small hand coming up to clasp her own. But Emilie couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“Ye’re leavin’, arenae ye?” Aurora asked, her voice still hard.
Emilie’s gaze snapped down, landing directly on the young girl. She seemed to have aged ten years in the past few moments alone.
Sadly, and in a movement that felt like it might shatter her heart in a million pieces, Emilie nodded her head.
“I am,” she answered honestly. “Yer faither wants me to go back to the abbey. So back I will be goin’.”
“What do ye mean ye’re goin’ back to the abbey?” Louis asked, his voice filled with a childish refusal to understand. “When will ye be comin’ back?”
Emilie looked at him finally, swallowing hard as she willed her tears not to fall.
“I’m nae comin’ back,” she explained. “Yer faither doesnae want to be married to me anymore.”
“But ye’re supposed to be our maither.”
The words came from Aurora, shocking Emilie with their force. Before she had time to even glance up, the young girl had sprinted toward her.
All pretense fell away, and Emilie crouched down right as Aurora reached her. Both twins threw themselves into her arms, tiny shoulders wracking as the children burst out in sobs.
They clung to her tightly, small hands clutching in the fabric of her dress. Emilie gazed up at the ceiling, sending up a silent prayer for the strength that she’d need to be able to walk away from them.
“Why do ye have to go?” Louis wailed, burying his face in the front of her dress. “I daenae want ye to leave.”
“And I daenae want to leave ye,” Emilie admitted.
Her voice broke again, but she decided to stop fighting against it. It would be silly of her to pretend that this wasn’t hurting her, to pretend that her heart was not pounding as if it would fly out of her chest and break upon the floor.
“But I have to,” she continued. “Like I said, yer faither doesnae want to be married to me any longer. And this is his castle, and if he wants me gone, I have to go.”
“Why cannae he be the one to go?” Aurora pleaded. “He could go live with the nuns.”
Despite the tension of the moment, Emilie chuckled.
“Could ye imagine yer faither with a bunch of nuns?” she asked, humor lacing her tone despite herself. “They would go runnin’ for the hills the very moment they saw him, throwin’ holy water over their shoulders the entire way.”
This elicited a giggle out of Louis, but it was short-lived. A moment later, both children were crying and clutching at her again.
And this time, Emilie just decided to let them. She would not get a moment like this again.
She would not be able to hold them. She would not be able to tell them that she loved them. She would not be able to see them grow up.
The moment she walked out the castle doors and was whisked away to the abbey, she would never see them again.
So, she allowed herself this. A few moments to cling to them and to breathe them in like they were doing to her.
“It’s goin’ to be all right,” she cooed after a few moments had passed. “I ken that it hurts now. But ye’ll be all right without me. Ye have each other.”
The twins nodded, sniffles filling the air as they both stepped back and looked up at her.
“We will always have each other,” Louis began.
“But we want to have ye, too,” Aurora finished.
Emilie chuckled again, a sound that held no joy.
“Ye will always have me,” she promised. “Even if I cannae be with ye, I will always be out there, lovin’ ye. Do ye hear me? I will never stop lovin’ ye and I will never stop prayin’ for ye.”
The twins stared up at her, and Emilie allowed herself a couple more seconds. Finally, when the force of their tears had seemed to calm slightly, Emilie squeezed their shoulders one more time.
“I have to go get me things,” she explained. “Yer faither is havin’ a carriage readied for me. And I’m certain if I’m nae down there soon it’ll put him in a frightful mood.”
Tears sprang into the twins’ eyes again, but they allowed her to stand. They hugged her legs, giving her one final squeeze before stepping back.
Immediately, their hands found one another.
“I love ye,” she told them both. “Always.”
“We love ye too,” Aurora said resolutely.
Louis was too overcome with his tears to say much of anything. Emilie felt like a part of her heart broke off and stayed with them as she turned on her heel and strode from the room.
She fought back the tears the entire way back to her chambers. Emilie had allowed herself to cry with the twins, but she needed to put a stop to it for the time being.
If she lost control of herself now, then she would not be able to do what she needed to do to pull her things together and leave the castle.
The bedchambers she shared with Archer were empty when she stepped into them, and she thanked the Lord for that small mercy. Emilie didn’t know if she would be able to face him in that moment.
“I’d better make this quick,” she muttered to herself.
Emilie crossed the room, pulling open the armoire that she had been using since moving into Castle McGregor. The sight of all the gowns Archer had had made for her squeezed her heart.
She never would have thought it possible, but she was going to miss wearing these beautiful bits of clothing.
Bypassing all the swaths of fabric, Emilie reached toward the back of the armoire. She knew exactly where what she was looking for was lying.
The white novice’s habit was folded neatly at the bottom of the armoire, resting in the farthest corner exactly where she had left it.
Emilie had felt silly when she had brought it here. But the sight of it had brought her comfort in those early days. And now, it appeared, it would come in handy.
The habit was the only thing that Emilie grabbed, holding it tight to her chest as she turned and walked from their room.
Other than the habit and the clothing on her back, Emilie would be bringing nothing back to the abbey with her. It wouldn’t do her any good there.
Plus, she didn’t want the physical reminders of everything that she had left behind.
Stopping at the door, Emilie turned one final time to let her eyes rake over the room. They lingered on the bed, imagining all the nights that she had spent in it, sleeping side by side with Archer.
So many squandered moments. So many times when she could have rolled over and touched him, she had been afraid to do so.
She was regretting it now. And Emilie couldn’t help but wonder if things would be different if she had seized those moments.
“I cannae think of that now,” she whispered to herself, forcing herself to turn her back on the room.
She walked down the corridor, the sound of her boots echoing off the stone floor. Each footstep sounded like the chime of a clock, counting down the final moments in Castle McGregor.
Counting down the final moments in what had become her home.