Chapter 32
Valeria sat in the small garden behind the orphanage with a sketchbook on her lap, a piece of charcoal in her hand, and absolutely no talent for drawing.
The apple tree she was attempting to draw looked like a large mushroom with ambitions.
The fence behind it resembled a set of teeth.
She had tried to draw a bird earlier and produced something that looked more like a potato with wings.
She was fairly certain that if Ruth saw it, the girl would be too polite to say anything, which would somehow be worse than honesty.
She did not care. The charcoal was warm in her fingers, the sun was soft on her face, the children were napping inside, and the silence was the good kind, the kind she chose rather than the kind that was imposed on her.
She had spent three years in silence that was not her own. Gordon’s silence. The silence of locked rooms and counted meals and the careful, measured absence of human warmth.
This silence was different. This was the silence of an afternoon in a garden with the sun on her skin and the sound of children breathing softly through open windows. This was the silence of choice.
She thought about Edward. She tried not to, but failed. She always failed. She had been failing at not thinking about Edward since the day he had walked into her auction and everyone in the room had gone quiet.
She thought about his hands on her face at the altar.
The way he had said love, as though he were making a report.
A fact. A certainty. She thought about the kiss on her palm, the way his mouth lingered, and the way he had left afterward, closing the door with a softness that was worse than slamming because it meant he was being careful, and his carefulness was driving her mad.
She thought about what she wanted, not what was safe. Not what a widow of her station was supposed to want. But what she actually wanted.
She wanted him. She wanted his mornings, his evenings, his ridiculous refusal to dress according to fashion, and the way he hummed when he thought no one was listening.
She wanted to wake up to him. She wanted to fight with him, make up with him, grow old with him, and watch him let children put beetles in his pocket for the rest of her life.
She wanted to be a mother. The yearning had crept up on her like dawn, slow and then all at once. She wanted a child with his green eyes and her stubbornness. She wanted a house full of noise and mess and the kind of chaos that came from love instead of fear.
You have been through worse, my girl. Just breathe.
She put the charcoal down. Closed the sketchbook. Watched the afternoon light move across the garden.
Inside, she could hear the children stirring.
Ruth was reading aloud to someone, her voice clear and steady, the confident diction of a girl who had read more books than most adults and intended to read many more.
Horace was awake. She could tell because there was a small shriek followed by the sound of something being dropped.
William was probably looking for trouble. Thomas was probably looking for Horace.
She remembered the afternoon on the lawn.
The way he had knelt on the ground to talk to Horace at eye level.
The way he had let William beat him in a race with such convincing effort that even Valeria believed it until she caught his smirk.
The way he had listened to Ruth read with the same attention he gave to everything, as though her words were intelligence reports and he was parsing them for hidden meaning.
She remembered thinking that he had a father’s hands, patient and steady and built for holding. Even though he said he did not want to be a father.
The memory hurt. She pressed her palm to her chest and breathed through it the way she had breathed through three years of Gordon. In. Out. Steadily. “You have been through worse,” she told herself.
“Ye have,” a familiar voice said from behind her, low and rough. “But I am sorry I added to yer pain.”
She did not turn around. She sat very still, with the sun on her face, her hands in her lap, and her heart hammering against her ribs.
She had not heard him approach. She never heard him approach.
He moved like smoke, like shadow, like a man who had spent twelve years learning to arrive without being noticed.
She would have to tell him someday that sneaking up on his wife in a garden was different from infiltrating a foreign embassy. Someday, when she was not so angry and so relieved and so frightened all at once.
“How long have you been standing there?” she asked.
“Long enough to see that tree. It’s terrible.”
She almost laughed. Almost. “It’s an apple tree.”
“Is it?” He paused. “It looks like a mushroom wearing a hat.”
She did laugh then. A short, surprised sound that escaped before she could stop it.
She hated him for making her laugh when she was trying to be furious. She hated him, and she loved him.
The two feelings sat side by side in her chest, and neither would give way.
“Please join me?” She scooted over.
He sat beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him without touching him. He smelled of horse, sweat, and the faint sharpness of soap. He had changed his shirt. His knuckles were freshly bandaged.
“You’ve been boxing,” she noted.
“Yer brother is very persuasive.”
“John hit you?”
“He tried. He succeeded once.” He paused. “Twice, actually. It hurt both times.”
“Good.”
He deserved that. She saw him accept it. The small nod. The way his jaw tightened and relaxed.
He was not going to argue with her. He was not going to defend himself. He was going to sit on this bench and listen and answer and do the thing he had been afraid to do since the barn—tell the truth.
“I owe ye an explanation.”
“Yes, you do.”
He told her all of it. George in the barn.
The apple and the pistol. The conversation.
The years of partnership and the slow corruption.
The innocent man George had tried to trick him into arresting, and how Edward had backed down at the last minute.
The wife. He told her about the threat against her life, spoken in the flat, casual tone of a man who had nothing left to lose.
He told her about his choice. The moment when his hand had wrapped around George’s throat and old instinct had said finish it and he had chosen to stop. Chosen the cord. Chosen to walk away.
“And then he said something.” His voice was flat, controlled, but she could hear what lived beneath the control. The crack in the foundation. “He said, ‘No matter what ye do, this is what ye are. A weapon. A Hound. Yer bride is in danger with ye.’”
She listened without interrupting. She had learned, with Gordon, that the most important things men said came in the silences between words. The pauses. The places where the voice caught, the jaw tightened, and the hands gripped whatever was nearest.
Edward’s hands were gripping the edge of the bench. His knuckles, still bandaged, were white.
When he finished, the garden was quiet. The bird had flown off the fence. The sun had moved. Inside, the children were playing something loud that involved stamping feet and Ruth’s clear voice counting to ten.
“He was your brother,” she said. Not a question.
“Aye. The only one I chose. Nathaniel was given to me by blood. George, I chose.” He looked down at his hands. “I chose wrong.”
“You chose a boy who was hurt, angry, and lost. That is not the same as choosing wrong.”
“The result is the same.”
“No.” She turned to face him fully. “The result is that you are here. On this bench. In this garden. With me. Instead of in a barn with a pistol and a man who wanted you to be something you are not.” She paused.
“You chose to walk away, Edward. That is not the Hound. The Hound would have finished it. You didn’t.
You chose the cord, the constables, and the Queen’s justice.
You chose to be better than what he said you were. ”
His eyes were wet. She had never seen him cry. She did not think he knew how. The wetness sat in his eyes and did not fall, held there by twelve years of training that said men like him did not weep.
She reached out and wiped the corner of his eye with her thumb. Gentle. The same way Mary had been gentle with her in those three dark years. The same way one touched something that had been hurt and was not sure whether to trust the hand that was reaching for it.
“You are not a weapon,” she insisted. “You are a man who was used as one. There is a difference. And I know the difference because I was used, too. Gordon used me as a trophy, a prisoner, and a body to be controlled. He used me until I forgot what I was underneath the use. But I remembered. I remembered because of you. Because of the children. Because of Caroline, John, Mary, Mrs. Grady, and every person who looked at me and saw Valeria instead of the Duchess of Thornhill.”
She took his bandaged hand and held it between both of hers.
“Let me see you, Edward. Not the Hound, but you. The man who knows every child at the orphanage by name. The man who sat in a chair and watched me sleep because he was afraid that if he lay beside me, he would not be able to let go.” She squeezed his hand.
“I don’t need you to let go. I just need you to hold on. ”
Silence. The children were inside. She could hear them inside, the happy chaos of small voices and clumsy feet and the particular brand of mayhem that only children under five could produce.
“He wasn’t wrong. I nearly killed him, Valeria. If he hadn’t spoken, I would have. I was a breath away from finishing it.”
“But you stopped.”
“Aye, I stopped. This time.”
“This time is the only time that matters.”