CHAPTER 30 #2
When she mulishly refused to respond, he continued.
“It’s not. I enjoy watching you walk in the gardens or play with your nephew.
I treasure every timid smile you allow. I live for our lazy conversations, when we can talk about anything or nothing at all.
I relish sitting in the corner of your laboratory, watching you distill and mix potions with single-minded focus.
A little furrow forms between your eyebrows when you work, and it’s the most adorable thing. ”
This man. His words. She appreciated every single one of them. She loved him more with each passing minute. He was in earnest, she could tell. “But it won’t be enough. Maybe now you think it is, but soon, you’ll grow weary of my traumas.”
“I could protest that I won’t. But you wouldn’t believe me, would you?
” When she shook her head in response, he continued.
“If it had been me who had returned from war a broken man, suffering fits of rage, disorientation, or uncontrolled fear, startling at any noise, unfit for society and barely functional, would you have given up on me?”
The question posed a different perspective. Made her face the fact that she was, perhaps, judging him unfairly. Holding him to different standards. “No. I would stand by you. Help you heal.”
“Then why do you think I wouldn’t be capable of doing the same for you?”
“Men and women are different in that regard. Women are supposed to be nurturers. Kind, gracious, and patient.”
“Do you think men are incapable of those qualities?”
He was backing her into a corner. Demolishing every flimsy argument she erected between them in order to prevent him from getting to the ultimate truth. The insurmountable argument.
“Or course not, Michael. But I’m still skeptical. What if I don’t ever recover from this? Could you bear that?” she challenged, sure she had scored a point.
He didn’t even hesitate. “Absolutely. If I get to hold you like this and talk to you and laugh with you for the rest of my life, I could more than bear it. I would consider myself a lucky man indeed.”
At her dubious look, he added. “You think I can’t possibly mean it, don’t you?
Ah, Josie. If you only knew what my life has been like all these years without you.
I can’t claim to have suffered as much as you did.
I don’t think anything can compare to that.
But I haven’t been happy either. After you left, after I thought you had forsaken me, I went back into the army in an almost suicidal rage, feeling my life had no meaning anymore.
” He cut her a quick look before his eyes became distant once again, as if gazing at distant and painful memories.
“I’m surprised I survived the war, to be honest.”
She was ashamed to realize that she had been so immersed in her own problems, she had never stopped to consider that his life may not have been charmed either.
But the picture he painted now, the idea that he might have been killed, that she might have lost him forever…
It was unbearable. She held him tighter.
“Even after I returned and took up my place as the duke, loneliness has been my constant companion. I can’t claim to have lived like a monk, but every affair I’ve engaged in left me feeling empty, dissatisfied.
Until I eventually couldn’t even muster enough enthusiasm to pursue them.
I haven’t had a partner in over two years.
I briefly considered marrying, but I couldn’t summon any interest for that either. ”
His eyes turned back to her. She felt his intense gaze but was too cowardly to meet it.
“I’ve felt more alive in these past weeks than in the previous twelve years.
So yes, being with you in any capacity would be a vast improvement over what my life has been.
But, Josie.” He waited until she looked at him.
“You will get better. I promise. I have complete faith that you will recover. I think you enjoyed what we did before. Or were you pretending as well?”
“No. That was real,” she confessed in a small voice.
“Then that’s a start. It took trust. And there’s real desire between us.
Maybe we moved too fast this time, but there’s no need to rush.
I’ve seen even extreme cases of soldier’s heart improve once they are in a safe and peaceful environment.
You will improve with time. And I’ll be here to help you and protect you along the way.
Not for me, but for you. Because you deserve happiness and healing. And love.”
Love. The only thing she had ever wanted.
From the only man she wanted it. She wished she could believe him, but she knew he was only saying that because he still believed, in the end, he could help her get better.
Yet what really ailed her, he couldn’t fix.
But his words still helped, soothed. As did this embrace.
She felt calmer. A bit more hopeful that she had felt in her life.
She was not used to anybody caring for her, loving or nurturing her. Her family had never done it. And certainly no one had in the harem. The only time she had felt loved in her entire life had been the too-brief week she had enjoyed with Michael twelve years ago.
Between them, there was only love, acceptance, and warmth. Maybe, just maybe, it would help heal her ravaged soul.