Chapter 37
“Ithought you loved the general,” Prue said, wringing her hands.
“Love?” Celeste’s laugh was so bitter, it grated on her own ears. “I never loved him. Not even for a second.”
Her heart pounded violently against her ribcage, as if demanding a retraction. But she didn’t flinch. She welcomed the ache. Let it hollow her out.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she shoved a pair of slippers into the overstuffed canvas bag. One hit the edge and flopped out again, like a limp rejection.
“I refuse to be the tragic heroine, Prue.” Her voice shook. “Of all the wretched ways a woman may wound herself, none is worse than falling at the feet of a man who’d rather polish his boots than look at her.”
She yanked at the drawstrings with hands that were no longer steady. “He can keep his brooding discipline and his blasted duty. I’ll go back to Covent Garden.”
At least there she could be pathetic with dignity.
She could weep in Louise’s lap and forget his name entirely.
“I’m done. I tried everything. May lightning strike me down if I ever look at him again, let alone offer him my heart on a silver platter so he can frown and ask Captain Graves to remove it. ”
Prue clutched her rosary. “But, my lady, it’s the middle of the night.”
“Excellent. The moon shall light my path.”
“The roads are full of ruffians.”
“I hope they brought snacks.” Celeste swallowed hard. “I’m famished.”
“It’s not safe for a woman alone!”
Celeste spun toward her. “I have a dog, a canvas bag, and rage in my soul. Let them dare.”
Her skin was hot all over. She would go. Even if her legs trembled. Even if her heart was still in that ballroom, waiting like a fool.
Prue threw herself bodily in front of the door, arms outstretched like a tragic heroine about to be sacrificed to the gods. “You shall have to walk over me to reach that carriage!”
“Prue,” Celeste said gently, “this is the door to the bathing chamber.”
Prue blinked, confused. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh.”
Celeste sighed, already leaving. “The exit is that way.”
“The regiment will march tomorrow. Surely you will want to stay to see the parade? Thomas said it is a wondrous sight.”
Celeste turned slowly. “What did you say?”
“The 13th has been ordered to ships. The Duke of York brought the order. They will leave at dawn.”
Dawn. That word struck like a thunderclap in her ears.
“Hawk will go as well?”
But Prue didn’t need to answer. Of course he would. Wherever the 13th went, their master led. He would not remain behind, not when his men marched to danger. Her heart seemed to stop. Then beat again—all wrong.
The canvas bag slipped from her shoulder and hit the ground with a dull thud. Her lungs seized, her throat closing with something hot and thick and rising. The image of Hawk’s body flashed in her mind, drenched in blood, dragged from the mud, limp and pale beneath foreign skies.
And if he fell, she would not even be there to hold his hand. She would not be able to kiss him goodbye. To whisper that she had always, always loved him.
Her chest spasmed with a sob, but no sound came out. She could not let him leave without telling him she wasn’t finished loving him. Not yet.
Not ever.
***
Celeste didn’t knock.
She slammed her palm against the heavy oak door once—twice—before it registered that she was breathing too hard to speak.
She tasted salt and desperation in every tear that found its way onto her lips.
She would not let him leave. This was not a curtain call, and no one, not even that stoic general, could exit the stage unless it was his cue.
The door opened.
Hawk stood tall in full uniform, brass gleaming under the candlelight. His boots were polished, his saber sheathed at his hip. He looked as if he were about to march.
She opened her mouth to speak. No words came out. All her arguments unraveled as they stared at each other in the dark.
A sob tore from her throat. Surging forward, she flung herself at him.
Her body hit the wall of his chest, and he stiffened—then crushed her against him.
His grip was too tight. She welcomed it, burying her face in the hollow between his neck and shoulder, breathing in the man she thought she’d forget and knowing she never could.
Her fists curled into his coat. The wool scratched her skin.
She wanted to tear it off him. To remove his uniform, the same one that made him the most handsome man in the world and made her insanely proud of him, she wanted it burned, so he would never have to bloody it.
She settled for clinging to him, wrapping herself tighter around his frame.
He didn’t speak.
His thumb brushed a tremor from her spine. He lowered his head, pressing his lips into her hair.
There were no words beyond their breathing. Could she stop this hourglass inside her? Live forever in the scent of his cologne, in the soothing warmth of his hands?
For one blissful moment, she imagined that time had frozen. That he would hold her like this forever. No ships would sail, no sabers would leave their sheaths, no dawns would come, and the lark would never sing, only the nightingale, playing the sonata of their love.
He took a struggling breath. She felt its force against her hair.
“Don’t go tomorrow,” she whispered. “Please. I can’t bear it if you go away.”
His breath hitched. His hands went still on her back. She felt his hesitation, and then the inevitable steel returning to his body like armor reforging itself.
He set her on her feet.
She stumbled, dizzy. Her hands slipped from his chest, landing awkwardly at her sides, as cold air rushed between them.
“It is my duty, Celeste,” he said.
“I cannot stand that word,” she hissed. Her breath came too fast now, her lungs hot and tight. “Graves won’t go. He chose to stay. Why can’t you do the same?”
Because Graves loved Rue. Still, she dared not say it aloud. Not when Hawk’s eyes were already shuttering. Not when his mouth thinned into that line that said don’t hope for more.
But then he wiped a tear from her cheek with such tenderness... and his thumb lingered on the corner of her mouth.
“The army will lose a great captain with Graves’s absence,” he said softly. “But if I were to stay… the army would lose its cavalry. There is no other general in my position, Celeste. Not going is not an option.”
“Then take me with you,” she said.
“You don’t know what you ask—”
She reached for him. Caught his hand between both of hers.
“Please,” she breathed. “I know some officers take their wives. I can come. I’ll help—I can take care of you. I won’t be in the way.”
His fingers twitched in hers, but didn’t pull free. The candlelight flickered across his features—his silver hair, the deep shadows under his eyes, the rigid set of his jaw. And when he looked down at their joined hands, it was with a stare so unguarded, so pained, it made her chest ache.
“Titania belongs in a fairy world, not in war,” he said, and his voice was hoarse.
Celeste gripped her skirts. Titania, indeed. The gown clung to her form in fragile illusion. The flowers crowning her curls drooped, their stems loosened by the crush of dancing and heartbreak.
She was tulle and tears and a pleading heart.
He was iron and silence and a coming war.
And they had never stood further apart.
“Here are my arms, my cheeks. My eyes. I’m not an illusion.” Celeste removed the flowers from her hair. “Like any woman, I have senses, feelings. Passions. Am I not fed with the same food? Hurt with the same careless words? Cured with the same caresses? Don’t I feel cold? Sleepy? Sorrowful?”
She let her gown fall and stepped out of it as though shedding skin, and stood bare before him. No flowers. No tulle. No illusions.
Just Celeste.
“I have a heart, like any other woman. It beats. It burns. It breaks. If you tickle me, do I not laugh? If you wound me, do I not bleed? And if you leave me, will I not be destroyed?”
“The world I’m about to enter…” he rasped, “there’s no magic in it. Only blood and smoke. You deserve better.”
There was a finality in his voice that struck her in the chest. So this was the end. She had given him everything—her truth, her tears, her trembling strength. And it was not enough.
He would not change his mind. Nothing she spoke could move immovable Hawk. That he was so strong and she, so weak, was her greatest tragedy.
“I know you see me as a foolish child. And yet, this child loves you with a heart as strong as the mightiest that ever lived in your world.” Her breath hitched. Her arms dropped to her sides. “If only the rest of her were not so pitiful.”