Chapter Twelve #2
He… he’d made up a riddle. Just for her.
And it… oh, it was better than any words of love.
It held so much—the hot summer days of childhood, laughter beneath pianos, the day she’d looked up from a riddle book and realized the young man pretending disinterest was the only one for her.
It held a dark room at the Lyon’s Den and gentle mornings making love in a folly.
It held his humor and his lust and his… perhaps his heart.
What a precious gift, and she held it close, felt it light her up from the inside out. She might never stop glowing.
Still, she managed to mutter, “Naughty man.” He laughed and bussed her cheek.
“You’ve not upset me, Caro. I told you I’d stay.
I’m staying, and you’re right. I cannot sleep perpetually in a garden decoration, no matter how hospitable you’ve made it.
” He kissed the tip of her nose and released her with a groan.
“Later, wife.” A promise as he sauntered toward the stables.
She clutched her heart as if holding his promise tight there, and she entered Hawthorne grinning like a fool. Polly and Ruth teased her for the next hours as they piled dead, tangled bushes in a corner of the conservatory and salvaged the few plants that still thrived.
Let them tease. It drove her happiness higher. She’d never thought to have a man like Felix. A partner to help carry the load and achieve her ambitions. She could do it on her own, of course. But with Felix, she did not have to, and that was an answer to a riddle she’d never expected.
She sang off-key as she sat down to write to Chloe and Siswell, to invite them to Hawthorne for Felix’s sake.
But her quill scratched across the paper as a yell went up outside.
A scream.
She looked out the window. Saw nothing. She rushed outside. Nothing.
Then another growling yell. “Damn it all to hell!”
Felix.
Caroline ran, following his curses. She found him at the stables, hanging from the roof.
“Felix!”
His hands were white knuckled and clinging to the edge.
“Stay back, damn it!” he grunted. He swung his legs side to side, arching them higher, trying to…
what? Then one toe clipped the roof edge.
Then the other foot went higher and didn’t come back down.
He’d caught the roof with the heel of his boot.
Then using it for leverage, he pushed up onto the roof until he could turn and sit.
He scooted away from the edge, drawing his knees up and hanging his head.
Caroline’s legs gave out, and she dropped to her backside in the grass. “Felix! You terrified me!”
He… laughed, a sound that sailed across the sky as bright as the sun. And when he finally lifted his head, he revealed a wide grin and blazing eyes. Excitement electric in his face. Something else too.
“Are you hurt?” she ventured.
He waved away her concern. “Better than I have been. Almost as good as the day I punched that cretin in the alley behind the forge.”
She wanted to fall backward. Was he… bored at Hawthorne? While she was happier than she’d ever been was he… unfulfilled? “Can you come down now?”
He disappeared then reappeared moments later, walking out of the stables, brushing hay and dust from his trousers and shirtsleeves. He sat beside her.
“What were you doing up there?” she asked.
“That roof needs fixing too. I didn’t know how bad it was, so I went up to inspect. Troy and Helen are occupying the dryest corner in the entire edifice. I do not know how many horses you plan to keep, but the structure needs fixing nonetheless.”
“You were in Dorking this morning. You could have brought someone to go up for you.”
“What’s the fun in that?”
“It’s dangerous, Felix.”
“That’s the point, Caro.”
Drawing her legs up beneath her skirts, Caroline rested her chin on her knees. “You are a man of action. You cannot be satisfied with a simple country life.” She should have realized it sooner.
“God, no. I need risk.” He rested his weight on a hand behind him and stretched out one leg.
She nodded. It made sense when she considered his physical support of the Luddites, his participation in the Corn Law riots, curricle races, walks across the lake lands, and visits to inhospitable neighborhoods.
“You chase danger as some men do gold. Why?” Her voice sounded very small, and she did not like it.
But it felt as if she were venturing into a newly discovered cavern with a single candle.
How far could she go before the candle died?
What unknown discoveries awaited her? Would she like them?
Or would the guttering candle leave her alone? With nothing. In absolute darkness.
“Not danger.” He spoke slowly as if testing the words, as if he’d never answered this question before and was trying to do so truthfully. “Death.”
“Oh.” That worse than she could have imagined. “W-why?” She closed her eyes, unable to face the answer she still wanted to hear.
When silence stretched out, seemingly never-ending, she peeked at him, caught him looking at the hot afternoon sky, pale blue and sun yellow.
No clouds. When he parted his lips, she did not close her eyes again.
If he had the courage to tell her something difficult, she must find the courage to face it.
“When I’m facing down death,” he said, “I’m closer to them .
My family. There’s the thinnest line between me and dying, between my breathing body and their bodyless souls.
There’s this moment when I could… join them in death.
And in that moment, I feel closer to them.
It’s the only way I can be close to them. ”
“Felix.” His name on her tongue barely audible.
Nothing more than a breath, a prayer. She’d seen his pain as a child, but she’d not known he still carried it with him.
She knew the devastation of losing one you loved.
But everyone you loved? That she did not know, could not comprehend.
All she could do was scoot closer toward him, wrap her arms around him, and hide her face in his shoulder. Give him her strength.
Her husband courted death.
But she could not have that.
She crawled into his lap, straddling his hips and taking his face in her hands. “Felix, you are the bravest man I know. I could kick myself for not thinking of marrying you sooner, for not making you a part of my plan. Because it is clear to me that no one else would do.”
“Kiss me, Caro?” Desperation in the request, in his wild eyes.
“Not yet.” She pressed a finger to his lips. “Listen, Felix. I admire your courage and willingness more than I can say. You are my husband, my hero, my everything.”
His arms around her chains as his eyes slammed closed.
“But can you… forget death? Can you be happy not risking your life if it means living that life? With me ?”
He rested his forehead against her with a huff of laughter. “I want to be.”
“Then we will do it together. You do not have to seek your family by risking your own life. You can honor them by living. And loving. And using their home to help others.”
Another breath of laughter as he hugged her tightly. “Is this a new plan?”
“A burgeoning one, yes.”
“Am I to be ruled by them, then?”
“Better that than death.”
“Indeed. Caro, you do not need a plan to earn my respect.”
She knew. Without him saying, somehow she knew. She nodded.
And then his face shifted from the soft curves of concern for her to something tighter, sharper. He was holding something powerful back. But not for long. His tight control broke like a dam, and the planes of his face turned ragged. His eyes held the shattered remains of a young boy’s happiness.
He swallowed. “I feel guilty for living. I shouldn’t have. Lived.”
Now she kissed him, slow and sweet and pouring all of herself—her desire, her love, her belief—into the embrace.
“If you had died, you could not do this.” She moved his arm from around her waist so that his large palm cradled the back of her head.
“Or this.” She kissed a line down his neck as she drew fingertips up and down his spine.
“And I could not do this.” She rolled her hips against him.
“Or this.” She placed both hands on his heart and held his gaze.
“If you had died, I… I could not love you. As I do. I love you, Felix. I am in love with your heart and your courage. The world is better with you in it. My world is better. For so long I have marched along from one cause to another, from one plan of improvement to another, but you… you let me be still and quiet. You made me—make me—laugh. And you annoy me, and you thrill me, and I would be worse off without you. So”—she ran a finger down the line of his nose—“if you do not mind, will you please simply… live and let me do all this with you? Live and let me love you?”
Open, close, open close—his mouth not quite sure what to do with itself as his throat worked through some lump of an emotion. Finally, he gave a curt nod, surged in for another kiss and told her something he could not seem to put in words.
It was not I love you, too . But it would do for now.
“Oh!” He blinked, setting her aside and leaping to his feet. “Stay there.” He disappeared into the stables and returned with a small package, something square wrapped in brown butcher paper and twine. He handed it to her as he sat. “For you. I procured it when I was in the village today.”
“A book.” She knew that before she opened it, its shape and size giving it away.
“ Mm. But which one?”
She held her breath, unwilling to open it for moment. Wanted to savor this gift, whatever it was. He’d chosen it for her. She hugged it then ripped the paper off. What she saw made her heart swell. He’d remembered! “Oh, Felix!”
He bumped his shoulder into hers. “You like it? Of course you like it. Was always your favorite.”
“ Utopia .” By Thomas More. It had been her father’s favorite, too. “You remember.”
He picked a blade of grass and tore it into a handful of tiny pieces. “Of course.” His voice rough.
“It shall be the first new book in the Hawthorne library.”
Another blade of grass shredded with sharp movements.
She leapt to her feet, pulling him up, hugging him, and mumbling into his chest, “Thank you.” Pale words for how her chest swelled. She dragged him back toward the house. “Now tell me truthfully, were you up there for a bit of danger or because the roof needed tending?”
“Doesn’t have to be one or the other,” he mumbled.
“Well do not do it alone from now on.”
“As you say, Caro-mine.”
She stood in the doorway of Hawthorne and hugged him as he followed her inside.
And tried not to notice that his eyes were still not clear of storms.