Chapter 8
THIS WAS NOT going the way he had imagined or intended.
He had anticipated confusion, shock, disbelief, perhaps some sort of demands for more information, but this? Shaking and anger and pain?
What had he done to his precious Primrose with his actions?
She was still trembling beneath his hands, and all he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and cradle her against him until she was settled.
But he remained crouched before her, afraid that she would fling his arms off if he tried to get closer.
Caro had never been this emotional or demonstrative in his presence. No matter what her emotions, she had been composed and controlled. Even as a child, she was steady without much variation. This . . . this was not a Caro he recognized.
Had three years really done this to her?
On the one hand, he was encouraged that she clearly felt something deep and moving for him.
On the other, the witness of the consequences of his actions was enough to make him ill.
He could have kept their friendship steady while he was away, even while knowing his feelings had grown so much deeper.
He could have maintained polite communication at least, but he had not.
He had chosen complete separation for no other reason than to preserve his sanity while he fought for a future he planned to include her in.
Without informing her.
Why had he been so foolish?
He looked down at her bent head, took a risk, and leaned in to kiss the top of her head. “I am so sorry, Caro,” he whispered. “Will you let me speak?”
A tremor rippled visibly across her body, and he waited for a clearer response from her. When her head moved in a clear nod, he exhaled slowly.
“Three years ago,” he began, “I didn’t know how to tell you how I felt.
I was blinded by my own feelings and what they meant, how they would change things for us, and I was too afraid to consider yours.
I knew that I would have to confess eventually, but what did I have to offer you?
What could I say that would encourage you in any way?
And if you did not share my feelings, I would lose you.
So, like a coward, I said nothing. I left without explaining anything, and I told myself that doing so would either rid me of feelings for you or solidify them into something I could no longer hide. ”
Caro sniffled a pained whimper, continuing to cradle her face in her lap.
That sound broke something within him, and he bowed himself closer, touching his forehead to her hair.
“I was wrong,” he rasped.
Caro stilled completely beneath him.
“Not about my feelings for you,” Silas hurried on.
“Not about time solidifying my feelings, but about how I left you. My silence. My selfishness. My pride. I should have told you every day that I loved you from the moment I knew it. You should never have had cause to doubt me. You were my best friend, and I fled from deeper feelings instead of trusting you with them.”
Caro raised her head just a little, her hands falling to her mouth. She did not look at him, not yet, but at least he could see her eyes. Could see the tears continuing to fall down her cheeks. Could curse himself for how pale she had grown because of him.
He pulled a little away from her, just far enough to examine her features and gently swipe her tears from her cheeks.
“I am so very, very sorry, my Primrose. You deserved more than my desperate self-preservation. If I had been a better man, I would have thought of you first, and that might have saved you from this pain.”
Caro closed her eyes, inhaling a harsh hiccup. “I m-missed you,” she finally admitted in a weak, watery tone. “S-so m-much.”
“Oh, Primrose . . .” He groaned and cupped her cheeks, touching his brow to hers, needing nothing more than to simply inhale her presence and remind himself that they were no longer separated, and need never be again unless she wished it.
She might not love him in return, given she had not said anything, but she’d missed him. Was that enough?
Perhaps. It was better than nothing, that was certain, and something was better than nothing.
Would he be content with her friendship if love were not a possibility?
Could he live half of a life?
“Have I pushed you too far, Caro?” Silas asked her, forcing himself to voice the fear at the heart of him. “Have I lost you?”
Caro exhaled a weak sob, her fingers coming up to curl around his wrists without strength.
“I don’t know,” she replied softly. “This is all so much . . .” She sniffled, shaking her head in his hold.
“I want to believe you, I do. But I hurt so much. You just left, Silas. I understand what you are saying. I heard your explanation. I believe you regret it. But I have missed you for three years, three long and lonely years, and now you are telling me that you have loved me all that time and beyond. You have loved me while you were gone. You have loved me while I waited for any sort of word from you, wondering what I had done wrong to make you shut me out so completely.”
Silas groaned, his heart trying its utmost to lurch out of his chest and lodge itself within hers. “None of this was your fault or doing. I am to blame completely.”
“I could have spoken in my way,” Caro admitted. “There would have been a way to get word to you, if I had tried hard enough.”
“No, no,” he insisted almost harshly, the words catching in his throat. “You should not have had to put forth so much effort to bridge the gap that I created. Do you hear me?”
She nodded against him, and he supposed he ought to have taken it as a great success that she was still holding him and had not flung him away from her.
His thumbs brushed gently across her cheeks, unable to stay still in spite of their position.
“Would it help your current state of overwhelm if I tell you about me falling in love with you? Give you specific examples and list everything that I love about you? Or do you need me to leave you to your thoughts?”
Her hold on him became clenching at once. “Don’t leave me,” she begged on a faint cry. “I just got you back, and if you go, this might all be a dream.”
“Shh, my Primrose,” Silas murmured, stroking her skin gently and raising his mouth enough to brush a kiss on her brow.
“I would never leave you completely. I meant that I would step away and give you space to breathe. I would never wish to crowd you further when I’ve already caused you so much grief. ”
But she only shook her head again. “Don’t go.”
It was pitiful how pleased he was by her response. By her desire to have him close. By the way she clung to him. He might have wounded her, but her heart was generous enough to still carry some affection for him, and she wanted him to stay by her side.
That was a small concession on her part, but it was everything to him.
They remained in tender, companionable silence for a long moment. Silas continued to cradle her face, and Caro continued to hold on to his wrists. Only when her desperate grip began to loosen did he even slightly shift.
“Tell me,” Caro said slowly, “when you started to fall in love with me. I need to feel that this is real in order to believe it.” She laughed a soft, sweet laugh, her thumbs sweeping along his wrist. “When did you go from my best friend to my ardent lover?”
Gads, what those words did to his heart and soul. The heat that raced into his very core. The energy that gripped his lungs.
He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her away into their future, and he suddenly felt strong enough—and bold enough—to do so.
But just because she was calling him her lover did not mean she accepted him as such.
He was the man who loved her, and that was all she meant.
She wanted to hear the story of how he fell in love with her?
Well. He did not mind that in the least.
He cleared his throat. “May I sit beside you, Miss Brooks?”
Caro giggled. “Are your legs weary from your current position?”
“Weary, burning, painfully growing numb . . .” He shrugged and lowered his hands to her knees. “Take your pick.”
She smiled at him then, the sweetest, most beautiful smile he had seen in three years. “Sit beside me, Silas. Rest your legs. Perhaps one day they will be strong enough to endure. Your uncle might wish to know about such things, as it would seem your strength is lacking.”
He inclined his head in gratitude, a playful smirk crossing his lips. “Thank you most kindly. I shall take your suggestion under advisement.”
The teasing and banter were so natural, so easy, that it drew them right back into the manner of relationship they’d always had. This was their normal behavior and typical antics, and undoubtedly, the easiest way to return them to comfort with each other.
Silas moved to sit beside her and found himself instantly relaxing once he was there. It was the natural effect of being in Caro’s presence, and the closer he was to her, the greater the effect became.
“I think I’ve always loved you,” Silas began conversationally, looking out into the garden almost fondly.
“But it was not until we were fifteen or so that my love turned romantic. We were out in our field, sometime in midsummer. The bluebells were vibrant, and you flung yourself down into them. Dramatically and awkwardly, I might add. And you laughed. I had heard you laugh thousands of times in my life, but in that moment, with your golden hair streaming about you, your cheeks flushing a glorious pink, the bluebells framing you . . . My heart struggled to escape the cage of my chest, and I would swear that it pounded against every single rib. Then it was on fire. Then it dropped through my stomach. And then . . .” He heaved a sigh, smiling at the memory.
“Then I could not stop staring at you. Or smiling. I just knew that you were the ruler and keeper of my heart, and I was lost.”
Caro chuckled, the sound warm, the motion of her body causing her to brush against him.
“I remember that day as well. Such an ordinary moment for us, but you were so awkward, so quiet, so observant. I remember asking you several times what was wrong, and you put me off. I think you told me you had never been better once. Clearly, you were lost.”
“Happily so,” he affirmed. “I spoke the truth; I had never been better. I had realized my love for my best friend, and there was no going back to seeing you as such. You were the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and I had already known the matching beauty of your heart. But I was looking at you with new eyes that day, and it felt as though I had been blind every day prior.”
“I am surprised you did not resent me for shifting your view in such a way.” Caro shook her head, shades of disbelief still clouding her features. “How dare I take away your best friend like that?”
Silas shifted on the bench, turning toward her. “You could never take away my best friend, Caro. You made her more, and how could I ever resent or regret that?”
Caro frowned at him. “How could I be more? I am the same as I ever was, and that was true then.”
“But I was not the same.”
His admission caught him by surprise, despite the years of distance from the event itself. He could not deny the truth of it, however. Nor the simplicity.
Perhaps that had been what frightened him most, as the feelings had grown and deepened in the time since.
He had been the one to change while Caro had been as she ever was, and knowing she could affect him in such a way, change him like that, was terrifying.
He was losing himself to her, and while he felt joyous about their prospects for the future, his own foundation had felt fragile.
Not anymore.
“From that very moment,” Silas told her, not entirely certain where his words would take them, “I was changed where you were concerned. You had always been important, of course, but now you were imperative. Every feeling I ever had toward you was now bigger and seemed ingrained in my very soul. Not only that, but the new feeling of romantic adoration had swept in and showered everything else with a touch of fire.”
Caro reared back, giving him a bewildered look. “Fire? Surely you jest.”
He shook his head. “I wish I were. But every thought and feeling about you filled me with warmth, sometimes to a burning degree. It lifted me from a moderately natural way of living to feeling as though I could be swept from the earth by a particularly bold gust of wind. And it made me smile, Caro. When have you ever known me to smile frequently or willingly? And yet there I was, missing you every moment we were apart and smiling without restraint simply because of you. I felt . . . magnified, somehow. And more of myself. Nothing I had ever wanted in my future had settled with so much weight and perfection, and it was exhilarating. Terrifying, too, but freeing. I don’t know how else to explain it.
I did not know that I was capable of so much joy. ”
Caro was quiet for a long moment, the sounds of the night filling the air and space between them.
She cleared her throat. “Then why did you leave instead of telling me?”