If it hadn’t been for these horses, for the solace the duke’s vast estate offered, Violet would still be inside, a quivering mess, her mind lost to her. But the exercise did her well. For as hard as it had been to crawl out of bed those first days here—and she had fought with Adalia for hours against doing so—the riding did her well. She knew that the first day she had ridden.
She had pushed the horse for hours that day—far too long—and had gotten a scathing look from Valence for it. Since then, she had asked very specifically for the horses with the most stamina, and ones that would enjoy the hard ride.
So it had been day after day. Adalia dragging her into the light of the morning. Setting her feet one in front of the other. Making her move, eat, talk. It had been grueling, gradual, but Adalia had tenacity like no other, never once even considering giving up on her.
And then one day Violet got herself out of bed. Got her mind back.
High-pitched chattering broke through the quiet of the forest and two red squirrels ran across the path. The first with a nut in its mouth, the second with a high tail on the chase for that nut. They scurried down the path, kicking up twigs and leaves until one dove onto a tree, ringing the trunk upward. She grinned at the madcap scene as her horse went by the tree.
Another look up at the sky through the thick branches, and she started to debate on retracing her steps. Valence had said the trail would circle back to the stables, but she had no idea if she was even still on the trail he spoke of.
She craned her neck to the side, looking ahead. The path looked like it curved soon, the trees appearing to thin. If there was an open space approaching, at least she could fully see the sky and get her bearings about her enough to head west.
It was twilight before her mare made it near to the edge of the woods and Violet could see that the clearing she was moving toward actually held a small lake.
Along the surface of the water, something moved. An otter cutting through the glassy reflection.
The otter moved upward. And upward.
Violet pulled on her reins, stopping her horse just within the last line of trees.
It was no otter in the water. It was a man.
A man standing up in the lake, his head the only thing poking from the water. He moved languidly through the lake away from Violet’s direction, his arms just below the surface.
She watched the back of his head for a long moment, debating on disturbing him. On the one hand, the man probably knew which way to point her. On the other hand, she had the odd sense she was witnessing something intimate, something purely peaceful that she shouldn’t disturb.
Just as she started to tug on the reins to move back into the woods and give the man his peace, his head turned toward the shore, showing his profile.
“Theo?”
The word spurted, loud, from her lips.
Splashing, he spun in the water and had to rub his eyes clear as he searched the edge of the woods. “Violet?”
He took several strokes and then started walking toward her, still swiping droplets from his face. His chest rose above the water…ribs….stomach…waist.
Her hand flew up. “Wait. Stop.”
Theo froze, his fingers in his hair, halfway through pushing his wet locks from his forehead. Confusion set onto his face before he glanced downward. A slow smile, wicked and knowing, curled onto his lips as his eyes travelled to her. “You cannot show up here—on the tip of this pond, at the edge of darkness, out of nowhere—and expect me not to come toward you, Violet.”
“But you are—you are naked.”
“I am.”
“So I would prefer you to stay in one spot for a moment.”
“How long a moment?”
“This is just as much a shock for me as it is for you, Theo. So please, a moment.”
He nodded, his fingers moving from his hair and flicking the wetness away. Droplets splattered, sending spreading rings throughout the surface of the water. His hands settled at his sides under the surface of the water.
Half hidden behind a tree, she watched him as he stared at her for long seconds in silence, his face unflinching, not belying anything he was thinking.
Her horse flicked its head, nickering. It broke Violet’s stare and her hand tightened on the reins.
“How long do I wait, Vee?”
“How long have you been here in the middle of the woods?”
“Since I brought you here to Adalia.”
She gasped. “You…you have been here all this time?”
“I will always be at your side, Violet, whether you know it or not.” He shrugged. “Albeit a bit further away than I would have liked. But I was not about to show myself to you.”
“Where have you been living?”
His hand lifted out of the water, pointing to a break in the trees to the left of the pond. “The east hunting cottage is down that trail.”
“For two months you have been there?”
“It is all I need. I was not about to leave you, Violet.”
“And this”—her hand lifted, motioning out toward the water—“is there no tub there to bathe in?”
He chuckled. “It is a hunting cottage, Vee, so no. Men on hunts find their stench most enjoyable.”
She laughed.
His left hand went down, cupping the surface of the water. “Besides, I like the lake, bathing in it. It was something I started during the war—we swam where we could, since proper baths were hard to come by. A lake is spacious—me moving within the water, instead it moving around me.”
Violet nodded, a soft smile coming to her face.
“Your hands on the reins, Vee.” His voice dropped to a low rumble as he motioned with his head to her hands. “Do you want to leave?”
The question danced through the twilight to her, soft, sneaking upon her.
She wasn’t prepared for this.
Wasn’t prepared to have to answer that question.
Earlier in the day with the duke, she had wanted to ask on Theo’s whereabouts. She had wanted to know, even if she wasn’t sure what to do with the answer.
But to have Theo standing in front of her. Living, breathing, his ice-blue eyes staring at her like they always had—with the heat of barely bridled desire, with pure visibility straight into her soul.
She wasn’t prepared for this.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t want it.
“I understand if so, Vee.” The low rumble was tempered from his voice, replaced with restraint on his words. “Two months is not long enough. I accept that and I will not push you to stay.”
Two months was not long enough?
Of course not. Not to Theo. Patience. The man and his patience. That was Theo’s forte. Of course he would wait.
She closed her eyes, her head dropping forward. She inhaled, feeling the breath roll deep into her chest. It did nothing to calm her heart. Did nothing to settle her belly that had begun to flip over and over and over.
She had been wrong about so many things—so many people over the years.
But Theo.
Theo was not one of them. She knew that. Knew it all the way to the marrow of her bones. He was a part of her, if only she could accept it—admit to it.
Her head lifted, her eyes meeting his.
“Two months has been plenty, Theo.” She loosened her boot from the stirrup of the sidesaddle and slid down the horse’s side, knowing full well Theo’s stare was searing her, waiting with caution to pounce, lest she try to escape him.
Silently, she tied the leather reins to a low-slung branch at her left and then walked forward. It wasn’t until she stopped, her heels on the rough sand, her toes licking the edge of the water, that she lifted her eyes to him.
His stare searing her had been an understatement. His look had turned ravenous, ready to devour.
It stole her breath. That one look that said everything. That banished any lingering doubts she had about what had happened, what she had suffered, and how she had reac
ted—how she had lost her mind.
He didn’t hate her for her actions. He hadn’t given her up for Bedlam. He wanted her—more than ever. All of that burned in his eyes, begging her to know, to understand the depth of how he needed her.
“Strip, Vee.”
The heated request—the command—wrapped around her, seizing a hold of her body. Her limbs started to move without thought, without her mind reacting to bristle against his order.
Tugging off her kidskin gloves, she then untied and pulled off her compact riding hat, the ribbon of it slipping through her fingers as she dropped the hat and gloves to the sand by her boots. Her fingers ran down the row of shiny gold buttons along the center of her cobalt blue riding habit. One by one the buttons popped free, her look not breaking from him.
She peeled back the jacket of her habit, letting it slide to the ground behind her.
She would strip for Theo any time, any place, and she knew it.
He knew it as well.
For all that had happened, his confidence in this had not wavered.
A smile played on her lips. She would, however, make him pay at some point for ordering her about.
She lifted off her white linen shirt and unclasped her skirt, letting it drop to puddle at her feet, partially in the water. Bending, she unthreaded the laces of her tall boots, stepping out of the leather and rolling down her stockings. She stood, letting one shoulder slip out from the strap of her thin silk chemise, then the other.
The silk dropped, falling to the ground, and she was bared. Full and vulnerable.
Theo swallowed hard, his intense stare layered with both lust and relief. His voice, impossibly rough, skipped across the surface of the water to her. “Swim with me, Vee.”
She lifted her right foot, stepping clear of her clothing and letting her toes sink into the water. Cool, but holding just enough heat of the summer to not shock her skin. Her left leg followed, and within seconds she had waded into the water.
He needed her to come to him. To want him.
And there wasn’t a thing in her way.
She moved forward in the water, her breath held, lodged in her throat. Her hands dipping down into the water, she didn’t stop until she was before him, the top half of her body rising from the surface. Close, within arm’s reach, but she had to pause before she touched him. Had to look at the entirety of his body. The hard lines, the scars of the past.
She accepted all of it. Things she would know, things she would never know.
Because he was worth it. Worth entrusting her life to. Her heart. Her soul.
Her mind had left her for a spell. But when it had returned, this was the one truth she knew above all others.
“I failed you, Vee.” His words drew her look upward to his face.
“No—do not.” Her head shook. “Do not ever say that. I deserved it. It was just.”
“What? Why in Hades would you think such a blasphemy?”
“Because fate has been waiting for me.” Her look dipped to the water. “I tried to kill myself once. I threw it away. Life. It was why I was punished. I didn’t value life, and so what happened to me was just.” Her look lifted to him. “A test. Fate needed to right the scale and it did.”
His eyes closed, pained as he shook his head. “It wasn’t just, Vee.” His eyes opened to her, fire melting the coolness in the blue of his irises. “It just was. It was a woman that is crazy. A woman that had lost all sense of honor and loyalty and right and wrong. I tried to protect you—tried to stay away—but I was weak. I cannot be without you in my life, Vee.”
“What happened to me, Theo, it proved to me, in the most brutal way, that I want life. I did everything I could in that mine to escape, to survive another minute, because I wanted life.” Her right hand moved forward under the surface of the water. “I wanted a life with you, Theo. But when you left me, I broke—it tore my heart out and shattered it.”
“Vee—”
“It didn’t matter that you were back in minutes. That you carried me out of that hellhole with your left arm.” Her right hand lifted, water dripping as she set her fingertips along the slick biceps in his left arm. His skin tensed under her touch. “Your left arm, Theo. You weren’t about to fail me. I knew that. I know what you did. I know you saved me. But my heart was shattered. My head was. And it has taken this long for my mind to put all of the shards back together.”
She paused, swallowing hard, her voice drifting to a whisper. “And I have been afraid since then that I have lost you.”
“You will never lose me, Vee.” His voice hoarse, he reached out, pulling her toward him, his muscles shaking with the need to have her skin touching his. “I have let a lot of things go that I ruined, that I should have fixed—but you—never.”
He wrapped his arm around her back, setting the full length of her against his body as he buried his hand into her hair and clasped her head to his chest. A deep breath shook his torso and he buried his face into the top of her head.
“I only wanted to be your sanctuary, Vee. Your sanctuary against all that had beaten down your soul.” He stopped, swallowing hard. “Hell, I wanted that. Needed that. That I was your sentence to horror…”
A shiver ran through his body, yet the heat of him cut through the cool of the water, warming her.
“It just was, Theo. It is the same for both of us. It just was.” She threaded her arms under his so she could clasp the back of him. She had wondered if she was ever to have this again. To be able to touch his skin, inhale his scent, hear the low rumble of his voice.
By the grace of stars aligning for her, she had been granted this. She wasn’t about to let it slip through her fingers again.
She tilted her head back, pulling away from his chest so she could see his face.
His blue eyes blazed with unconditional love, the intensity both startling her and warming her soul.
“Theo.”
“Yes?”
“I am ready.”
His eyes closed to her words, and for a long second, he held no reaction, his body stilling.
“Tell me those words are exactly what I am praying they are.” His eyes remained closed, his words slow, each said with care.
“They are.” Her hands tightened against the muscles in his back. “As long as what you’re praying for involves a clergyman and me being by your side until the end of days.”
A smile formed on his lips as he slowly exhaled the deepest breath. He opened his clear blue eyes to her. “You are mine, Vee?”
“I am. And you are mine.”
He nodded, his smile turning wicked. “Then I have two months’ worth of lost adoration on your body to catch up upon.”
She laughed, moving to wrap her hands around his neck as she pulled her legs upward along his thighs under the water. “Then let us commence with the adoration.”
“I am at your command, my love.”
{ Epilogue }
The gardener dug his shovel into the rocky soil, wedging it under the stone. Pressing downward on the tip of the handle, his weight and leverage on the wooden pole was a weak force against the marble. Undeterred, he pulled his shovel free and dug into the ground in various spots, repeating the action four times before the marble stone loosened.
He and the boy he had brought with him each took a side and rocked the stone back and forth for several minutes. With hefty grunts they managed to free it and then lifted it out of the ground, setting it into a wheelbarrow.
The gardener paused to look at Theo.
His gaze lifting from the fresh black dirt, Theo gave the man a nod. The gardener and the boy started off down the path on the hillside, wheeling the tombstone away and leaving just Theo and Violet to stand alone on the hill.
The whole of it took ten minutes.
Violet stood quietly beside Theo, her hand clutching the nook of his arm as she stared at the empty rectangular cut of dirt where the stone had been.
Theo cleared his throat. “That was remarkably undram
atic.”
Her fingers tightened into his arm muscles and she chuckled, looking up at his profile. “It was. I thought…”
He met her dark blue eyes as a wry smile came to his lips. “That the earth would open up and swallow me? That lightning would strike down upon me?”
She nodded. “Something akin to that.”
“Well, those were the two specific possibilities running through my head. And I am immensely grateful neither one came to fruition.”
She smiled, her hand reaching up to settle along the side of his jaw. “I as well.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her smile fading. Her hand dropped from his face as the shards of violet in her eyes turned serious. “Truly, Theo…tell me.”
His look dropped from her to the shallow hole. It took several long breaths before he managed to center his own thoughts in his mind, and his mouth opened. “Truly? I am relieved. It…that that slab of marble existed out here. Day after day. It has weighed upon me. It has for a long time.”
Silent, his wife’s hand slid down from the crook of his elbow to squeeze the muscles in his forearm.
“After I came back from the war, I wanted to be dead for so long.” His gaze lifted to her. “But now…not now. Not since the moment you kicked me in the Revelry’s Tempest.”
A soft smile played on her lips. “I must have kicked you hard.”
He chuckled. “You did. The finest kick I ever received.” He turned fully to her, his hands lifting to capture the sides of her neck. His fingertips played with the few loose strands of her chestnut hair escaping from her upsweep. “Life—you—all of it is too precious to leave a stone like that in the ground.”
His look dipped downward to her protruding belly. “And I would never forgive myself if our child stumbled across it one day and it scared him.”
“Or her.”
He inclined his head, a grin playing on his lips. For how little he truly cared if it was a boy or a girl, just so long as it was healthy, he did love to goad Violet when he could. “Or her. Or him. Or both.”
Violet’s look lifted to the sky with an exasperated smile as her palm settled on the top of her stomach. Her gaze dropped to him. “You have done this well, Theo.”
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