Once Upon a Winter's Eve (Spindle Cove #1.5)(19)

“I thought it would be easier for you that way. So you could hate me and forget.”

“I did hate you. I hated you for making me feel cheap and foolish. I hated you for making me feel so ashamed, and distanced from my own family. And I hated myself for allowing it all to happen. But forget? How could I ever forget?” She blinked back tears. “You broke my heart into twenty-six pieces that day. But do you know something, Christian? Over the past several months here in Spindle Cove, I’ve stitched those pieces back together.”

As she spoke the words, Violet realized how true they were. She couldn’t name the day she’d set aside The Disappointment and begun to live again. The healing had been slow, gradual. Sometimes painful. But somehow, while she’d been distracted with sea-bathing and country walks and shooting lessons—and absolutely no embroidery—the impossible had occurred.

Her heart had mended.

“I’m a different girl now,” she told him, sitting tall. “A stronger girl. Blast it, I’m not a girl at all—I’m a woman.”

His mouth curved in a slight, appreciative smile. “So I can see.”

“Then you should understand, and believe me when I say this: I won’t let you hurt me again.”

He stared at her for several moments. When he spoke, he voice was even. “I do understand, and I believe you. I have a great deal I’d like to say to you, but I’d rather not say it at gunpoint. If I give my word I’ll not touch you, will you lower the pistol?”

She shook her head.

“Violet.” His voice took on a darker edge. “I could disarm you if I chose. But I might injure you in the process, and I’d rather not hurt you again.”

She exhaled slowly. Then lowered the pistol to her lap. That was as much as she’d give him.

“I’m listening.”

He inched closer. “The way I treated you was inexcusable. I deserve your scorn. I can see how you’ve changed, and it makes me so proud. You’re braver and stronger and more lovely than ever. I want you to know I’ve changed too, in our time apart. If not for the lovelier.” Slowly reaching out, he lifted her free hand to his face and traced her fingertip down the rugged slope of his nose. “Feel this?”

“It’s been broken.”

He nodded. “Twice. Purposely. Part of my training. I had to practice being in pain, you see. So that I would respond only in Breton, never in English.” He made her hand into a fist and bashed it playfully across his nose. “Corentin Morvan eo ma anv. My name is Corentin Morvan.” He sliced her finger across the scar on his throat. “Me a zo un tamm peizant. I am a humble farmhand.” He put her two fingers to his heart like a pistol. “N’ouzon netra. I know nothing. I swear on the Virgin this is the truth.”

“It sounds like torture.”

“It was, but it was necessary. For my own safety, and to guard the safety of others.” He kissed her hand and kept it in both of his. “They thrashed that carefree, callow duke’s son straight out of me and left a lowly farmhand in his place. But they never beat you out of my heart.” He stared deeply into her eyes. “I love you.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs.

“I love you, Violet. I loved you then. I love you now. I don’t expect to ever stop.”

His words overwhelmed her to the point of mute paralysis. Oh, how she wanted to believe him. But it made no rational sense.

Finally, she managed a tiny shake of her head. “It can’t be true.”

“It’s true. Believe me, love. I’ve shoveled so much actual horseshit in the past year, I’ve lost all patience with the figurative sort.” He turned her hand palm-up and stared into it, as though he might read his fortune there. His thumb traced a circle in the center of her palm. “I have been humbled, in many ways. I’m but a tiny gear in a vast machine, expendable and unimportant. I’ve learned what it is to labor hard, for long hours, on very little food.”

She believed this part, without question. The evidence was written all over him. When she’d been pressed against him in the larder, she’d sensed how his body was leaner now, all muscle and sinew. His face was tanned and weathered from regular exposure to the sun. And his hands… She felt the calluses on his thumb as he caressed her palm.

“Most of all,” he said, “I have been humbled by the comprehensive and inescapable quality of my own stupidity. My colossal arrogance. I thought that I could share that night with you and then go on to fulfill my mission, unaffected. I was wrong. So damnably wrong. Violet, I’ve thought of you daily. Dreamt of you nightly. Longed for you in every private moment and scoured my letters from home for any word of your—”

“Your letters from home? But you said your family didn’t know where you were.”

“They don’t. They write to an address in Antigua, and the letters are diverted. Once every few months or so, I’m given leave to ‘visit my mother,’ which means a trip to our regional base. There, I sit in a small room, read their letters and pen replies. It’s the only chance I have to read or write English. For that matter, it’s the only chance I have to read anything. I haven’t read a book in a year.”

“Oh. Such deprivation.” She spoke the words without any hint of irony. For her, going without books would be as great a trial as going without food.