His eye snapped open, and he stared sightlessly at the ceiling of his bedroom. He knew what he should say, of course, but the words wouldn’t come. He seemed struck mute. And now it was too late. Too late. Their time together was over. “Helen—”
She sat up next to him. “I love you with all my heart, Alistair, but I cannot stay with you like this.”
SHE’D THOUGHT HERSELF in love before, when she’d been young and very naive. That had been the infatuation of a girl overawed by a man’s rank and worldly possessions. This love she felt for Alistair was entirely different. She knew his faults, knew his bad temper and cynicism, but she also gloried in the best parts of him. His love of nature, the gentleness he hid from most of the world, his uncompromising loyalty.
She saw both the worst and the best, and she saw all the complicated parts in between. She even knew that there were pieces of him that he still kept hidden from her, pieces she wished she had the time to discover. She knew all this, and she loved him despite or because of it. This was a mature woman’s love. A love that was aware of both his human foibles and his nobility.
And she also knew, deep in her heart, that this love, however wonderful, wasn’t enough for her.
He’d gone still beside her, his great chest damp with the sweat from their lovemaking. He hadn’t said a word when she confessed her love, and that fact nearly made her break down. In the end, though, whether or not he admitted loving her was beside the point.
“Stay with me,” he rasped. His expression was stern, but in his eye was desperation.
It nearly broke her heart.
“I can’t live like this again,” she said. “I fled Lister because I realized that I was more than a man’s convenient plaything. I have to be more—for myself and for my children. And although I love you a thousand times more than I ever loved Lister, I will not repeat my mistake.”
His beautiful eye closed, and he turned his face away from her. His hands clenched into fists above his head. She waited, but he did no more, neither speaking nor moving. He might as well have turned to stone.
At last she rose from the bed and picked up her chemise from the floor. She put it on and went to the door. She glanced back one last time, but he still hadn’t moved. So she opened the door and slipped from the room, leaving him—and her heart—behind.
ALISTAIR RETREATED TO his tower the next morning, but nothing was the same. The treatise on badger behavior that had interested him before was now patently ridiculous. His sketches, his specimens, his journals and notes, everything in the room seemed pointless and useless. Worst of all, the tower windows overlooked the stable yard, and he could see Helen supervising the loading of her bags into the dogcart. Why had he even bothered rising this morning?
His brooding thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the tower door. He scowled at the door, debated ignoring the knock, and eventually yelled, “Come!”
The door opened and Abigail poked her head in.
Alistair straightened. “Oh, it’s you.”
“We wanted to say good-bye,” she said, her voice exceedingly serious for a child of nine.
He nodded.
She came in, and he saw that Jamie was behind her, holding a squirming Puddles in his arms.
Abigail clasped her hands in front of her, reminding him very much of her mother. “We wanted to thank you for coming to London to rescue us.”
Alistair started to wave this aside, but apparently she wasn’t finished.
“And for teaching us to fish and letting us dine with you and showing us where the badgers live.” She paused, looking at him with her mother’s eyes.
“Quite all right.” Alistair pinched the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb. “Your mother loves you, you know.”
Her eyes, so like Helen’s, widened as she stared at him mutely.
“She loves you”—he had to stop and clear his throat—“just the way you are.”
“Oh.” Abigail looked down at the toes of her shoes and frowned fiercely as if to keep from weeping. “We also wanted to thank you for letting us name your dog.”
He raised his brows.
“We’ve decided on Badger,” she explained gravely, “because he went with us to the badger sett. Besides, we can’t call him Puddles forever. It’s a baby name, really.”
“Badger is a very good name.” He looked down at the toes of his boots. “Mind you walk him every day and see that he isn’t fed too much rich food.”
“But he isn’t ours,” she said.
Alistair shook his head. “I know I said that Badger was my dog, but I really got him for you.”
She gazed at him with the same damned determined eyes that her mother had used on him the night before. “No. He isn’t ours.”
She gave a little push to Jamie, who was looking quite miserable. The boy came forward with the puppy and held him out to Alistair. “Here. He’s yours. Abby says you need Badger more than us.”
Alistair took the squirming, warm little body, completely nonplussed. “But—”
Abigail marched right up to him and yanked on his arm until he bent. Then she wrapped her skinny little arms around his neck and half strangled him. “Thank you, Sir Alistair. Thank you.”
She whirled and caught her startled brother’s hand and dragged him from the room before Alistair could think of a reply.
“Dammit.” He stared down at the puppy, and Badger licked his thumb. “What am I to do with you now?”
He strode to the window and looked down in time to see Helen help the children into the dogcart. Abigail glanced up once, he thought in his direction, but she hastily looked away again, so perhaps he was wrong. Then Helen climbed in, and the footman driving the cart gave the reins a shake. They all rolled away, out of the stable yard, out of his life, and Helen never once looked back.
His body urged him to run after her, but his mind chained him where he was. Keeping her would just delay the inevitable.
Now or tomorrow, he’d always known that Helen would leave him.
Chapter Twenty
The sorcerer opened his doors to Princess Sympathy readily enough, but when she told him what she’d come for, he laughed. He led her to the yew knot garden and pointed to where Truth Teller stood, immobile and cold.
“There is your knight,” the sorcerer said. “You may work what little magic you know to save him, but be forewarned: I give you only this day. If he is still a man of stone when the sun sets, I will make you his stone bride and together you both shall stand in my garden for all eternity.”