The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

‘I failed you, Sam, but it isn’t because I don’t trust you. I don’t trust myself. I feel safer in...compartments. It seems mad now, but I honestly thought I could keep everything separate. Clean. I’ve forgotten how to think of other people in my life. If I ever knew.’

She wasn’t imagining the bleak viciousness in his voice and her resentment stumbled. She groped in the dark and found his hand, braced on the bed.

‘You did. You do. But you’re not just in my life, I’m in yours now. Even if this isn’t a marriage that began...like yours with Dora, we must live together. And work together, it seems. I don’t expect you to tell me everything, Edge. But this... Being the author of those books is at the heart of who you are. Who we are.’

‘I know that. That is the problem, Sam.’

‘Tell me how. Talk to me, Edge.’

His hand was tense under hers, then it turned, skimming up her arm, sliding under the thin cotton of her nightgown. Her body lit like a firefly, so hot and ready she had to stop herself from jerking away from his touch.

‘Those books are all I have left. A man in the middle of the ocean on a dinghy doesn’t risk his one safe haven to go for a swim.’

All I have left...

His words sheared through her as viciously as the heat.

You have me now.

She was so tempted to say the words, but did not want them handed back to her, by word or by deed. She was too lonely to weather that rejection.

She also wanted to throw it back at him—those books were all I had left of myself, too. They were the one corner of the world that was mine and filled with pleasure and anticipation and vivid life, and now...

And now I don’t know what to think.

She was torn between turning her back on him and holding him to her so fiercely he couldn’t try to keep secrets from her. But those desires were from old Sam and older Sam. She didn’t want to be either at the moment.

So she turned over her arm, laying it open to his caressing fingers. It amazed her how lightly he could touch and how potently. As if all those years treating precious antiquities under Poppy’s tutelage were embedded in his hands. Ricki had been rough and boisterous, his hands everywhere at once, his body heavy on hers. But Edge could send her body heavenwards merely by exploring her arm.

A shiver ran through her, her legs stretching under its force. She reached for him, but he caught her wrists, pressing them down by her head, his thumbs brushing the sensitive cores of her palms. He bent and pressed his mouth to the crook of her elbow, his breath warm, his touch like moonlight on water, but his next words were rough and angry.

‘I don’t like needing anything.’

More of her anger faded into mist at this admission. This was Edge—poor Edge, whom she’d manoeuvred into marrying her. And he was trying to be honest.

‘I’m scared, too, but we are tied together now, Edge.’

* * *

Tied together. For life.

He waited for panic and felt only regret that he’d already tarnished what they’d barely begun to build. Again and again. He’d punished her on the Lark, abandoned her at Sinclair House with hardly a word and now this, the worst blow of all. He’d acted on lust and a barely understood impulse when he accepted her proposal, but that did not excuse his behaviour since.

‘I am so sorry I hurt you, Sam.’

‘I know you are.’ It didn’t sound like forgiveness, it sounded like defeat and he couldn’t bear it. He needed her to understand, but he didn’t understand it himself.

‘Trust is...hard.’ He put the words out like a chess piece. He could almost hear the click of ivory on ivory.

‘Do you trust anyone at all, Edge?’

A hand closed on his throat, a great, burning giant’s hand. It was an effort to breathe past it and words weren’t even an option.

‘Do you trust Poppy and Janet?’

He closed his eyes. He owed them an affirmative. Nothing came.

Her hand shifted and touched his.

‘Do you know they would give their lives for you?’

He shook his head, not denying, but not accepting.

‘They lived in as much uncertainty as I did all those years,’ he said. ‘There weren’t many letters from Greybourne, but every time one came I saw them prepare. Maybe this time I would be summoned back and there was nothing any of us could do about it. The worst was I never knew what I wanted.’ A sharp pain speared his temple, just above his brow, and he touched his palm to it. It was a warning, but he knew he had to explain to her so she would know the fault lay in him, not her. ‘Each time I realised it wasn’t happening I would be as relieved as hell, but at the same time I would think—they have Rafe so they don’t need me. But what I knew was that if one day that letter came and said I was to return, perhaps if they lost Rafe and needed to replace him, Poppy and Janet would have no choice. So, no, I don’t know they would give their lives for me, nor would I have expected it. It wasn’t the way the world worked. The only person I ever trusted absolutely was Jacob, but I certainly never expected him to trust me. Which was proven correct. I couldn’t protect him—not from illness or pain or death or even from a mother who was afraid to love him or his grandparents who were terrified of his imperfections. You are right not to trust me, Sam. It is safer that way. You see? I am only hurting you as well...’