‘He has been busy.’
Edge’s mouth picked up at the corners. His first true smile for her for days. Her sad little heart stretched itself at his feet like a panting puppy.
Oh, Edge. I am trying so hard to do what is right and I keep ruining it.
‘So have you, Sam. That was quite an attack.’
‘You heard it?’
He nodded.
‘How much of it?’
‘Most of it. Rafe was already in the corridor when I went to fetch him, but once we reached the door we heard you... I wanted to go in and stop her, but he said...’ Edge spread out his hands as if trying to explain the unexplainable. ‘He said to trust you. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry?’
‘I should have protected you, not the other way around.’
‘I was a vicious shrew.’
‘Not vicious. Protective. A lioness, as my mother said. No, a warrior queen on the rampage. Boadicea. Hatshepsut. Cleopatra. Nike...’
‘Nike is mythical, not real.’
‘Many myths are based on reality. Besides, I don’t need comparison. You were magnificent, Sam. Thank you.’
‘You’re not angry?’
‘My manly pride is a trifle trampled at having been rescued from the dragon by the damsel, but I find I rather like the experience.’
‘You look...strange.’
‘I’m smiling.’
She smiled as well.
‘That is not what I mean.’
‘I know. I think I am...in shock. A little. All these years I thought I wasn’t...important enough to keep. Or worse—that there was something so objectionable about me I was best kept far away. Even Dora’s pulling away when she became with child felt like proof—I tried to tell myself it was foolish, but there was a part of me that believed the taint was showing through. When Jacob fell ill... I didn’t believe my father’s vicious rant about judgement, but I couldn’t shake it off. When your life is built around a gaping pit it’s easy to populate it with monsters. So I decided to place a lid on it and ignore it as best I could. Until I met you again and you kept shoving me in. And now this... Strange how it never occurred to me it might be the other way around. Now I feel guilty I hated my mother.’
She took his hand.
‘She made her choice, Edge. I know what she said, but she should have told you.’
‘Yes. But we become stuck in our ways. With our choices.’
Before she could stop him he reached out and turned over her sketch. It was an absent motion, but as soon as he saw the drawing his gaze focused, colour staining his cheeks. Her heart sank. Just when he was softening towards her. He would probably see this as another offence.
‘Sam...’
‘You cannot expect me not to draw you. That is not fair. I keep them all safely in a case so you needn’t worry anyone will see them...’
‘There are more?’
He followed her glance towards the leather-bound case on the table and something between a whimper and a groan escaped her. She didn’t try to stop him as he opened it and looked through them. There was no hiding it now. All her drawings of him on the Lark, the endless drawings she’d made during his two-week absence and those of him in their bed...
He took the one of him leaning back in the bath, looking beautiful and weary and worried.
‘I can’t help drawing you.’ The words burst out of her and he finally put them down.
‘You are so damnably gifted, Sam,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t deserve you.’
‘Edge...’
‘No, please listen. I know I have been...unbearable these past days. I will do better.’
‘Can you not tell me what is bothering you? I would rather know the worst than imagine it. Even if you are regretting this marriage. Just tell me.’
He planted his hand on the case and took a deep breath.
‘Marrying you was the best thing I have ever done, Sam. Remember in The Curse of the Valley of the Moon when the dragon warns Gabriel not to use his wish to find Leila, that being granted your heart’s desire too easily can poison the gift? Well, I was wiser than I realised when I wrote that because it is true. Out of nowhere you offered me what I wanted most in the world, though I barely admitted it to myself. I knew there would be a price, but I was willing to pay it. I still am, but I can’t deny it hurts like the devil to know I am a compromise, Sam.’
‘A compromise?’
‘Until you told me about the man you loved I was beginning to hope you were learning to love me a little, too—I mean not as a friend but as the person you need more than anyone else. Perhaps that was why it hit me so hard, to be pushed back like that. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze and watch him empty of life as if I could drain him out of you like a poison. It was a foolish, juvenile reaction and I vented my fear and disappointment on you though you are not to blame for loving him. It is what it is. I hope that with time you will come to care for me in the same manner as I care for you, but even if you don’t I will never regret this.’