The feeling of euphoria vanished as I became aware of what I had just done to her.
I don’t deserve her, and I never will.
I watched his smug grin fall away to be replaced with remorse. “Did something happen, Ethan? Did you decide that you made a mistake in marrying me? Are you—unhappy…with me and the baby…because my body is ch-changing?”
I had to ask him. He knew how I operated, and it was by truth. The thing was, I’d always felt that about Ethan. He’d always been so blunt and truthful to me from day one. I loved that about him. He told me what was on his mind, sharing his desires, helping me to understand what he wanted and needed. But this awkward detached behavior really confused and hurt me.
“Oh, baby…no! Fuck no!” He shook his head vehemently. “Marrying you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Brynne. You think I am unhappy about you and the baby? Why?!”
He tightened his hand at my breast and loomed over me, his face very close, his dark blue eyes searching, flicking over me as if staring intently would reveal some mystery to him.
“You hurt my feelings. You left me there at the table and went off and started drinking. You never do that, Ethan. Why did you dance with Gwen and not with me?” The pitiful questions tumbled out of my mouth, humiliating me, but I couldn’t help it. Blame the hormones.
“Who?”
“Gwen, the skinny blonde.”
He didn’t look any less confused.
“Dillon’s date,” I said with emphasis, wondering if he was still drunk.
“Ahh… Yeah, her,” he grunted dismissively, “she pulled me out there, and I was too smashed, and too distracted to say no.”
“This does not make any of what you did tonight okay with me.” He needed to hear my unfiltered thoughts and know this sort of behavior would never fly.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he said earnestly, before dropping his mouth to mine. He kissed me softly; very gentle and very loving, settling into his pattern of our after-sex make-out session. Long drawn out sweeps of tongue and lips, with no other purpose other than showing me he did indeed love me. I did feel considerably better, I’ll admit, but I was still confused about what had transpired tonight at the reception.
When he finally pulled back and gave me his eyes again, I sensed something big was going to be revealed.
“I love you so much, Brynne, and I can’t make it in this life without you. I’ll never regret our baby, and I’ll never stop loving you, or our children. You’re my life, and you’re stuck with me. And you are the most beautiful woman in the world. In the fucking world! Do you understand me, Brynne?” He sounded harsh, but the look on his face was pleading.
“Y-yes.” I sucked in a sob, feeling over-emotional and relieved, but still needing some answers from him. “S-so what happened t-tonight? Something happened, right?”
He settled on his side and faced me with his hand on my hip, as if he had to have physical contact with my body in order to tell me whatever he needed to say. “Yeah, baby, something happened.” He pulled me against him and pressed his lips to my hair and breathed in deeply. “Remember the woman who wanted to meet you at dinner? Sarah?”
“Yes. She seemed very nice, and friendly. How do you know her, Ethan?” Sarah was a beautiful woman, and charming in conversation. I recalled her seemingly genuine interest in how Ethan and I had met. She’d asked about my due date, but it had all felt socially normal to me, nothing weird.
“She came to the wedding today to pay her respects I suppose, but she had to leave because it was too hard for her to see Neil and Elaina, and you and me, living our happy lives with people we love.” His hand at my hip began to rub in a slow motion. “Sarah Hastings was married to someone who served in the SF with Neil and me. He didn’t…m-make it out of Afghanistan.”
“Oh…that’s horrible. I imagine you and Neil were close to him…”
“Yeah. He was under my command—in my squad.”
Ethan appeared calm as he talked, but I felt that he was harboring some deeply held grief or guilt about this man’s death in the war. I could only imagine whatever the experience had been for him, was horrific.
“You cared about him,” I said gently, not wanting to ask questions that would hurt him further. It was better for me to make statements of fact, rather than ask for more than he felt comfortable sharing.
“Mike Hastings was the very best of soldiers. Strong, loyal—a fighter to the bitter end. The kind of soldier you want at your back when the shit goes FUBAR,” Ethan said, in a faraway voice, weighted with respect and honor for his fallen comrade.
“I—I’ve heard you call out his name once…when you had a bad flashback…” I swept my lips to his chest and kissed right over his heart. I laid my ear there so I could hear his courageous heart beating against me. My heart.
He brought his hand up to the back of my head and rubbed into my hair, keeping me against him, allowing the comfort. “Mike. Yeah. That…m-memory about Mike is—is the worst one.”
“You don’t have to talk about him, Ethan, if you don’t want to. Baby, please don’t put yourself through it again just for my benefit.”
“No, you should know. You’re my wife, and you should know why—why I’m this way.”
I closed my eyes and braced for the explanation, knowing it would be something truly dreadful. “I love you, Ethan,” I whispered.
“Mike was taken prisoner along with me. He suffered what I suffered for just twenty days instead of my twenty-two. Then they ex-executed him in front of me. They used him as a—a p-practice run f-for what they were planning to do to me.”
I felt him swallow but his voice didn’t change. He sounded eerily calm and I tensed as I imagined how Mike Hastings had met his death. I remembered very well what Ethan had told me once. The Taliban were going to behead him and show the world a video of them doing it.
“They used a big fuckin’ knife and forced me to watch. They told me if I closed my eyes or looked away, they would make Mike suffer longer, cutting off parts of him that wouldn’t kill him, but lengthen the agony and prolong the inevitable. This was amusement for our captors, in their senseless, fucked-up, pious war they are so fanatical about.”
I cried silent tears as he told me of his experience, unable to say anything, unsure of what to do except hold onto him and be whatever he needed me to be.
“But I failed Mike. I tried—I tried so fucking hard, Brynne, not to flinch away, but I couldn’t help it—”
He stopped talking. The silence grew deafening above the steady pounding of his heart against my cheek, now drenched by my hot tears…for him, for his friend, for the helpless guilt he carried over things beyond his control.
“I love you, and I always will.” There was nothing else to say to him.
He breathed in my hair at my temple and seemed to relax somewhat. After a time of quiet he asked me a question. It was painfully difficult for him to get the words out. I could hear the fear as he struggled to force the words past his lips. “Do you think there’s a place, or a person somewhere that may help me?”
“Yes, Ethan, I know there is.”
CHAPTER 12
23rd November
Somerset
MY office was the best room in all of Stonewell Court. I was convinced of it. Rich oak panels on the walls framed the most magnificent window view of the ocean. It reminded me of All Along the Watchtower, Hendrix's cover of Dylan's song. What princess kept her view here? How many servants did she have? I surely felt like a princess in this house.
The Bay of Bristol stretched out before me, and on a clear day you could see all the way to the coast of Wales at the other end of the bay. Somerset had stunning country in every direction. I’d discovered that the inland landscape had commercial lavender fields. Miles and miles of purple flowers scenting the air, and so beautiful, your mind could barely accept what your eyes were seeing. I loved coming here for the long weekends, and I knew it was good for Ethan, too. He thrived in the peace
of the place.
When Ethan and I had searched through all the rooms of the house figuring what we would use them for, I’d known the instant we’d come into this one, that I wanted it. And the amazing thing was the impressive desk already in the room, confirming that others had thought of this room as excellent workplace long before me.
The desk was the second best part, after the view. A massive, English-oak, carved beast, but perfectly balanced with artful carvings that softened its bulk, making it perfectly designed in my eyes. I liked to imagine myself sitting in front of this splendid window view of the sea and working on my projects for the university, or just as a place to take a phone call, or surf the net.
Sheer perfection.
I sipped my pomegranate tea and indulged in the deep flashing blue of the ocean under the sky right out my window. I could sit here for hours I realized, but that wouldn’t help me get anything accomplished—and I had plenty of stuff to do. I think I was moving into pregnancy “nesting” mode a little early. Ethan teased me about my nesting when he read about it in the What to Expect When You’re Expecting he kept on his bedside table, and studied religiously. And my husband was not a pleasure reader like me. He read world and sports news, and trade publications, but not fiction. He read to learn and inform. I thought it was adorable the way he followed the website and read the book so he would know what my body was up to and what was coming. Ethan was so good at preparation and planning, and pretty much everything, but especially at taking care of me.
I sighed after another moment of daydreaming, knowing I had tasks that needed attention. Not my favorite, that’s for sure. But then, I doubt wrangling computer cords is anyone’s favorite. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled under the desk to see if there was a hole drilled in the back for a power cord to feed through. Somebody must have used it in the modern era I rationalized. But maybe not. I wondered if Robbie could help me. I braced my hand on the concave inner corner and pushed, backing myself out from under my desk, when I heard a mechanical click, and then the dusty slide of wood.
JOURNALS. Three of them stacked on the top of the desk. Leather-bound, gilded, and tied with a silk cord, the pages of which, shared the private thoughts of a young woman who’d lived a long time ago, in this very house.
When I’d untied the cord stiffened with age, and opened the first book, I was captivated from the first page. To the point I forgot about everything else and got lost in her words…
7th May, 1837
I visited J. today. I shared my news with him. More than anything I would wish to have his understanding of my regret, but I know that it is out of the realm of possibilities until such a time as I meet my maker. Then I may know his feelings on the matter…
…What shall be the price of Guilt? Just five letters in a word that buries me with its weight.
…My bitter regret that now must always be born in an endless silence that has broken the hearts of all those I ever loved.
…Today I also gave my agreement to marry a man who says he wants nothing more than to care for me and to allow him to cherish me.
…So I will go to live at Stonewell Court and make my life with him, but I am very afraid of what awaits me. How will I ever rise to the standard of what is expected?
…Darius Rourke doesn’t yet understand that I do not deserve to be cherished by any man. I am torn, but alas, I am unable to deny his wishes for me, just as I was unable to deny my beloved Jonathan…
M G
Marianne George, who later became Rourke, upon her marriage to a Mr. Darius Rourke, in the summer of 1837.
The hair on the back of my neck tingled as I looked up from the journal, and out at the picturesque view. The coincidence was unbelievable.
My book of Keats, the first edition of poems, given to me by Ethan on the night he proposed, had belonged to this same Marianne as well. How could I ever forget, For my Marianne. Always your Darius. June 1837, in the elegant ink scrawl of an earlier era, as an inscription? A lover’s gift. I cherished what Darius had written to Marianne. So simple, yet so very pure in the sense of how he saw her. He loved her, and yet, for whatever the reasons, Marianne had felt unworthy of his love. Guilt weighed down on her. As it does for me. As it does for Ethan.
And now we were living in their house? I could hardly believe it. She mentioned Jonathan—the name carved on the mermaid angel statue down in garden, facing soulfully out to sea. I realized now, the statue was a memorial for her lost Jonathan, and not a grave. Because he had no grave. Jonathan had been lost out there in the beautiful and sometimes terrible sea. She loved him…and then he’d drowned. And Marianne felt she was the one accountable for what had happened to him.
She loved him…and then he’d drowned. I understood Marianne’s pain better than most people could. I understood it because, I too, longed for the release of my own guilt. Probably wouldn’t ever happen for me. Some things just have to be accepted even so the outcome will never change. Because the fact remained; I knew what it meant to feel responsible for the loss of someone you loved…and would never see again in this life.
Yes, I sensed him watching over me, but that didn’t take away the enormous loss I felt from missing him. The hole in my heart that his death created was still a cavern. The guilt I wrestled with daily, still feeling it was mostly my fault, remained within me. I missed my dad. I hadn’t realized just how much his love and support had protected me until I experienced the loss of it. I missed his presence. I missed his love. I just missed him.
Dad, I miss you so much…
As if to shake me out of my sad thoughts, I felt a kick and then a nudge. I smiled and rubbed my expanding belly. “Well hello there, butterfly angel.”
My angel poked me in the ribs for an answer, making me laugh at the timing. The movements didn’t feel like butterfly wings anymore at twenty-six weeks, but the name had stuck in my head. “I suppose you’re telling me you want to eat, which means I need to put some food in, right?”
“Brilliant child we have, baby, and I agree wholeheartedly. You do need to eat,” Ethan said behind me, draping his big hands on my shoulders and inhaling deeply. He scraped his beard along my neck as he nuzzled the sensitive spot with kisses. I leaned back into him and tilted my neck for better access, and an inhale of my own—he always smelled so amazing. My man liked to smell me, too. Everywhere. A bit kinky, but it showed how he bared his honesty with me. I liked honest. I needed honest in order to function in our relationship.
“Ahh, you’ve caught me talking to myself again.”
“Not yourself, but little lettuce, and that makes all the difference. I don’t think we need to ship you off to Bethlem Hospital just yet,” he quipped.
“We have a lettuce baby this week?” I shook my head at how funny it was to me that he could memorize every fruit and vegetable on that prenatal website. He was right every single time, too. I was starting to think he might have a photographic memory. Ethan remembered everything, while I was getting “pregnancy brain” and forgetting just about everything I’d ever learned. I felt another jab. “Here, feel. Baby is kicking right now.”
He spun the chair and knelt in front of me, quickly pushing my shirt up and the waistband of my leggings down, to expose my bump. I pointed to the spot where the action was happening and we both watched. It took a minute, but then the slow roll of what was most likely a tiny foot, poked my skin out as clear as day, before retreating back inside the space just as quickly.
“Awww, did you see that?” he asked in wonderment.
“Um yeah,” I nodded, “I felt it, too.”
He kissed over the spot very gently and whispered, “Thanks for looking out for your mum and seeing that she eats on time.” Then he looked up at me with a serious expression—not stern, but not smiling either—just intense and full of emotion.
“What is it?” I asked.
“You are utterly amazing, you know that?”
I brought my hand up to his cheek and held it there. “Why am
I?”
“Because of everything you’ve given to me. Of what you can do.” He turned his eyes down again, framing my belly with both of his palms. “Creating life inside here.” He flipped his eyes back up to me. “For loving me as I am.”
My heart hitched in a small stab of pain at the last part he mentioned. Ethan was struggling still, with what he’d revealed to me about Mike’s horrific torture when he was a prisoner. I hated to think about it, but I could only imagine how exponentially more painful it was for Ethan to remember, than it was for me to hear about and imagine. Ethan had lived it. And couldn’t forget, because his subconscious forced him to relive the terror at its whim. But I was working on finding a therapy placement for him through Dr. Roswell—something he felt comfortable with, and could lead him through helpful techniques and methods to ease some of his torment. I refused to accept any other alternative for him. Ethan was going to find some relief, I was bound and determined.
“I don’t want you any other way than how you are. You are just what you are supposed to be.” I leaned down to kiss him on the lips, but he met me first, engulfing me in a deep kiss that left me breathless when he finally pulled away.
“Now, if little lettuce wasn’t insisting upon food right now, I would have to carry you off somewhere, missus, and show you a really good time.” He raised his brows at me saucily before restoring my leggings and shirt back to their original state with determined efficiency. “But, alas, that is not the case.” He stood first, then helped me up by the hand, and then bringing it to his mouth for a soft kiss. “After you, my lady.”
“Such the gentleman right now, Mr. Blackstone,” I said as I went ahead of him. “What’s the occasion?”
He smacked me sharply on the ass as an answer.
“Oh!” I squealed, “You did not just spank my ass, Blackstone!”