He told her the truth. “One. The one you witnessed.”
She laughed then, hollow and so different from her earlier happiness that he felt the sound like a blow. “I am to believe that?”
“I don’t expect you to,” he said. “But it is the truth.”
“That is the problem with truth; so often you must rely on faith to embrace it.”
“And you’ve no faith in me.” He regretted the words the moment they were out, wishing immediately that he could take them back. He did not want her to answer. The silence that stretched out between them in the wake of the words was clear enough without her answer. Not to mention unsurprising.
And then she said, so soft that it almost seemed she was speaking to someone else, “God knows I want to.”
“It was one time, Sera. Once.”
“It was meant to punish me,” she replied, the words simple and empty of emotion as she looked down to the lake, spread like black ink below.
Regret and shame flared. How many times had he felt them? How many times had they consumed him in the darkness as he searched for her? But they had never felt like this. Without her, they’d been a vague, rolling emotion, present, but never truly there. And now, faced with her, with her tacit acceptance of their past, of his actions, of his mistakes, they were a wicked, angry blow.
What a fucking ass he had been.
“I cannot take it back. If there were anything in the world I could take back . . .”
The breath left her in a stream of frustration then. “Tell me, is it the act for which you lack pride? Or the consequences of it?”
He turned to her then, unable to find the proper words to reply. “The consequences?”
“My sister landed you on your backside in front of all London, Malcolm. You did not care for it. You meted out punishment on the whole family after that.”
Shame again, hot and angry, along with a keen instinct to protect himself. To defend his actions. But there was no defense. None worthy of the blow he’d dealt. None that had ever dismissed his regret for it.
I’m sorry. The words were cheap escape. “I would take Sophie’s attack a hundredfold. A thousand. If I could erase the rest of that afternoon.”
Sera grew silent, and Mal would have given anything to know what was going through her head. And finally, she said, “As would I, ironically.”
He closed his eyes in the darkness. He’d hurt her abominably. They were silent for a long while as he considered his next words. But before he could find them, she said, “And what of all the years since?”
He looked to her, the darkness freeing him in some way. Making him honest. “I would erase them, too.”
She turned to face him, slow and simple, as though they discussed the weather. “I wouldn’t.” The ache that came with the confession was crushing, black as the water that spread out before them, stretched forever like the silence that accompanied it. Finally, Sera looked to the starlit sky and said, “So, was this your plan? To lead me into the darkness and revisit the decline of our marriage?”
He exhaled, looking to the water, black and sparkling in the moonlight. “It wasn’t, as a matter of fact.” He began to descend toward the lake, calling back, “I had planned to show you something.”
Curiosity got the better of her—as it always had. “What?”
Could he tempt her away from the past? Toward something more promising? It was worth the try. “Come and see.”
For long moments, he did not hear her, and he steeled himself for the worst. For the possibility that there was no hope for them.
And then her skirts rustled in the grass.
Chapter 18
Sunken Starchitecture: Highley’s Hidden Hideaway
“This is beautiful.”
Sera stood just inside a small, stunning stone structure, fixed with six stained glass windows depicting a series of women in various states of celebration, stars embedded in the glass around them, as though they danced in the night sky.
Malcolm stood to one side, lantern high in his hand, revealing the glorious stonework stars and sky that climbed the walls between the windows and spread across the domed ceiling of the space. Sera tipped her head back to take in the moon and sun in full relief above as he said, “The windows are more beautiful in the daylight, obviously,” he said.
She looked to him. “I believe it.”
She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d followed him, lantern in hand, as he descended the rise to the lakeside. She shouldn’t have even followed him, for what was the point? Spending time with him only resurrected the past in ways she wished never to do again.
Spending time with him only reminded her that she’d once wanted to spend a lifetime with him.
And still, she’d followed him in the night, drawn like a moth to his flame. And, just like a moth, the fire of him threatened to consume her. As ever.
She’d never spent time on the grounds of Highley; he’d spoken of the lake a dozen times—it held a powerful place in his childhood stories—but she’d never had a chance to see it.
And now, as she looked from one of the women to the next—each so beautifully designed that it seemed as though they were trapped in glass—Sera wondered why he hadn’t brought her here, to this beautiful room overlooking the lake beyond. She looked to him. “Who are they?”
He hesitated—just barely—not even enough for another to notice. “The Pleiades.”
The Seven Sisters, daughters of Atlas. She looked back to the windows, counting. “There are only six.”
He nodded and turned away, toward the circle of wrought iron at the center of the room. Opening a gate inlaid in the railing, he waved the lantern toward the dark circle below. “The seventh is beneath the lake.”
Sera moved toward him, sure that she had misheard, her gaze transfixed by the dark, turning staircase there. There were no lights below, the first few steps giving way to immense blackness in no time. She looked back to Malcolm. “I’m not going down there.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all, because the words beneath the lake sound properly ominous and, second, because it’s blacker than midnight down there and I’m not an imbecile.”
His lips twitched in a tiny smile. “I was planning to go ahead of you.”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I shall be fine here.”
He ignored her, turning to the wall and fetching an unlit torch, opening the lantern he carried and lighting it with impressive skill. Sera took a step back when he lifted it over his head, casting his face into bright light and sharp shadows.
“If you think a burning club is going to make me feel better about going down there, you’re very misguided,” she said.
He chuckled at that. “You do not trust me?”
“I do not, as a matter of fact.”