Page 55 of Earl for the Summer
All it demanded of him was grasping what was right in front of him. She said he had a decision to make, and yet part of him knew it had been made the minute he’d crashed into her in that damned ballroom. He’d never been the same since the moment.
Now, he couldn’t imagine a future without her.
He started back across the field as clouds swept in. Eagerness built in him, love drove him, and he lengthened his stride until he was all but running through the tall grass. As the land tipped downward and Hillcrest came into view, cool drops of rain began to fall.
By the time he was close enough to see through the glass of the conservatory, his clothes were drenched and his hair dripping, but none of it mattered as much as finding Daphne and telling her what was in his rusty, racing heart.
Then he saw a flash of pink through the glass of conservatory walls.
He rushed around the structure and strode through the entrance, and his lungs drained of air.
She stood at the far edge of the conservatory, eyes wide, clasping her right hand. Blood seeped through her fingers.
Cassian rushed to her, pulling at the arm of his shirt until the seams tore. He pulled a strip of rain-soaked cloth free. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing. A small cut.”
He worked quickly, dabbing at the cut with his damp shirt, then wrapping the clean strip around her hand.
“What happened?” he asked quietly as he gathered two ragged edges of the cloth and tied a knot.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wanted to explore, and I broke a pot. When I tried to pick up the pieces…” She glanced over to where one of the clay pots he’d collected for seedlings had tumbled off a low tiled ledge along the conservatory wall.
“I don’t care about the pot. I care about you.”
“I…found something,” she said, then looked up to him. “I wasn’t being a busybody. A tile broke, and I spotted it in a hollow below the tiles.”
She pulled out of his hold to retrieve the item she’d found.
“I opened it. Read a bit. I was curious. I hope you’ll forgive me.” She lifted a slim leather-bound book up to him.
“What is it?” But the moment he took it in his hand, he knew. A memory came of his mother bent over the book, scribbling notes. He’d thought she was making notations about the plants she grew.
“You mother’s, I believe,” Daphne said quietly. She still wore a look of guilt.
Cassian stroked her arm. “You did nothing wrong. Please don’t apologize or feel ill at ease.”
“She loved you very much,” she said with a soft smile.
Cassian tightened his hold on the journal, then lifted the cover to look inside. He flipped slowly through the pages, catching snippets of his mother’s neat handwriting.
And his heart, which had felt near to bursting as he rushed back to find Daphne, now ached for his mother. Because the pages held no notes about her garden. They were all about her sons. On each page, she’d detailed their thoughts, their activities, their burgeoning personalities, cataloging all she saw and treasured in each of them.
Today,Julian said the most amusing thing. I adore his smile.
The boys are growing so fast.
They raced each other across the field, so far I could barely see them on the horizon. And when they came back, they were red-faced, breathless, sweaty, and grass-stained. But happy. Their laughter is a balm.
This morning, Cassian snuck out to help me prune the rose bushes.
They are so different. Julian’s heart is open. He is all laughter, loving everything, but lightly. Cassian’s heart is guarded and he tends to brood, but when he loves something, he does so fiercely.
Cassian smiled,his chest full of warmth, and he sent up a silent thanks to his mother. Then he closed the book, set it on the ledge, and turned back to the woman he loved fiercely.
“Does it hurt?” he asked about her cut as he reached for her.
“Not at all.” She slipped a finger between two buttons of his wet shirt to stroke his skin. “You got caught in the rain.”
