Page 75 of With Love in Sight
“There was such a sound. As long as I live I shall never forget it. The deep rumbling that fairly split my ears, the screams. I thought it would never end. As if in slow motion I saw him scramble, try to get purchase on the tumbling rocks. I reached for him, but it was too late. When the dust cleared there he was, at the bottom of it all. He was so still.”
His voice was guttural, infused with pain. The words seemed to speed up as they poured from him. “There was so much blood. And Emily was trying to get to him, stumbling over the rocks. She fell, tore her cheek open. She was like a wild animal, trying to reach him. I remember her clawing desperately at the rock still lodged on Jonathan’s chest. She would not stop screaming. Her face was pouring blood from the gash, her nails torn and bleeding from pulling at the rock. We tried to drag her away, but it was as if she didn’t know we were there. We finally managed to subdue her, to remove the rock from Jonathan. When she saw he was gone, truly saw he was dead, she fainted. We carried them home. I can still remember the blood on my hands, that horrible smell.”
Imogen’s heart drummed painfully and her eyes burned. What they must have endured. And yet—
Still things did not add up. Why had there been ten years of estrangement following that?
“Caleb,” she said gently, “I don’t understand. Why this breach with your family?”
He looked at her, the raw agony in his eyes overlaid with disbelief. “But don’t you see?” he said, his voice hoarse. “It was my fault.”
Imogen looked at him in shock. “Oh, no, Caleb.”
But he was shaking his head. “If I had only let him join us, he would still be here today. But I was so full of pride. I hurt and disparaged him. And when he made to hold me back, I practically pushed him to his death.”
Imogen could see from the hard glint in his eyes that he was not about to let this go easily. Like Donald Samson had said early that morning, he was so damned stubborn.
She sat forward. “Caleb, did you mean to throw your brother off balance?”
A look of horror and anger suffused his face. “Of course not.”
“Then how could you possibly be at fault?”
“How could I not be? It was because of my actions that he fell.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” she pushed, “that had it been Emily who had accidentally thrown Jonathan off balance, you would expect her to take the full guilt onto her shoulders?”
“Of course not,” he scoffed. “What mad idea is this?”
“Then tell me how it is any more sane for you to do so.”
Caleb went to the window, looking down into the gardens. “You don’t understand. You were not there.”
Imogen watched him, noting the stiff cast to his shoulders under the fine lawn shirt. That was true. She hadn’t been there. She could never fully know the details of what had occurred, and so she knew her words would forever fall on deaf ears.
Her eyes narrowed as she considered what to do. There had been others there. Sir Tristan and Lord Morley, of course, who were back in London. But also Emily. If she could just get the two to talk, for Emily to make him see that she did not blame him, perhaps he could let go of some of the guilt.
She thought long and hard on this as Caleb stood silently at the window. His reaction to Emily yesterday morning told her all she needed to know. He believed Emily blamed him, that she was punishing him. They had to make him see that this was not the case.
But would Emily go for such a plan? Especially now that she was so fragile? She recalled the girl’s advocacy on her brother’s behalf, trying to get Imogen to accept his suit, and she knew in her heart that Caleb’s sister would help.
Imogen straightened. “You believe Emily blames you for Jonathan’s death.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, the indirect light of the fading day throwing his features into harsh lines. “Of course. Why wouldn’t she? I took away the person she loved best in this world. She is scarred for life because of it.”
“And have the two of you ever talked of it?”
As he turned back to the window he gave a harsh laugh. “Of course not. Her feelings are plain on her face. We have no need to bring it up and court more misery.”
“It is why you believed so easily that she would try and turn me against you.”
He gave her no response but a shifting of his weight, a further tensing of his shoulders. It was answer enough.
“And yet,” she mused, “that conjecture, which you were so certain of, was wrong.”
A peculiar stillness settled over him. He faced her. “Yes,” he admitted gruffly. “I did her a disservice by thinking such a thing.”
The pain in his eyes nearly made her falter. But she could not back down now. No matter the grief he was feeling at this moment, it would be well worth it if she could reconcile these two damaged souls.
