Page 46 of His Forgotten Bride
“I would—”
But he stifled the impetuous words with his fingertips. “You’re too soft-hearted, Claire. No, you didn’t know me then. And you wouldn’t have liked the man I was.Idon’t like the man I was.” He pressed her back down, crawled alongside her and dropped onto the bed. A moment later, his chest pressed against her back and his large hand pulled her hips into the cradle of his. A soft sound of satisfaction rumbled in his chest, and she considered how many years it had been since he had allowed someone so close to him. Since he had desired closeness, reveled in it.
His right hand flattened over her chest—a possessive touch, not a provocative one. A series of small white scars trailed along the back of his hand and she traced them with her fingers.
“Those I’m not sure of.” His voice was muffled, his face buried in her hair. “I suppose they must have come about during the missing years.”
She knew that; she had recognized them. He’d acquired them rescuing a kitten from a briar patch. She’d bandaged him up and fallen in love with him in the space of an afternoon. It had felt like magic, like tumbling headlong into a beautiful dream.
“We’ve all got our scars.” She had meant the words as a sort of reassurance, but instead they had come out sad and resigned.
“But some are badges of honor,” he said, his hands drifting down her stomach to stroke the silvery streaks that bore testament to where her belly had swelled to accommodate their child. “The majority of mine are shameful, evidence of sins I’ve committed, wrongs I’ve done.” His sigh feathered through her hair, warmed her skin. “I’m not a good man, Claire. But I am trying to be a better one.”
She flattened her hand over his. “If you were not a good man, you might have thought to secure my acquiescence with a baby.”
“Don’t think I did not consider it.” He softened the words with a kiss to top of her head. “I’m a long way from decency yet. But I don’t want you unwilling or trapped into marriage. How could I repay your kindness, your generosity, with such cruelty?” His leg nudged between hers, and she was surrounded with his warmth. “Still, I feel honor-bound to warn you—I’ll not make it easy for you to refuse me.”
Somehow, she had been afraid of that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gabriel dreamed.
He knew it for a dream, for he’d gone to sleep in his own bed, only to find himself in an unfamiliar room, small and spare. A rented room from the looks of it, with only a narrow bed, a nightstand, a dresser, and a small table with two rough-hewn chairs. The woman in his armsfeltlike Claire, but though the light pouring through the window revealed to him his own limbs, it cast her into shadow.
This was a dream he’d not had before. Probably this was where he had stayed with Catherine after their marriage, before his accident. It seemed unlikely that he would have conjured it up from nowhere, but he wondered why it was only now that it had been revealed to him,nowthat his brain chose to share this memory with him.
When he sat up, it carried with it not the sense of being pulled aimlessly through a memory but conferredagency. The first action he’d taken of his own accord—controlling the progression rather than experiencing, helpless to act of his own will.
He’d thought to feel the same sense of longing that had always assailed him, the ache that had always pierced his chest for those things he could not recall. But they did not come. Instead a quiet sort of peace settled over him.
The woman beside him had not stirred, and he heard her soft, even breaths in the regular cadence of sleep. He doubted she would stir even if he shook her—this dream had not been meant for discovery of his past, but for closure of it.
To move on, he had to let go.
Of Catherine. Of their child. Of his past. He would have to make his peace with it, with the likelihood of never knowing—only when he accepted that some things were beyond his control, outside of his reach, could he truly move forward.
His fingers touched hair as soft as silk that slipped through them like water, a fleeting sensation, and he wondered if he remembered the feel of it at all, or if his mind had simply conjured up an invention of what he thought her hair must feel like.
“Catherine,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I failed you.”
She slept on, undisturbed. But how could she have been? This was only a dream, an altered memory, a figment of his imagination.
“I hope that one day Iwillremember you. That I’ll finally have the opportunity to mourn you as you no doubt deserved. And I hope that you’ve found peace.” His breath shuddered out. “I thinkIhave.”
Was it wrong of him, to hope for that?
“There is a woman,” he said, and winced at how disloyal the words sounded. Even if shewerejust a dream, an illusion. “She has a little boy. Matthew. And I think it must have been fate that cast them into my path. I want very much to keep them.”
It seemed such insufficient phrasing, such a pallid, tepid expression of his feelings.
“They make me better, Claire and her son,” he said. “Like a gift from God. A second chance at life. And I know that’s not fair to you, but—I’m still here. I’m here, and you’re not, and perhaps it’s not fair for me to be happy—”
But suffering had done no one any favors. No matter how miserable he was, no matter how guilt-ridden or remorseful or shamed—she was stillgone. She was gone, and she could never return. There was no bringing her back.
“Perhaps it’s not fair for me to be happy,” he reiterated, “but I want to be. I would like to be the sort of man that you could have been proud of. I would like to be the sort of man thatIcan be proud of.”
He wasn’t that yet. It might be years, decades, before he redeemed himself.
