Page 116 of Wicked Rivals
“I do.” He could remember how the marble pieces had been cool against his fingertips, and the aroma of his father’s pipe smoke clinging like a lover’s perfume to the air. A scent he realized he still missed. Strange, he hadn’t thought of those memories for years. He was always so focused on the future—and so afraid to look back.
“When I taught you to play it wasn’t about victory or defeat. It was about how a man plays the game. The choices we make upon this earth. Not every decision has to be analyzed and thought out, but it should alwaysfeelright.”
Malcolm placed a hand on Ashton’s shoulder, and he felt all too young, like the boy he’d been all those years ago, the one who had crawled onto his father’s lap after supper to study the maps of the world or talk about sailing to distant lands. It was why he loved his shipping companies—they were the last bit of that past he still embraced.
His father smile’s was etched with lines of sorrow. “I failed you, my boy.”
“You didn’t—” Ashton protested, but his father shook his head.
“I did. But that is not your burden to bear. You must stop carrying the weight of my sins around your shoulders. You have so much left to do.” He pointed to the chessboard. The room was empty now except for him and his father. No more ghosts of the past haunting them with memories of happier days.
As Ashton focused on the game of chess, and the pieces began to move on their own; pawns chased his knights, and bishops slid across the board. “What must I do?”
“Same as in the game. You must protect your queen, or the king is lost.” His father’s voice sounded distant, and when he turned to face him, he was gone.
Ashton choked down words he had left unsaid, knowing it no longer mattered. His father was gone.
My father’s sins are not my own. He watched the battle unfold upon the chessboard until a ring of white pieces protected his queen.
Rosalind.
*****
Rosalind curled up on her side of the bed next to Ashton. It had been two long days since the doctor had extracted the bullet, sewn up the wound and seen to proper bandaging of Ashton’s shoulder.
When she’d asked how soon Ashton would heal, he’d replied, “The rest lies with God.” The doctor’s parting words had left her ill and feeling hollow. She hadn’t moved from Ashton’s side except to tend to her personal needs.
“Ashton, come back to me,” she begged for the hundredth time. Her fingers clutched his. She waited for a squeeze, a twitch,anysign that he was still there and she hadn’t lost him.
She wiped at the tears that kept pooling in her eyes. She couldn’t lose him, not when her heart had finally accepted him as her own.
“Please…” She would give anything in that moment for him to be all right. “I will never leave you again.”
“I…will hold you to that…” Ashton’s voice was rough, barely above a whisper.
“Ashton!” She felt his hand grip hers, squeezing weakly. She started to cry as she lifted his hand to her cheek and stared at his face. His dark-gold lashes fluttered, and she caught a glimpse of those blue depths she’d come to adore.
“There now.” He removed his hand from her hold to brush tears away from her cheeks. A heavy sigh escaped him, and his gaze moved about the room. “What happened after…?” He didn’t finish.
“My brothers and your friends fought off the hired men. Some died, others fled. Two were caught and will be facing punishment.” She didn’t want to talk about any of that. With him alive and awake, none of that mattered.
She just wanted him to get well so he could tease her and she could rile him up and tumble him into bed. There were a thousand things she wanted to do with him, and none of them involved dwelling on how she’d almost lost him.
“Ashton.” She moved in closer.
His eyes settled on her face, and he smiled. “What’s all this? Surely you didn’t think I’d leave you? You still have a promise to keep.”
He was trying to tease her, but she couldn’t joke about this. Not when she’d almost lost him.
“Ashton, please.” Damnation, she was going to blubber like a fool. “I need to apologize. I never should’ve left you.”
Ashton shook his head. “No. Had our roles been reversed, I’d have done the same. You felt betrayed, and I gave you no reason to believe I wasn’t speaking the truth.” He paused, catching his breath. “The man you believed capable of those things is the man that I used to be. The man who used anyone and anything to achieve his goals. But from the moment I met you, I’ve wanted to be worthy of you. I don’t want to be that heartless man any longer.” He cupped her cheek as Rosalind gently grasped his wrist, stroking him in a desperate need to comfort him.
“Nonsense. You are the kindest man I’ve ever known,” she insisted.
“I’m not. But if you let me, I shall endeavor to be worthy of that praise for every day of the rest of our lives together. You areeverythingto me, Rosalind.” The simple word sent wild shivers of joy and fear through her.
“I’ve never been everything to someone before.” She’d been a burden, a creature to be kicked about and shoved away, a thing to be pitied. Henry had cared for her in ways she’d never thought possible, but she hadn’t been his world. She’d never been someone’severything.
