Page 55 of Flirting with Forever

His hands came up as if he’d been burned. He nearly tucked them under his arms, but at last he brought the ringed one forward with evident will. “It is my mark.”

“In an emerald?” She could see the P and L etched backward in the surface.

“Not just an emerald. ’Tis the Kingfisher of Istanbul.”

“Oooooh,” she said, impressed, for the only named jewelry she owned was a Joan Rivers bracelet from QVC. “Does it come with a curse?”

“It did for me.”

She held her breath.

“I bought it six years ago, after a particularly large commission from the Duke of Silverbridge. Once I saw it in the jeweler’s hand, it was the only thing I could think about. It cost a king’s ransom, but to me it represented reaching the height of my profession. The woman I loved—Ursula—laughed when I told her I planned to buy it. She thought I was making jest with her. When I told her why I wanted it, she told me that if I depended on the adulation of gemstones, I would never be fulfilled. We quarreled. I bought the emerald, had it engraved, and we never spoke of it again. It wasn’t until years later that it dawned on me I would have been far happier if I had given her the stone and watched it blaze away the rest of our days on her finger.”

Odd, Cam thought. He has a ring that brings him pain, but he wears it, and I have a ring I love that I hide.

“Were you together long?” she said.

“Ten years.”

“That is a long time.” And a lot to regret. But the trick had to be letting go of the regret. Starting over. That’s what Jacket wanted her to do. She’d been so angry for so long. She had to teach herself to cling to what she had, not what she’d lost.

“Why do you wear it?” she asked.

For a long moment he was silent. Another flash of spangling lights brightened the night sky, and a soft wind blew the hair around his shoulders. “I don’t want to forget. I don’t deserve to forget.”

As he gazed at the ring, she watched his face: the pained eyes, the strong, determined mouth. “In my opinion,” she said, “one of the hardest tasks for a human is to accept that what comes our way is a journey we need to take,” she said. “If we err, we should not add unnecessarily to our burden. Failure is enough. Nor should we try to avoid the good things that come our way serendipitously, even when the reasons for them are unclear.”

She thought of that book on Amazon and the amazing gift it had given her. She thought of Jacket, renewing his proposal. That was a good thing, right?

“Do you think all things that come our way serendipitously are good?” he asked.

“Not so much good as necessary, something we must act upon. But they can be very, very good. And it is our responsibility to find out how by working them through to their conclusion.”

“My success,” he said, “came very serendipitously.”

“Oh?”

“Which is not to say I lacked talent, but talent, as you know, is quite different from success.”

She did.

“Van Dyck—you know his work, aye?” He continued when she nodded. “I was not his pupil, yet it was impossible not to be influenced by him. He was one of the most famous artists of the time, and I traveled to Antwerp not once, but twice, to see him. He was already quite established as the portraitist to Charles’s father here in London.”

Cam tried not to move. This was exactly the information she needed.

“He looked at my work—I was exceedingly good—and gave me the usual encouragement. Well, it so happened Elizabeth of Bohemia was at his studio at the time, as were a number of her ladies-in-waiting. There was one—Giselle—” He caught himself. “But perhaps that is a story best left for another time, for it caused Van Dyck trouble he did not fairly deserve. In any case, Elizabeth had the opportunity to admire a painting of mine, and when Van Dyck died, she wrote to her brother recommending my work.”

“And her brother was connected with the king?”

He laughed. “Her brother was the king. Charles the First. My original patron. The father of my far more troublesome one. But my point is, things came very easily to me—my talent, my position with the court, considerable wealth. I grew accustomed to this success, placing a value on it far beyond its worth and, worse, allowing myself to grow blind to the things I had that really did matter.”

He twisted the ring absently, eyes focused on the dark night. He gave her a sidelong smile. “Regrets.”

She touched his hand. “One must let failure be enough.”

* * *

The touch rose up his arm and exploded in his chest, like one of the fiery bursts over the river, only this one seared his heart, like the touch of God upon Adam, and he wanted her. Every particle in his body strained toward her. But she was affianced, or nearly so, and in any case, her body was committed. He had seen it with his own eyes, the way she arched when her lover’s hands were upon her in her head.