Page 20 of The Untamed Heart

Eustacia hesitated but felt instinctively that whatever he had been about to say was important, that it needed saying. She got up and followed him, her heart thudding with anxiety, for she did not underestimate the force of his anger, of too much repressed emotion. It seemed to thrum from him, making her own nerves leap.

“He would have what?” she asked, dogging his footsteps all the way to the shed.

Silence greeted her, and she knew she was playing with fire, but her besetting sin had ever been curiosity, the need to understand every detail so she could commit it to memory, and then to the canvas with complete accuracy and conviction.

“Would he have been angry?” she pressed before he could disappear into the shed.

He swung around to face her, his face taut. “No. He’d have been ashamed.”

“Ashamed?” Eustacia repeated, staring at him in confusion. “Of what?”

“Of me!” he said, thumping his chest with his fist. “He was a gentle man. He respected life and taught me to do so too. No small creature was too insignificant to matter. The land was a living, breathing creation to be treated with kindness, with tenderness. If he could have seen the aftermath of that battle, the mud, the blood, the broken pieces of man and beast—it would have broken his heart.”

Eustacia felt that same organ thud erratically in her own chest. The passion with which he spoke, the force of regret, of pain, it seared through her, some small echo of what he felt making her breath catch, her pulse flutter. He carried a dreadful burden, and she wondered how he endured it.

“No,” she said, some of that same passion infusing her own denial with something like anger, and though she wondered how she presumed to speak so to him. She met his eyes and looked back at him unblinkingly while her heart thundered. It was the hardest thing to hold his gaze, seeing the indignation that she dared to contradict him blazing there. Doggedly she continued, too much raw emotion making her voice quaver.

“The man you describe, a man who looked upon every creature with compassion, would never have looked at you with shame, Marcus. He may have pitied you for the suffering you endured, but he would still have been proud, proud that you survived, proud that his legacy lives on in you, at least that’s… that’s what I think.”

Somehow, she got the words out, but Eustacia knew she could not stand there and look at that proud, worn, and handsome face without doing something dreadful, like weeping before him. He would think it unforgivable of her and likely accuse her of maudlin sentimentality. It would certainly be the kiss of death for any prospect of working with him, and for the tentative friendship that she hoped was growing between them.

So Eustacia did the only thing that she could do: she turned on her heel and hurried back to the house.

Chapter 6

The Garden Remembers

Seagull Heights, Little Valentine, East Sussex, 22nd September 1816

Marcus’s fingers gripped the well-worn wood of the fork. It steadied him as memories spun out, as emotions and words and sounds battered him on all sides. For once it was not the battle, though, not that vile day when it seemed as if the world would end, as if the earth would suck them all down into the mire just to be done with humanity and all the foulness they had wrought upon the land. He’d wanted that, had prayed for it, just to make it stop.

But these memories were at once lovely and yet far more painful, which was why he had not allowed himself to think about them for such a long time—forever, it seemed now.

His grandfather’s face swam before his eyes: his thick white hair and long beard, the clay pipe that was habitually clamped between his teeth, and those intelligent, glittering eyes. No secrets escaped those eyes, and anyone who made the mistake of thinking this kind, quiet-spoken gardener a simple fellow with a mind to match would soon discover themselves gently disabused of that notion.

Marcus sucked in a breath, and pain lanced through his side. He clutched at it, breathing slowly to ease the sudden attack. He had pushed himself too hard; he knew that, and yet it had been a delight, a wonderful escape from the grey morass he’d inhabited ever since the war had ended. Before that he’d had a purpose: his duty, the men who were his to protect and bring safely home. There had been no time to dwell upon regret, upon the fact that he was utterly miserable, upon a life that was passing him by with nothing but blood and death to show for it, and he was supposed to be proud of that. He was having his portrait painted so all the world could pat him on the back and congratulate him for that.

His grandfather’s voice whispered through his mind. He’d not heard it in such a long time, and he’d missed it, had missed the advice that never seemed like advice at all. He only ever spoke of gardening, and yet he had a way of getting to the crux of the matter all the same.

The soil never lies, Marcus. You tend it, give it what it needs, and it repays you. It might get sick, but that’s likely the fault of a gardener who expects too much, who takes without giving back. But it’s honest, the soil. That’s why putting your hands in it feels so good, it reminds us of everything that’s true.

Marcus swallowed past the tightness in his throat and looked around to the place Eustacia had sat. He ought never to have spoken to her in such a way. The dreadful notion that he might have driven her to tears nagged at him, making him wretched. Yet he’d been content for a brief time, and he was angry with her for spoiling it.

Had she, though?

The man you describe, a man who looked upon every creature with compassion, would never have looked at you with shame, Marcus. He may have pitied you for the suffering you endured, but he would still have been proud, proud that you survived, proud that his legacy lives on in you—

He let out a ragged breath, allowing himself to consider her words. Though there was a part of him that wished to deny it, that felt he deserved the burden of guilt to be as heavy as possible, he knew she spoke true. His grandfather had loved him, just as he was. He had never expected, nor demanded, unlike Marcus’s father and his impossible standards. Papa had simply accepted, had delighted in his triumphs and commiserated over his failures. Though often enough he had viewed Marcus’s failures—certainly the childhood ones when his father’s punishment made sitting down impossible for days—to be triumphs in their own way.

He smiled wryly at that.

“Oh, Papa. I wish you were here,” he said, hearing the depths of regret in his voice.

He laughed then, looking around the empty garden and knowing he’d appear foolish if anyone saw him. Yet it seemed fitting to talk to the old man here. He had found him here, after all, after all this time and so much… so much turmoil. Though she may not have realised quite what she was doing, Eustacia had given him back his grandfather’s voice, a precious gift indeed. One he would be churlish to throw in her face.

Feeling a little mortified, Marcus tidied away the tools, placed the shed door back in the opening, and made a mental list of what he would need to buy to repair it. He added a list of tools too, and the things needed to mend those he could repair.

Then he washed his hands and face at the pump, dressed himself as neatly as he could do, and steeled his nerve to go around to the kitchen door. He knocked once, hard, before he had the chance to change his mind.