Page 57 of Memories Made At Midnight
The stream was but a few dozen footsteps from the cottage. Once he’d filled the bucket as much as he could before it seeped from the sides, he glanced around and couldn’t contain his jubilant grin.
Stinging nettleand blackberries.
In the dusky dawn, he’d missed the plants.
Grandmama was an expert on herbs, and over the years, she’d shared her knowledge with her grandchildren, though none had the keen interest in natural medicines that their paternal grandmother had.
Nevertheless, Cassius remembered his lessons and knew that stinging nettle could help Beatrice, although he preferred using dried leaves for tea.
Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
He’d need to retrieve his gloves from the hut and find something to put the leaves in, however, because touching them barehanded would leave his hands raw and itching.
He meant to gather ripe blackberries too. It wasn’t much in the way of food, but it was something.
Though he’d have to risk a brief fire to heat water for the tea, he felt more hopeful than he had an hour ago. Lengthening his strides, he hurried to the cottage. As he rounded the corner of the cabin, alarm raised his nape hair.
Nala no longer guarded the doorway.
He broke into a run, sloshing water over the bucket rim in his haste.
A couple of feet beyond the threshold, he slid to a stop.
Beatrice, her brilliant sunset-streaked curtain of hair framing her slender shoulders, sat on her knees in her filmy shift, her faithful dogs on either side of her.
Confusion and fear creased her still waxen face, and upon spying him, tears pooled in her magnificent, but lucid, hazel eyes.
“I woke up and n-no one was here,” she whispered brokenly, her voice a harsh rasp. “I th-thought you’d left me.”
Cassius’s heart lurched and swelled behind his ribs. He clenched his hands, fighting the overwhelming desire to race across the tiny cottage and gather her into his arms. To assure her that he would never leave her.
But he would.
He must.
Mustn’t he?
Bollocks and blisters.
He was on the verge of toppling into the abyss he’d struggled so hard to protect himself from.
“Layton went for help,” he said. “You are too sick to travel on horseback, so I stayed here with you.”
He lowered the bucket to the floor, and slowly, as if she were a frightened wild animal, approached her.
Lower lip quivering, she peered up at him.
Proud and vulnerable.
Hopeful but hesitant.
“I promised I would protect you, Beatrice. I honor my word.”
It had become more than that. Much, much more, though what and when, Cassius couldn’t say for certain.
He dropped to one knee beside her, and she flung herself into his arms. “I was so afraid.”
How well he knew what that admission cost this independent woman.
Reeling with emotion, Cassius wrapped his arms around her quaking form, whispering soothing words into her silky hair.
If he hadn’t already given her his heart, it would have leaped from his chest to lie at her feet.
I’m lost. Utterly and irreversibly lost.
Regardless, Beatrice would never know.
Because he’d taken an oath to never love again, and his word was his bond.
