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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Nichole Van
Read between
March 23 - March 26, 2022
Regardless, the repetitive motion soothed him, as did the rush of the water and the rustle of wind through the nearby stand of Scots pine.
The problem, of course, was that his former self wasn’t so much lost as shattered. Pulverized to dust. Obliterated.
Fox nodded. “One is a child of the body while the other is a child of the mind.”
ye cannae help another—ye cannae reach outward—without first shoring up your own inward foundation.
But her giving heart was a double-edged sword. She and Fox were both trapped in their own way. Fox, by the betrayals and shattering pain of his past. Leah, by her own selflessness, by a past that told her she was not valued unless she was useful. Both of them clung to their deceptions.
She wanted Fox’s trust without giving him hers.
William was right, then. Fox had received a letter and immediately proceeded to drink his weight in whisky.
“At some point, if we wish tae find happiness together, you and I, we need tae start trusting one another with bits of ourselves. This would be a good place tae start.”
Which meant . . . Fox Carnegie found her to be the opposite of . . . plain.
Madeline had scarcely left his side from the moment he had clawed his way back from Coorg. He remembered the first time he had held her, scooping her plump infant body into his arms and cuddling her to his chest, relishing her baby scent. And then, all the months after that, rocking her through the long nights when Susan simply . . . could not.
A weak man. A man who probably should not be allowed to raise Madeline. A man unworthy of Leah’s regard. Enough. This had to cease. This cycle of drinking, pain, and recrimination.
He would become a better version of himself.
That perhaps, with Leah at his side, he could find the courage to piece himself together again.
He remembered now . . . that look in her eyes right before Bethany had interrupted them. Longing. Desire. I couldnae stay away, not after . . . Did that mean what he thought it might? Fox’s pulse raced.
Fox nodded and followed his wife into the blinding storm, trusting her, as ever, to lead him to safety.
Perhaps happiness for them both was less a destination and more a journey to be explored.
The letter weighed heavy in his mind. Its lines haunting at him. . . . I discovered today that the Archbishop and His Grace are old school chums. I worry that your best-laid plans are beginning to unravel
I deduced she was Madeline’s mother.” “Aye.” His voice was coarse with emotion. “Susan was Madeline’s mother.”
Child? “No,” he replied, the words spilling from him. “Though I think of her as my daughter, Madeline was never mine. Susan . . .”—deep breath—“Susan was my younger sister. Madeline is my niece.”
Shamelessly, she buried her nose into the space between Fox’s throat and collar. He was holding her, and she was not going to squander this opportunity. He smelled like his shirts: leather, wool, sandalwood, and an underlying spice that had to be pure Fox.
“She was under my uncle’s care, as her guardian, until her twenty-first birthday. As I was stationed out of the country, we rarely saw one another. Most of my acquaintance didn’t realize I even had a sister.”
What had happened to Susan? After a moment, Fox continued, “The women in my family are susceptible to a peculiar sort of . . . malady.” “Malady?” “I say malady,” he deflated slightly, “but truthfully, as it is a malady of the mind . . . the more accurate description would be insanity.”
“It’s a terrible affliction,” he continued, “as if the act of giving birth damns them to madness.
Finally, he relented when I was fifteen. Susan was four.
“I only learned years later, from my uncle, that my maternal grandmother had suffered something similar,”
“But . . . Susan fell in love. Madeline was the result. Susan—” His voice broke. “Susan did not escape the family curse.”
“Madeline’s father . . .” Leah began tentatively. Fox shook his head, sharp and decisive. “I will say nothing about that man.” Venom laced his tone. “To do so threatens Madeline’s safety.” Leah licked her lips, mind racing, drawing conclusions from the spaces of silence within Fox’s narrative. Madeline’s father was a powerful man, someone who did not wish the presence of an illegitimate by-blow to be known. Someone more influential than Fox’s money and position in society. “Thank ye for your trust in me. I will always keep your secrets, husband.” Leah pulled back enough to look him in the
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She kept her eyes closed. Partially to savor the heady rush of emotion, the feel of his lips atop hers. Partially to protect her heart, to hide how desperately she wanted more, more, more of him.
That kiss had possibly been a mistake. Because now that he knew the pillowy feel of her lips, the honey sweetness of her touch . . . How was he to remain content with a marriage in name only?
“Wife, you never have to simply remember what my kiss feels like. You may have more of them whenever you wish.” She paused, gaze widening even further. And then she acted, as if something within her had been set free, as if his words ignited her. She pressed into him, her hands sliding up his chest and around his neck, her body rising on tiptoe, eagerly seeking his lips once more. Fox readily obliged, meeting the fierce hunger of her mouth with his own. He pulled her hard against him, one hand around her waist, the other burrowing into her hair, holding her lips to his. She moaned and Fox
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His lips drifted from hers, helpless in their need to explore, to learn every inch of her. The delicate curve of her jaw. The silky give of her throat. He adored how easily he drew gasps from her. How she clung to his shoulders, desperate to bring herself closer.
They kissed in the bothy for a long while. Until the rain stopped and the wind stilled. Until Fox pressed a trembling kiss to the pulse in her wrist and said, “Come, wife. Allow me to take you home.”
He wanted her, too. Enough to make her his wife in truth. She could kiss him whenever she wished. Part of her felt drunk on happiness, on the glittery sunshine running rampant in her chest.
Her lips replaced her fingers on the scar, pausing to linger at the place where his shoulder met his neck. Fox’s breathing rasped in her ear. “Enough,” he said hoarsely, tilting her head upward and stealing her own breath with a kiss.
No, Fox was not a perfect man, but she adored him, even in his imperfections.
Instead, he had moved with her throughout the night, as if she were a star and he tethered to her gravity.
“Tell me,” she asked. “How dreadful was your injury in truth?” “Dreadful. I survived.” He tugged her down. “Which is a good thing, as I am finding I quite enjoy being here with you.” He kissed her at that. And every other thought scattered to the wind.
In those moments, she would press a hand to his chest and her lips to his, whispering, “How might we distract your thinking?” Fox always had a suggestion. Within two weeks, he appeared . . . better. Nowhere close to cured, but on the mend.
She felt as if Fox were almost two separate people—the passionate lover who held her in the darkness and the polite, distant man who shared her days.
But the letters yielded few clues. Frustratingly, Susan’s lover never affixed his name, only ‘your captain’ or ‘your beloved’—the signature of a man too cowardly to write a salutation that would reveal his identity to others.
And as Leah was rapidly coming to understand, proximity to someone physically was not at all the same as knowing their inward heart, as being privy to their innermost thoughts and desires.
How silly to think that the emotion Leah had felt for him before their marriage was love. That had been infatuation, a mere calf love. But this . . . This feeling was all-consuming. It fluffed and stretched and stuffed Leah’s chest so full of longing she struggled to breathe. Leah loved Fox.
She wanted him to need her as much as she needed him, to fight for her love and affection, just as she would fight for his.
News of the trial date finally came on a dreary afternoon nearly six weeks after Leah had come for Fox in the storm. As it had that day in the corrie, rain pattered against the windows of his library.
Fox shook his head, trying very hard not to see the entire event as a wan ill-timed omen. Something unexpected loomed.
Every woman in his life had left him, in one way or another. Every. Single. One. Would Madeline be dragged from his care? If he gave over his heart to Leah, could he trust her to never betray him as others had? I would not survive such losses, he thought. Not Madeline. Not Leah.
Leah found herself studying the side of his head, following the curve of his nose and mouth, features she adored exploring with her lips.
In short—she wanted him to trust her. To reach for her, just as she always reached for him.
“I know nothing about the Battle of Coorg, for example.” “The Raja of Coorg rebelled against British rule, and we were sent to subdue the rebellion.
Why will ye not discuss the circumstances surrounding Madeline’s birth and Susan’s death?” “You want to hear that, too? Very well.”
