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Chapter Thirty-Six
Mother Nature seems to grasp the solemnity of the mood inside Dùndubhan today, weaving clouds in the heavens to block the sun's light and cast deep shadows over the world. The lowering grey sky suits my mood. I feel as colorless and bleak as the world outside. Though I get up just after four a.m., I linger in the bedroom, sitting in the chair by the window to watch my wife sleep.
She's perfect, and I don't deserve her.
After a while, I dress and head downstairs. Mrs. Darroch isn't in the kitchen yet since I normally rise at six and it's not even five. I don't feel like eating, but I force myself to consume a large muffin I find in a basket on the counter. Mrs. Darroch likes to keep snacks on hand. I eat my meager breakfast, but it tastes bitter instead of sweet, tainted by the bile creeping into my throat.
My Emery, you are irreplaceable.
I'd spoken those words once, and then I chastised myself for it. Now, when I want to say them again, I know I shouldn't.
I see you, Rory. Not just the parts you show everyone, but the pieces you try to hide.
Perhaps my wife does have the ability to see into my soul, but if she looked closely, she would find bruises too deep to ever heal.
After choking down the muffin, I scuffle through the house like a ghost in chains and make my way into my office. But no, I don't want to be here. Not today. When Emery is gone, I imagine I'll sequester myself in here again to avoid…everything. An impulse grips me, and I grab the papers I'd left on my desk. Then I exit the office and walk downstairs, but my feet feel as heavy as concrete. With no conscious decision to do it, I take myself through the dining room and into the sitting room.
What am I doing here?
I drag myself over to one of the chairs by the windows and drop onto it hard enough that the legs thump on the floor. Glancing down at my lap, I realize I'm still holding the papers I picked up in my office. The marriage contract. I don't know why I brought it here. Maybe I want to punish myself with reminders of what a bloody stupid bastard I am. I set the papers on my thigh and stare numbly out the windows at the somber sky.
For years, possibly all my life, I'd kept my world in perfect order—until the night I walked into a bar in New Orleans and seduced an angel into tarnishing her halo for me. Emery shattered my rules with sweetness, humor, and love. But it's too late. I've destroyed us.
Someone enters the room. I can see the ghostly figure in my peripheral vision, but it's not a specter. My wife has found me. I might not be able to see her face, but I can feel her presence. Though I don't want to do it, I glance up at her.
"Good morning," she says, loitering near the doorway and swinging her hands in a nervous gesture. "How did you sleep?"
"Not well." I can't prevent my voice from sounding flat. "Did you sleep?"
"Uh, not much." She jams her hands in the pockets of her fleece trousers. "Could we talk?"
I avert my gaze to the window. "Nothing to discuss."
She edges a few steps closer. "Rory, come on. We need to talk about things. A lot of things."
I blow out a frustrated sigh. Why can't she just leave me and be done with it?
Emery adopts the firm tone she often uses with me. "Listen, we need—"
I erupt from the chair, and the papers fly off my lap to spill across the wood floor. She's given me no choice. Talking is the last thing we should do. I spin toward her, then freeze with my back straight and stiff, my face blank even as I drill my gaze hers in a vain attempt to convince her to leave without speaking the words. I can't say it. Get out of here, go home. No, my voice won't work, and I couldn't order her to go, anyway. I'm too weak-willed to do what I know should be done.
"Talk," I say in a crisp monotone. "If you must."
Emery rubs her arms. "I'm sorry, this is all my fault. The scandal Graham cooked up, he invented a lot of it, but the truth gave him a head start. You were humiliated because of me, because of my past, because I was stupid enough to say yes when my boyfriend asked me to pose for nudie photos. And I foolishly believed him when he said the pictures would stay private, for his eyes only."
I can't move, frozen from my muscles down to the center of my being. Nothing that happened was her fault. It's my doing.
She keeps talking.
"I never imagined my mistakes would hurt you. I wish I could fix this, but those pictures may never go away." She scratches her arms while her eyes glisten with gathering tears. "I wish I could erase all of it, so you never have to go through that. You were so upset you punched Graham and made him apologize to you, but that's not enough. How could it be? I brought this shame on you. It's my fault."
Emery thinks I made Graham apologize to me? That's rot. I don't care if the bod ceann harasses me. I assaulted him for her. A man in his right mind would tell the lass that, but I can't form the words.
She approaches me, tips her head back, and aims her shimmering gaze at me. "Please know I never wanted you to be hurt because of me. I love you, Rory."
"I understand."
"Do you?" She searches my face, but seems not to find what she hoped to see there. "I love you, but do you even like me? Or do you put up with me for the sex? On Skye, you said you loved me, but we were having sex and I don't know if you meant it. Did you? Do you?"
