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A whistle started up in his ears, like round shots falling from the sky. He felt, for a horrible moment, as if he were floating up out of his body. He grabbed the desk, gripping tight to keep himself from falling over. Had he been thrown back into his nightmares? Was this some horrible hallucination that he would soon wake from?
But the seconds passed, and he did not wake. His heartbeat pounded in his temples, and he felt he might be sick.
“Margery,” he rasped through a throat tight with panic. “Who is that?”
“This is Aaron.”
He shook his head almost frantically. “No. No, that can’t be your husband.”
“It is.” She frowned. “Daniel, what’s wrong?” And then realization flared. “You recognize him.” Her voice was tight with disbelief.
He nodded, beyond words as he looked back to that familiar face. But whereas the boy peering up at him from this frame was young and vibrant, that same face had been contorted in pain and fear, covered in mud and blood and sweat, when Daniel had known him. And pale beneath it all as death took over him.
When he looked back up at Margery, hope and fear all swirled in the beautiful brown depths of her eyes. And he wanted to howl at the unfairness, the cruelty, of life.
“That’s the boy from my dreams,” he said, the words like knives in his throat. “The boy I shot. The boy I killed.”
Chapter 19
Ahorrible, violent ringing echoed in Margery’s head. “No.” Daniel could not have killed Aaron. It must be a mistake. A horrible, devastating, disgusting mistake.
But his eyes, those amazing slate-blue eyes that she had gazed into on so many occasions over the past weeks, first as secret associates, then as friends, then as lovers, were full of anguish. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand.” The words barely emerged from the parched desert her mouth had become. She swallowed hard, but there was no relief. His whispered words from two nights ago came to her then, as clear as if he had spoken them again.
I took aim, pulled the trigger…suddenly this boy was there, in front of me…He was running from the battle…when the smoke cleared he was gripping his chest…blood was bubbling from his lips…
“No,” she said again, even as pain sliced through her. “You have to be mistaken. You cannot have killed Aaron.”
But he only looked at her with a kind of fatalistic dread. In desperation her mind spun, searching for something, anything, that could disprove him. If he was telling the truth, it would not only mean that Daniel had killed her Aaron, but also that the blackmailer had been right all along, that Aaron had deserted his fellow soldiers, had betrayed his country.
Finally she latched onto something. “You said he called out for his sweetheart. Surely he didn’t say my name. He didn’t say Margery.”
“No.” The word was said slowly, an almost hopeful spark igniting. “No, he didn’t say Margery.”
Relief washed through her, leaving her nearly limp. Until he spoke again.
“He called out for Pearl.”
She closed her eyes as grief scorched her from the inside. “I’m Pearl,” she rasped.
A beat of silence. And then, “What do you mean?”
“It’s the name he gave me when we were children.Margerymeans ‘pearl.’ He always said I was his Pearl, as rare and as beautiful—”
Her throat closed off. Ah, God. How was this possible? What cruel joke was Fate playing on her, that she would cross paths with Daniel, that she would want him.
That she would love him.
Because she knew in that devastating moment, with her world once more crashing down on her head, that she did love Daniel. So very much.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to weep. Instead she closed her eyes tighter, trying to block out the image he had put in her head two nights ago, of that boy he had shot, then cradled as he died. Only now Aaron’s face was there, covered in blood and mud. How much pain did he feel? How much fear that he was about to die? He had called out for her, and she hadn’t been there…
She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
A tentative hand on her arm. “Margery—”
“I need you to leave.” She didn’t know where she got the strength to say the words. Not when all she wanted was to curl up in his arms and cry. Something she could not ever do. Most especially not with this man, who had ended Aaron’s life, no matter how accidentally it might have been. And who had proved that every horrible thing the blackmailer had claimed was true.
