“He was watching through a crack,” Christophe went on, still not making sense.
“Son,” Apollo started. “Explain.”
“A crack,” he hesitated, “in the gardener’s shed.”
Apollo drew in a sharp breath.
Christophe took his ankle from his knee and leaned into his hand in the sofa, asking excitedly, “Did she really stick a man with a knife, Papa?”
Apollo stared into his son’s bright eyes and did not answer. Instead, he stated, “Nathaniel should not have been doing that nor should he have shared what he saw with you.”
Christophe held his gaze.
Then he whispered, “She did.”
Bloody hell.
“She was tired and cross,” Apollo told him.
He watched his son’s mouth quirk before he remarked, “She’d have to be very tired and very cross to stick a man.”
In other circumstances, not these, he would agree with his son that this was amusing.
This time, he didn’t.
He had other concerns.
“What else did Nathaniel tell you he saw?”
Christophe sat back, his shoulders slumping. “Nothing. Lees saw him when he was taking the lady…I mean, Madeleine out and he pointed at him so he thought it best to run away.”
Apollo relaxed.
“He said she was meaner even than Laures,” Christophe went on.
“Again, she was not in a good state,” Apollo replied.
One side of his son’s mouth hitched up as he commented. “Nathaniel said it was grand. She grabbed his face and took Laures’ knife and—”
He stopped talking when Apollo took his arms from the sofa, leaned into him and quietly shared, “Do you remember what I told you on the ship on the way home about the two worlds?”
“Yes, Papa,” Christophe answered.
“In her world, she lost you and Élan.”
Christophe snapped his mouth shut.
“In that world, your twins were never born. But she carried both and your twins in that world were taken from her before they took their first breaths.”
Christophe held his father’s eyes, his now stricken.
Nevertheless, Apollo kept speaking.
“She grieves this still. And when she saw the children she never had, and saw them frightened, she reacted. She did what she would have done if you were her own. It is not grand what she did, Chris. It is beautiful. Don’t you think?”
Christophe nodded slowly.
“Your sister doesn’t understand this because she doesn’t remember losing her mother. But I think you do. She lost her Christophe and Élan. You lost your mother. Of anyone, you and I, we understand. Do you agree?”