the words meant. And so, he stayed silent, content to sit with her and watch the sun set out the window in this room she had turned into one of the most beautiful in the entire house.
That’s what she does, he mused, brings light and life into everything she touches.
Could she do so for even his dark soul?
Chapter 11
Hannah sat outside in the back gardens of Hollingswood, painting the landscape beyond – much like Isabel had done so many years ago.
Falton had crafted an easel of sorts for her, and she had taken a stool from upstairs – the very one she had tripped over, causing her to fall into Edmund’s arms – and set up her watercolors. She had been remiss from her craft for some time now, so busy she had been adjusting to her new life and preoccupied with the house itself and the letters it held within.
“I’d like to paint the ruins next,” she said aloud, and Molly looked at her with some horror.
“Why?”
“Because of all of the secrets they hold,” Hannah said. “I’d like to see if I can somehow capture the very essence of them, and not just the eyesore some may see.”
Molly shivered. “It’s not for me.”
“You don’t have to come,” Hannah said with a smile, which increased when over Molly’s shoulder she saw her husband walk out of the back doors toward them.
“Edmund,” she greeted him, as Molly nodded at the two of them and then took her leave. “What brings you out here?”
He held up a sheaf of papers, and she looked at him expectantly.
“We haven’t read the last letter, and my brother is due to arrive this evening,” he said. “I thought perhaps we might finish this first?”
He raised his one eyebrow at her, and she nodded, surprised when he took a seat beside her. She wasn’t sure the ground could accurately be called grass, for it had been grown over long ago, but it was certainly an array of vegetation that might be somewhat comfortable.
Edmund opened the letter with his long fingers and began to read. Hannah sat back and simply watched him. It was interesting – she hardly even noticed the scars on half of his face anymore. They were simply part of him, as much as was the burden of guilt he carried around with him over the deaths of all of the men who were with him in that prison.
“Are you listening?” he asked, breaking through her thoughts and bringing her back to the moment.
“Yes, I’m sorry,” she said, “can you please continue?”
He nodded.
“My darling Isabel. It seems strange to write to you when I can look out the window of my bedroom and know that you are but a short walk away. It tears my soul apart knowing that you are there with him, when you will always own my heart. I fear that Alastair has some suspicion of the two of us, and therefore I will stay away. Please, my love, be careful. Give him no reason to doubt you, and if you must, leave and come to me. I will protect you. Always my love, Andrew”
Edmund looked up at her. “That’s the last of it. He was obviously right. Alastair did discover the truth, and Isabel was taken from him soon after.”
He looked out in the distance toward the ruins.
“What are you thinking?” Hannah asked softly.
“Only that I do not know what I would do if something ever happened to you,” he said, his voice nearly gutted, so much so that she rose from the stool and stepped closer to him.
“You must not worry. Our situation is much different,” she said, standing behind him and wrapping her arms around his neck, “for I know you will always be there for me. The wife you didn’t want,” she added, teasing him, but he was not in a jovial mood. When he gripped her hands tightly in his, she could sense the desperation within him, though why, she didn’t know.
“You feel his pain, don’t you?” she asked, and he nodded.
“It is ridiculous, I know, but I feel he is with me… with us,” Edmund said. “And yet, I have never been frightened of him.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It is somewhat… creepy I suppose you could say, that feeling of being watched, but I have no fear.”
“He misses her,” Edmund said, to which Hannah responded by nuzzling her chin into his shoulder.
“What do you think he is waiting for?” he pondered.
“To be reunited with