“A cane and a scar? That won’t be the end of the world.”
“It will be to her. Her appearance matters to her.”
He considered her point. “And I thoughtIwas compassionate to a fault. It seems I’ve met my match.” He moved toward her, close enough that she could smell his musky scent.
How long had it been since she’d been outside these walls with him? she wondered. How long had it been since she’d spent any time alone with him, talking easily, as they used to do? She promptly felt hungry and deprived of…of what? Of companionship? Of love?
Love.
“I don’t believe that compassion is ever a shortcoming, Adam.”
“It is when it lays you out like a doormat.”
“I’m not anyone’s doormat.”
“You are. Your guilt has made you into one, when you have done nothing wrong.”
“It’s not guilt that makes me care for her, it’s—” She stopped.
“It’s what, Madeline?” He took a step forward. His eyes searched hers.
Madeline felt the air sail out of her lungs, taking with it her resolve to be strong and keep her emotions in a tight harness. She felt the rigid muscles in her neck and shoulders go slack.
“Diana needs me now. Maybe, if I’m there for her and help her, maybe she’ll…maybe she’ll…”
Adam’s gaze narrowed. “Maybe she’ll love you?”
Madeline felt tears of realization filling her eyes. “Neither she nor Father ever said a kind word to me, or made me feel important to them. I suppose…” She paused for a breath. “I suppose I just want tomatterto someone. Is that so wrong?”
He held both her hands. “You matter tome,Madeline. Why won’t you let me love you? Why can’t you let go of what Diana will never be?”
“She’s my sister. My flesh and blood.” Madeline could feel herself melting into him. “I have to try and save us—as afamily.”
Adam’s gaze narrowed in on her. “This is about your mother, isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “No, I—”
“Yes, that’s it. You think it’s your fault that Diana and your father were so miserable all your life. It’s not your fault that she died, Madeline. God has His reasons for taking those we love from us, and we must accept that. If Diana and your father deprived you of love because of it, they hurt themselves as much as they hurt you, for look at your family now. You are spread out and distant from each other in your hearts.”
“But I don’t want to be distant. I want us to love each other. I look at your family, Adam, and I long for what you have been able to create and nurture and sustain.”
He clenched his jaw in frustration. “Talkto her, then. I know you’ve been afraid of opening your heart, but you must, if you are ever going to fix what is broken in your life. Tell Diana how much she means to you, for love is as much about what you say and do and what you show, as it is about what you feel inside. Perhaps Diana needs to learn that as well.”
Madeline felt a spark of recollection flicker inside her. “Mary said those words to me once—about how important it is toshowyour love.”
“I’ve said those words to Jacob many times.”
So the lesson she had learned from Mary and Jacob had really come from Adam, for it was he who had passed that knowledge on to them.
She stood in the warmth of the kitchen, gazing up at the man who had come riding into her childhood on a big black horse looking like her very own prince charming, coming to rescue her from her locked prison in the tower. She hadn’t known how long it would take, or how he would do it. Scale the walls perhaps? Fight off a dragon? Who would have thought that he would simply hand her a key made of hope, to open her heart?
Her voice quivered with a flood of emotions. “Adam, I have pushed you away, tried todriveyou away, yet you continue to be a friend to me.”
He smiled down at her, but she knew he was not entirely pleased about this. He was sending her to reconcile with her sister, knowing that a reconciliation might bring them closer together but leave him standing outside in the cold.
With nervous apprehension, Madeline returned to Diana’s room to find her quietly reclining on the pillows while Hilary read aloud to her. Madeline moved fully into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I would like to talk to you, Diana. In private.”
Diana nodded at Hilary, who closed the book and left the room.
