After that, he stopped trying.
Now he kept to his rooms. Some days the weight of his presence in the house was like a storm that never broke. Other days it was as though he had already left, and only the echo of him remained.
Aoife rarely saw him.
She preferred it that way.
The dress she wore today had once been two of Halverton’s gifts. With Clíona’s help, she had taken them apart piece bypiece. She had no use for layers and wide hips and fine silks that were hard to clean. That luxury had belonged to another life.
She had cut the skirts shorter, taken out the layers, replaced the tight sleeves with loose ones she could roll above her elbows, and stripped away the lace.
She could not go back to the girl who had arrived at Blackthorn Hall, but she was not Lady Eva either.
It had taken many months, but Aoife had finally found the path between, and Lady Eva’s dresses had been remade into garments Aoife could work in.
Aoife straightened from the herb bed and brushed the dirt from her hands. The autumn air was cool and bright; the orchard stretched away in rows of pale trunks and thinning leaves.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel path behind her.
She turned, expecting one of the gardeners.
The basket slipped slightly in her hands.
Cormac stood at the edge of the orchard.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
He had filled out since she’d last seen him, his broad shoulders softer beneath his coat. There was a steadiness in him now that she did not remember before. His hair had grown longer, falling loose around his face, and the wind lifted it slightly as he watched her.
“Aoife,” he said.
Her throat tightened.
“You came back.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “I said I would.”
She set the basket down slowly, wiping her hands against her skirt.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” she said.
“Only a year.”
“Eleven months and 8 days,” she corrected before she could stop herself.
The smile deepened a fraction.
They stood there a moment longer, studying one another. Aoife took him all in, every change. What she noticed most was the smell. His smell, ash bark and wet leather, was gone. He smelt like a summer day after the rain.
Cormac gestured toward the path. “Will you walk with me?”
She nodded.
They moved slowly through the orchard, fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet.
“It’s quieter here,” he said after a while.
“Most of the staff left,” Aoife told him. “Clíona and Ultán married in the spring. They’re living in the village now.” She glanced at him. “Didn’t you see them on your way through?”
