“I’m…” He closed his eyes, felt Gwen’s hand on his arm but… “Damn it all, I’m sorry, Gwen, I had no right to–”
“No, Tris, it’s fine. We–”
“No.” Agony rushed and he held his head in his hands. “You are such a good friend to me and I’m a savage. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m…”
Confused thoughts tangled and spiralled. His feelings for Gwen ran deep, deeper than Llyn Cowlyd, but he had no right to press his affections if those affections were promised.
Hellfire, what had he done?
Gwen’s handfluttered on Tristan’s arm, unsure, dazed and hesitant.
With that lullaby, an aching hollow of sadness had been resurrected for she’d sung it to him while he’d worked in his boat shed, but then he’d gently kissed away her tear, tasted her lips, and joy had filled that hollow, a love so deep for this man, for she’d felt sure he’d remembered…something at least.
Yet now he was apologising, regret evident in his eyes, and fate’s cruel jest was upon her. Had his kiss been born of pity? An instinctive response to her visible emotion.
“Forgive me, Gwen,” he rasped. “I should never have…” He opened his eyes – darkened to a leaf green. “My head… My head and…all of me still feels so odd.”
Her hand dropped and she swallowed.
Odd?She backed away.Should never have… Kissed her?Did a man have to feeloddto want to kiss her?
She thought she knew pain. Yet how that stabbed at her heart.
His words of regret echoed in her ears and she could not bear more to tumble from his lips, whether motivated by pity for her or anything else.
“Gwen, I…”
“I’m cold.” The words softly wrenched from her. “So cold.” And she twisted, hastened up the beach to collect her boots from behind a boulder.
She headed to the rock-hewn stairs but about to climb, a weakness beset her – it always had for Tristan – so she gazed back.
He stood tall, hands loose at his sides, shirt billowing and eyes piercing. He appeared at one with the sea, so handsome and indestructible. Yet she could also see the regret in his furrowed brow and clenched fists.
The past would never return.
Gwen’s hand raised to clutch at the dragon pendant beneath her bodice and she closed her eyes. Tonight, she must remove it. Place it in the box with all the other cherished keepsakes she’d held onto – shells collected at Darowen Bay, a lilac ribbon they’d cut in two for one another, a dried posy of sea thrift he’d gifted her.
She swallowed the knot of wretchedness within her throat, opened her eyes and picked her way up the steps.
OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
“Truth is springing up from the arms of Time to rejoice in the sun’s broad light.”
Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey…
Mrs Thrale. 1789.
“Where’s Gwen?”
The housekeeper glanced up from replacing wilted greenery in the hallway vase and tutted. “Gone.”
Tristan’s heart stuttered to a halt. “Gone? Gone where?”
“Home.”
“Home, Mrs Pugh?”
