“A thousand times a day, I think.” She opened the salve and dipped her finger into it. “I thought if I could summon his face, if I could make the memory complete, perhaps it would have less power.”
She swallowed.
“But I never could. Not clearly. I remember feelings more than features. The smell of him. My fear. The pain. The shame afterward… stupid. Stupid shame.”
Gideon’s hand flexed against his knee.
Beatrice set the salve aside for a moment and looked at him fully.
“As best as I can, I realized, I need to let it go.”
His expression shifted, stark and pained.
“But can you?” she asked softly.
“Let him go?”
“Let go of so much anger that it happened, let go of fearing it’ll happen again.”
For a heartbeat, Gideon said nothing.
Then he exhaled, long and uneven. “If you can, I sure as hell ought to be able to.”
“I… haven’t quite managed it yet. Not completely,” she admitted.
“No?”
“No.” Her mouth curved faintly, though there was little humor in it. “A little fear, a hint of anger, does not hurt. It reminds one to move. To pay attention. To act when acting is necessary.”
His gaze held hers.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “It does.”
For a long moment, they both sat in silence.
Then Gideon’s eyes dropped to the bloodied cloth in her hand.
“And tonight,” he said, as though only now arriving at the whole truth of it, “you acted.”
Beatrice’s fingers tightened around the linen.
His gaze returned to hers, filled with something deeper than pride. Deeper than astonishment.
“You saved me.”
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No, Beatrice. Not just anyone would have. But you did. You saved me,” he said again, slower this time.
As though the words had rearranged something inside him.
“You,” he said, his voice rough with wonder. “Saved. Me.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised.” His brows shot up. “I have known for some time that you are capable of alarming feats. But I had made certain assumptions.”
“Had you?”
