“And when I am afraid?”
“I will not make comfort of it unless you ask me to,” he said.
A trembling laugh escaped her, broken and soft. He remembered. Of course he remembered. She stepped nearer still. “And when I am angry?”
“I will stand there and take it, if I have earned it.”
“You likely will.”
“I know.”
This time, they both almost smiled.
The rain fell beyond the arch. The castle worked around them, wounded and alive. Somewhere in the lower hall, a child cried out in sleep and was hushed. Somewhere beyond the gate, men hammered broken wood back into usefulness.
Aingeal lifted her free hand to his face.
The bruise at his jaw was dark beneath her fingers. He went still under the touch, not with restraint this time, but with wonder.
“I do not forgive all of it tonight,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“But I choose you.”
His breath left him.
“And I will keep choosing you,” she said, “if you keep standing in truth before me.”
His hand came over hers, holding it against his cheek. “I promise you,” he said. “No more borrowed names. No more hidden doors. No more choosing silence because it is easier than pain.” His voice roughened. “I promise to come back to you honestly, every day I am given.”
Aingeal’s heart trembled. It was the promise she had needed. Not that he would be spotless. Not that the past would disappear.
That he would come back to her in truth.
She lifted up on her toes and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was not fierce like the one on the battlements. Not desperate. Not born of jealousy, fury, or fear. It was slower. Deeper. A promise made with breath and trembling mouths.
Reginald did not seize. He did not claim. He held her as if she were both woman and mercy, both beloved and sovereign, and Aingeal rose into him without fear of what wanting made of her.
When the kiss ended, he rested his brow against hers.
For a long moment, they simply breathed.
“I needed you too,” he said. The confession was quiet.
Aingeal opened her eyes.
Reginald’s were still closed, as if he could say the words only in darkness.
“I needed you to see me when I could not bear to see myself. I needed your anger. Your truth. Your command to live.” His eyesopened then. “I have spent years surviving. I did not know until you what it meant to want a life.”
Aingeal’s fingers brushed his cheek. “Then live one,” she whispered. “With me.”
His answer came without hesitation. “Yes.”
Chapter thirty-seven
Two weeks later, Aingeal woke to the sound of bells before dawn. She lay still beneath the blankets, listening as the notes rolled over the castle and out across the wet green land beyond the walls.
