For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love.
- H. C.
Beau as he seemed to retreat into himself as he stared at the page. It was so unlike him that it she wondered if showing him that note was the right thing to do. She was here to protect him, after all.
She fought the urge to wrap him in a comforting embrace and absorb some of the confusion he was feeling. To protect him. But protecting him from the truth seemed like cruelty.
Instead, she took her seat and returned the simple gesture he’d offered her this afternoon.
“Beau?” she said at last, lightly placing her hand on his. She didn’t know if he would rebuff the gesture, but he did not stiffen at her touch.
At last he looked up at her, and she caught the now-familiar look of self-deprecation. She expected some kind of joke, a deflection from whatever storm he was trying to calm. Instead, he grabbed onto her hand, holding it as if he were holding onto the gunwale of a boat to keep himself from falling overboard. She should have been self-conscious about her hands, which were rough from days of cleaning and gardening. But he didn’t seem to mind. And she didn’t mind the way a river of warmth ran down her spine to her core.
“You called me by name,” he said. “You must really be feeling sorry for me.”
She shrugged, resisting the urge to reach up and smooth the lines of worry from his brow.
“It’s short and I’m not a woman of many words. Why use four syllables when one will do?”
* * *
Beau stared as he held the delicate piece of paper with his fingers. Hollis Chandler hadn’t just known Emily Redden.
He’d loved her.
A thousand uncomfortable thoughts prickled under his skin. The odd way Annie had greeted him when they’d first arrived. The foreman who had mistaken Beau for Daniel’s relation. The haunting sense of knowing Beau had experienced when he’d shaken Hollis’s hand. The curious answer Annie had given him when he protested his innocence in killing Frank da Silva.
I didn’t kill my father.
No, I don’t think you did.
In a moment, that knowing rushed at him like a train, slamming into chest, forcing him to lower the paper to the table. Annie was right. Even if he had pulled the trigger at Frank da Silva, Beau couldn’t have killed his father.
His father was alive, and living next door.
A gentle breeze wafted in the room, picking up the delicate lace curtains they’d found packed away in the attic a few days ago. It brought with it the sweet smell of the meadow and wildflowers and carried away the haggard breath he’d let go.
“Why don’t I wash up,” she said softly, “and then we’ll go for a nice walk. It might help.”
They sat there, Beau holding onto her, idly running his thumb over her knuckles.
“How about we both wash up,” he said, letting go of her hand, which brought a pang of something like absence, which was ridiculous because she was still right there beside him. “And then maybe we can go find this berry patch.”
After the dishes were done, the two stepped out into a beautiful summer evening. The sun was still bright, but shadows started to stretch across the landscape. They walked in amicable silence for a while, the sound of crickets filling the air, Miss Murray’s presence the only balm for the torrent of Beau’s unsettled emotion.
“Are you going to talk to him?” she asked at last.
Him. There was no need for more. There was only one person on his mind.
“I don’t even know what I’d say,” he said, letting out a bitter laugh. “I’ve rarely been at a loss for words.”
“I saw the way he looked at you,” she replied. “I think he knows. Or perhaps he wonders, at the very least.”
Beau shook his head. “I don’t know much about how my parents met, but I do know my mother had gone to Halifax to visit Aunt Veronica, met Frank, and they were married shortly after.”
