Page 38 of Atone, Adonis

What would any of those children have said, have thought, if they knew what life had in store for them? He couldn’t imagine. He didn’t want to. He adjusted his collar against the wind instead.

When he arrived at the river he found it frozen. He stopped where it angled toward the sea, noticing movement ahead. A figure picked her way along the bank, skirts lifted, bonnet dusted with frost.

Jules.

His heart thumped in his chest at the sight of her but he didn’t call out. He just watched her, as still as one of the icicles hanging from the pine boughs. He could have stood there and watched her forever.

But she turned her face to his, sensing his presence as she always seemed to do, and it was too late to flee. For a moment, she looked almost happy to see him, surprise blooming on her cheeks before unfurling into a smile.

“Countess,” he said, walking to her. “Good morning.”

She shuttered that smiling expression entirely as he neared. “Fred. I didn’t know you were out.”

“Just clearing my head. I was recalling when you hit your brother with a pine cone, right over there.”

A wry smile hitched up the corners of her lips. It was different from the surprised, pleased one she’d just shown him, but familiar all the same. This was a smile he remembered, the one she’d been developing at twelve, toeing the line of adolescence. Her lips were a woman’s now though, as plush and welcoming as they had been that night by the fire. He felt his stomach clench with desire and he had to avert his eyes.

She raised an eyebrow at him in response, at his pointed refusal to look at her. Neither of them spoke while the silence stretched and grew into something more awkward than he could abide.

“And your brother?” he finally asked. “He is recovering well, I hear.”

He’d grasped for something, anything, to say. But that had not been the right thing. Her answer, when it came, was cold and formal. “His fever’s broken and he’s moving about. Thank you for your assistance.”

“There’s no reason to thank me, Jules,” he said, wishing he could take that question back. Wishing they could revert to the warm domesticity of the kitchens. But he knew nothing he said now could reclaim that fragile pocket of understanding they’d shared two nights ago. That closeness had been borrowed, not earned.

Grief, not grace.

Fred drew a breath and let it out slowly, watching the plume of it dance between them. Then he extended his arm. “Walk with me?”

Her lips curved faintly again and he didn’t know if she was feeling hopeful or reckless or as dangerously unsteady as he was when she took it. They—her lips—were pink from the cold air and he thought they looked made for savoring. Like fresh cherries or plums plucked straight from the tree. He tried to banish that thought as they fell into step together, boots crunching in rough unison.

“I do remember, you know,” she said after a while. “Hitting Tom with the pine cones. How much I longed to be included in your games. I followed you all the time.”

“I know.” He found himself smiling as he sank back into the warm familiarity of her company. “You were a little pest.”

“I was not!”

“Oh, believe me, you absolutely were.”

“Well—” Her voice was ripe with mock indignity. “I’m no pest now.”

“No. No, you’re not that.”

Julianna faltered in her steps, skidding on a patch of ice, and Fred reached to steady her. His hand slipped around her waist as he pulled her up and close to him.

“I’ve got you,” he said and held her closer still.

Long enough to notice how well she fit against him. Long enough to remember the cost if he let her stay there in his arms, the curves of her breasts pressed against his chest.

He stifled the growl he wished to make and stepped away from her instead. “Are you alright?”

She blinked, as if gathering herself. “Yes. I think so.” And then, as though grateful for the excuse to put even more distance between them, she said, “Listen.”

Her gaze locked on a snow-laden hedge. A faint, fluttering sound emerged from it. “There’s something in there.”

She crouched down but Fred held her back with his hand. “Let me. Whatever it is will be dangerous if it’s hurt.”

He brushed away a snow drift and peered beneath the hedge. There was a small thrush caught inside it, its wings ensnared in a twisted branch that had iced over in the storm.