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But he could not do it. Not now that he knew Emma was out there, that he could love in such a fierce manner.
“She is . . .” He thought back to last eve. “Extraordinary.”
“Garrick, if she were the Queen of England, it would not—”
“What is the one thing that annoys you most about me?”
Conrad snorted. “That you cannot visit the garderobe without a plan? That you overthink everything until you—”
“She is just the opposite. Emma is . . .” How could he explain her best? “She doesn’t think, she acts. And everyone around her is better for it. Aye, she’s beautiful, but—”
“And now you’re a bard.”
“There’s something there. Before I knew who she was. Something, Conrad, I’ve never experienced with a woman. Like a pull to—”
“Start a war with your mother’s relatives?”
Garrick clenched his fists. “You are a singular ass.”
“Why did you agree to the betrothal?”
In a rare display of seriousness, Conrad uncrossed his arms and legs, and sat forward, his elbows propped on his knees, his expression somber.
“Garrick?” he pressed.
Why? He’d asked himself the same question so many times in the past weeks.
“Because you encouraged it,” he shot back, still standing at the window.
Conrad didn’t respond. He merely quirked an eyebrow, silently communicating that Garrick had a better answer.
“Why? You know exactly why! Because the alliance will secure Linkirk. It will tighten our ties to our northern neighbors, convince those who are not yet convinced that peace along the border is possible.”
Conrad cleared his throat.
“Dammit, Conrad. What do you want me to say?” His skin tingled as beads of sweat began to form around his temples.
He knew the answer Conrad wanted. But he was still loath to think about it. Because it was the one thing, the only thing, that was keeping Emma from being his.
“Garrick?”
“To appease my mother.”
He let the words hang in the air like a morning fog. He had agreed because it was what his mother wanted. And after his father had been killed because of him, it was the least he could give her.
You did not kill your father.
He’d begun to believe her. Because he wanted to believe her. But his father was dead, and he had now set a path in motion that would ruin his mother as well. She would be forced to return to England. She would lose the one bit of comfort she had left.
“Bollocks, Conrad. What have I done?”
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He would make it right. Somehow he would make it right. Somehow he’d find a way to fix this without giving her up.
After his discussion with Conrad, Garrick did what he’d always done growing up on an island that wasn’t an island. He waited until the water receded and walked the path from the castle gates to the shore, over and over again, taunting the rising tide as if conquering it meant conquering life itself. Every time he made it safely to the rocky beach at the foot of the castle, Garrick felt renewed.
His mother hated the practice. Especially now, during the winter months, when the frigid waters could kill a man as easily as a sword in the gut. But the tactic helped him think. And while the castle housed only his knights and sworn swordsmen, their wives and children, and Clave’s servants, some of whom had been with the family since his birth, it still felt too crowded to suit him.
