Lily stripped down to her chemise and went to him. He pulled her onto the bed and into his arms. They lay under the blanket in a tangle of arms and legs, their faces close so they could speak softly and hear each other without waking the children.
“We have lost much in the last fortnight. ‘Tis difficult to think of movin’ forward,” he said.
“I’m so sorry about Brother Simon.” She wasn’t sure if she’d told him in all the bustle of the day.
“Lily,” he breathed hesitantly, as if he weren’t sure he should say what he was going to say. “I saw him. I spoke to Simon. He came to bid me farewell.”
She felt the wetness of his tears in her hair. She pulled him closer, trying to comfort him. She believed his words for she had seen him reach for his friend just as Charlie had called out to her.
“Lily?”
“Aye, my love?”
“He wanted me to tell ye that yer tears are water fer yer roots and will make ye even stronger than ye already are, and believe me, lass, ye are strong.”
The bubbling was rising, climbing higher. Water for her roots. She felt like giggling but when she smiled, her eyes filled up with tears. Let them fall, she heard in her heart. Let them really fall. Oh, she couldn’t. She was afraid. “I do not feel strong,” she let out but even as she spoke, her throat felt as if it were closing up. She’d wept a little last night and she was able to stop. And today, over Brother Simon. But this was all of it. This was the storm, and panic engulfed her. What if she never stopped crying?
“My love,” he said, gazing down at her. “Nothin’ will hurt ye again.”
Pressed against him, she closed her eyes. “What if I can never stop my tears once I let them fall?”
“Ye will stop. I will help ye.”
She knew he could. He always helped her feel better. She looked at him and he smiled. She ran her palm down his cheek. “You were worth whatever I had to endure. If I knew you were at the end of every journey, I would go on each one.” She could feel her nose turning red. Her voice quavered. She wanted to let it come and there was no one she wanted to shed her tears over more than for Brother Simon. She asked Elias to tell her about his closest friend.
“I think he was proud of me.”
“He was,” she pushed out. “He…he told me he was proud of the man you had become.”
The bubbling spring finally erupted. She held on to him like an anchor in the storm as she wept for all her friends and their children, for Elias, for her father, for Richard, for Brother Simon, and for the strong little girl Bertram had tried to destroy. She cried for all of them and for every day she spent away from her father, her half-sisters. She told Elias through sobs and hiccups about the destitute, broken women she’d met while traveling with Bertram. She wiped her eyes but it was a heedless endeavor.
He held her and listened to her and soothed her while she sobbed out stories about Joan and Agnes, all the women she’d called friends for the last two years. She’d lost so much, but she’d gained Elias and a new precious family in the other room. “I want to go to Invergarry. I want to meet your kin.”
“Yers now, as well.”
She wept again at the thought of gaining another family.
After a quarter of an hour passed with her still weeping, she wiped her eyes and kissed his arm that was slung around her neck and made her feel safe. “Elias,” she said with a sniffle, “are we keeping the three children?”
“Aye, and any more we find along the way. My home in Invergarry is modest but I can add to it and there is more than enough land fer many children. Not includin’ the ones we have together,” he added with a hopeful smile that made her laugh. “If we remain here, I shall add more rooms to this house and make it even bigger than Norman’s.”
It started as a giggle and grew into breathless laughter she muffled in his arm.
He held her and watched her, amused by what he saw. He kissed her smiling lips then he kissed her tear-stained cheeks. When he rolled on top of her, she didn’t protest but coiled her legs around his to keep him close. She wanted this…she needed this intimacy with him.
He moved gently, slowly, running his palms over every curve he exposed while he pulled her chemise over her thighs, and her soft, ticklish belly.
He lifted himself up onto his elbows and stared into her eyes. “I love ye, my lady.”
“Umm,” she purred like a cat, feeling his strength atop her. “I love you, sir.”
He found her wet and waiting and broke through like a husband home from a long absence and eager to see the love of his life.
They made love quietly though the sound of their breathing boomed through their ears. Short, ragged gasps as he sank deeper, moved with more purpose, filling her with every inch and then retreating again. She dug her fingers into his back and gripped his hard, tight buns while he pushed her to the brink of ecstasy. She held on as he dove over the precipice with her, thrusting slow and deep until she almost cried out. He covered her mouth with his hand and then she did the same to his an instant later as they found their releases moments apart.
They slept, first, wrapped together and then apart, each back to their own usual sleeping position.
Lily didn’t remember little Eddie crying in the night. Had he been too tired to wake? Or had she?