Both children wore expressions of worry, terrified that they’d been caught being too loud or too childlike. Emilie’s heart squeezed.
She hated the fact that she hadn’t been able to mend some of that relationship before she left. That would be her biggest regret from all of this; she knew that as surely as she knew she needed air to breathe.
“Emilie!” Louis called once he realized it was her and not their father that had just entered.
Both children’s faces relaxed at the sight of her, and once again her stomach soured.
How could she tell them that she was leaving? How could she break the news like that?
“Emilie, come play with us,” Aurora chimed, pointing to the painted wooden blocks spilled across the floor. “We’re tryin’ to build a house with our blocks.”
Emilie cleared her throat, not moving any closer. The twins glanced up, both of them giving her a quizzical look as she stared.
“Children,” Emilie started, not knowing how else to broach the subject. But her voice broke on the word, quickly giving away how upset she was over this all.
“What’s wrong?” Aurora asked, her tone going hard at the same time, Louis chimed in with a “have ye been cryin’?”
His tone had been more quizzical, no doubt filled with the same curiosity all children had when they realized that the adults around them had emotions much like their own.
“I have,” Emilie admitted, giving them a sad smile.
It would be better for them to have the truth, she quickly decided. If she lied to them now, she would regret it the moment she left. She would always wonder if they resented her for it.
And, at this point, there wasn’t really a reason to lie to them. Not when the sadness was so clearly working its way through her.
“What are ye cryin’ over?” Louis asked.
The young boy pushed himself up off the ground, immediately running over to Emilie’s side. Aurora, however, stayed put.
Her eyes, the ones that were gray and flinty, exactly like her father’s, studied her shrewdly.
Tears sprang into Emilie’s eyes again, stinging the back of her throat as they went. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear them from her vision, but they refused to go.
Louis reached her, his small hand coming up to clasp her own. But Emilie couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“Ye’re leavin’, arenae ye?” Aurora asked, her voice still hard.
Emilie’s gaze snapped down, landing directly on the young girl. She seemed to have aged ten years in the past few moments alone.
Sadly, and in a movement that felt like it might shatter her heart in a million pieces, Emilie nodded her head.
“I am,” she answered honestly. “Yer faither wants me to go back to the abbey. So back I will be goin’.”
“What do ye mean ye’re goin’ back to the abbey?” Louis asked, his voice filled with a childish refusal to understand. “When will ye be comin’ back?”
Emilie looked at him finally, swallowing hard as she willed her tears not to fall.
“I’m nae comin’ back,” she explained. “Yer faither doesnae want to be married to me anymore.”
“But ye’re supposed to be our maither.”
The words came from Aurora, shocking Emilie with their force. Before she had time to even glance up, the young girl had sprinted toward her.
All pretense fell away, and Emilie crouched down right as Aurora reached her. Both twins threw themselves into her arms, tiny shoulders wracking as the children burst out in sobs.
They clung to her tightly, small hands clutching in the fabric of her dress. Emilie gazed up at the ceiling, sending up a silent prayer for the strength that she’d need to be able to walk away from them.
“Why do ye have to go?” Louis wailed, burying his face in the front of her dress. “I daenae want ye to leave.”