At the bottom of an armoire in one of the spare rooms, I found an old carpet bag and stuffed a handful of dresses, stockings, and undergarments inside. Only enough for a few days. I’d need money to pay for lodging as well. Was there an inn close by that hadn’t been affected by the blight? I hadn’t seen one during my walks with Ruairi. I’d ask Eava. She’d help me.
Tadhg appeared in the doorway, his cheeks sunken and sorrowful green eyes surrounded by dark bruises, reminding me of when he used to wear the enchanted kohl. When his gaze landed on the half-packed bag, the color drained from his face and his eyes snapped to mine. “Why are you packing a bag? Are you going somewhere?”
What was I supposed to say? That I didn’t know? That I just needed to get away from all of this so that he could figure himself out?
He caught my hand, tugging me into him, craning his neck so we were eye level. “Look at me. Tell me what’s in your head.”
He didn’t want to know. Still, he needed to see how serious this situation had become. That I refused to stand by and do nothing while he threw himself away. “I can’t be here anymore.”
His grip on my hand tightened. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been…” His throat bobbed when he swallowed. “I’ll do better. I promise. Please don’t leave me. I’m so sorry.”
When you heard those words so often over the same thing, they began to lose their meaning. “If you were sorry, you would stop destroying yourself.”
His gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m not cut out for fatherhood.”
“And yet you’re a father all the same. Your son needs you.” Not me. Not Millie. He needed his father.
Tadhg’s hands fell to his sides, and he straightened. “And I need you.”
I need you too. But I needed him trying to be better instead of trying to find an escape. “I can’t watch you do this to yourself. I just…I can’t.”
His eyes shuttered, closing him off from me yet again. “This is about Anwen, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t say it wasn’t because it was. At least part of it.
“You said it was fine,” he ground out. “That you forgave me because it wasn’t my fault.”
I had said that and meant it. What had happened with Anwen hadn’t been his fault. But this, the drinking, the distance he’s kept between us, that was on him. “This”—I gestured to his drink-splattered shirt and stained breeches—“isn’t fine.”
“So you insist on throwing us away?”
“I’m not throwing anything away, Tadhg. I am trying everything in my power to save us. But every time I look at your child, I am overcome by jealousy and resentment over an innocent baby who has done nothing wrong. I am trying to work through these dark, treacherous emotions cleaving me apart in order to find my way back to you.” I would have loved to drink myself into oblivion, but I’d had no time to wallow because I’d been taking care of Tadhg’s son so he could drown. “I need a break.”
His chin jerked back as if I’d slapped him. “A break from what?”
“From trying to fix someone who would rather be broken.”
“So you’ll cross the Forest, never to return. And when we wed, I can, what, visit you every other week?”
I stiffened. How could I have forgotten the bloody wedding?
He grasped my hands, holding tightly, as if he could keep me here by sheer force of will. “We are still to wed. Keelynn, look at me. Tell me you haven’t changed your mind.”
Tadhg let my fingers slip from his. He dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes haunted and hollow.“Feckin’ hell. I have invited everyone I know, and you’ve changed your mind.”
“I never said that.” I wasn’t backing out. Not yet. But I couldn’t marry him like this, not when I couldn’t trust him to be sober at the bloody ceremony.
“You didn’t need to. You can’t even hold my gaze.”
There was no point denying the truth. Seeing him like this broke me too. “I’m sorry, Tadhg.”
He didn’t bother saying it was all right. We both knew it wasn’t. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps. “How long do you need? A day or two? A week?”
I wanted to ask him the same bloody question. “I don’t know.”
“Give me something, a fraying thread to cling to. Anything,” he gasped.
“I love you. Is that enough?”