Aurelie watched him go, and she knew from now on, wherever he went, even if it was a mere few feet away, her heart would go with him.
Her entire being seemed to buzz as though she’d been adjacent to an explosion. But she felt oddly weightless. As if a breeze might send her adrift. It was an indication of how much her secret had weighed. She hadn’t fully appreciated how much of herself was involved in accommodating it.
She imagined it might shift back in some form for her to address.
What had happened was part of her now.
And she did feel as though she might sleep for a year.
But she didn’t feel drained, nor defeated.
Because this man who’d survived stabbings and beatings and that tattoo had gone outside because he could scarcely, in that moment, bear her pain. Her pain was his. She had never meant so much to anyone.
He was deucedly clever and ruthlessly tender and relentless and she knew it had cost him to surface her truth the way he had. He’d been right to do it.
And now she knew of a certainty that just as Hawkes had survived his battle wounds, so would she. She liked thinking of it this way: a wound one picked up in battle. She was the heroine of her own story. She would be the victor.
And she was changed forever, yes. Because of Brundage. But mainly because of Hawkes.
Chapter Twenty-Two
He returned and stood before her, and they regarded each other wordlessly.
The little cottage seemed filled with a strange, soft peace now.
Then he retrieved a flint from his pocket, one of those things that men always think to carry with them, and moved easily, slowly, to light the lamp, already neatly trimmed. It flared like a firefly, and then he turned it up and suddenly the room glowed.
“I should like to tell you something, Mr. Hawkes. I am not so fragile.”
“Oh, I know that.”
She smiled a little.
“Lord Brundage is but one man. I know there are likely many millions of men in the world. And my ancestors ruled France. Do you think one mere man could break me?”
“Not a chance.”
She smiled again, fully.
Christ. He might be willing to face a firing squad for the pleasure of seeing that smile.
“Other men have been kind to me. Other men have listened to me. I have no illusions about the world being just, for my life is a testament to its caprices. I do not judge the whole of your species by him. I am not prone to hysterics.”
“I know that, too.”
The word “but” hovered in the air. She seemed reluctant to give voice to her thoughts.
“But now you know,” he said, “what men are capable of. And it has reshaped how you see yourself and everything in the world. And how you move in the world.”
She exhaled in some combination of surprise and relief. “It’s what you know. Because of prison. Because of... war.”
“Perhaps what I know best,” he said quietly.
He eyed the fire critically, wondering how on earth they would stay warm when they had so little good wood. He could be of service to her by making sure she was warm. He wanted very much to do something. Anything.
“I... do not always think about it. During my days? I sometimes feel I ought to have been killed by the shame, if I were more of a proper lady. That I ought to marinate in it. That I should not be able to play pianoforte and drink tea and... ride in carriages with handsome men.”
He turned away from the fire.