“But maybe she isn’t,” Maddy said, swallowing back years of loneliness, of feeling unworthy, that she’d buried underneath a thick plate of anger. “Maybe she just pretends.”
“I understand that,” he said. “Because I think the hero—if there is indeed a hero and which I hope there is—is also just pretending. He’s pretending to be confident and happy and devil-may-care because for so long, he didn’t know what it was like to have someone really care about him.”
Maddy’s eyes widened, fixing on Beau, the lamplight flickering on his perfect face. An evening breeze rose, teasing his hair. The faintest hint of shadow fell across his face, highlighting the lines around his eyes and mouth. He seemed so boyish most of the time, even though they were the same age. But now, she saw the age settling on him. The weariness. The trepidation.
“I also wonder,” he continued, his voice low and warm, “if your heroine wasn’t stolen by the faeries, and you somehow were mixed up, placed with the wrong family. And that family, those people, didn’t know what to do with someone as magical as the heroine. So they did what small people do when they are afraid—they diminish those around them, to feel bigger, stronger, and smarter. And for a while they succeeded.”
“Until she escaped.”
“Until she escaped,” he said. “And found people who were not afraid of her. Who loved her. And let her be the faerie queen she was meant to be.”
Maddy pressed her lips together. She felt like she was on a precipice. She loved her fellow spinsters with all her heart, for exactly the reason Beau said. They had taken her in, accepted her when no one else would. Would leaving them be a betrayal? They needed her. How on earth could she do that to them?
“I don’t know if I could leave Everwell,” she said, voicing her fear out loud to the one person she felt safe doing so.
“Maybe you wouldn’t have to,” he said. “Not permanently. If you were having people stay, you would be going back and forth all the time, when the roads were good, anyway. Just because you are opening a new chapter of your life doesn’t always mean closing off another completely. I believe there is at least one of the ladies in the Society who has a husband.”
Maddy nodded, wrestling with her own complicated feelings and regret. She’d been happy, and yet hurt by both Gemma and Elouise’s changing status. Not because they’d found love, but because she hadn’t and deep down assumed she never would. That the happy bond that had kept her feeling safe and secure would somehow tear, leaving her afraid.
It hadn’t happened.
But. But.
“It’s not chocolate cake,” he said. “But I would like to give your heroine a way to live her dream.”
Maddy leaned in, because she was certain she misheard him.
“What did you say?” she asked.
“It was your idea, don’t you remember?” he said. “Gift it to someone who would treasure it. And I know no one who would treasure it more than you.”
Maddy shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why?”
He stepped toward her, cupping her cheek in his hand.
“Because I believe in Happily Ever Afters, Madeline Murray. Especially yours.”
Maddy’s heart roared so loudly in her chest she could barely hear herself think. Beau stood, just inside the door, the lamplight at his side, bathing him in warmth. His hand was extended in invitation. It hinted at a promise—a promise of something so exquisite she felt herself giving in to its power.
She’d walked in and out of this door countless times in the past few weeks, not giving it much thought.
But tonight, when Beau held out his hand, she somehow knew in her bones she was crossing a threshold. Something was happening, and it felt good. Impossibly good. Every contrary voice—the one telling her to run, or stay and fight, was slipping away from her, drowned out by something tantalizing. A promise for something else. Her own joy.
It was terrifying.
“What is it?”
He stood there, expectant, and somewhere in the haze between fear and longing, it dawned on Maddy that Beau was able to read her expressions. To know her. And not just her body, but something far more vulnerable—her heart.
“Beau,” she began as she took a step back, “this evening was lovely. More lovely than I could have imagined. But it’s just not possible.”
“Why not?” he asked, giving his head the smallest shake, as if he didn’t understand her answer. And he wouldn’t, she supposed. He just didn’t understand what it was like to risk everything the way she had. To lose everything.
“It’s a marvellous idea. A sound idea. And it would make you happy.”
“I am happy,” she replied. “At Everwell. I have everything I need there.”
She’d been safe there. The only place she’d felt safe. Accepted. Loved.