“I can imagine,” she murmured, smiling more fully at the thought of this man enjoying baking bread, of all things.
He quirked a thick brow at her. “Can you, indeed?”
That made Poppy sit back in thought, recalling with too-perfect clarity just what the man before her was.
“No,” she replied, her voice sounding far away. “I suppose not.”
His smile was one of understanding, and he nodded slowly.
“That’s what I thought. Which is why I thought that I might come see you this afternoon. Especially given your last meeting with my cousin.”
“I don’t want to talk about Alex. That’s over.” Poppy wrenched her gaze away and looked out the window.
“That’s almost exactly what he said today.” Gabe grunted to himself. “The similarity in tone and expression, let alone words, is really quite disconcerting.”
Reluctantly, she glanced over at him once more.
“Did he? So there really is nothing to discuss then.”
“On the contrary,” Gabe replied with a very determined shake of his head. “I believe there is a great deal to discuss.”
Poppy frowned at him fully now, pressing her tongue hard against her teeth for a moment.
“You aren’t going to listen if I refuse, are you?”
He ginned very briefly. “Not even a little bit.”
Of course not. She waved a dismissive hand at him, rolling her eyes.
“Go ahead, then. Get it over with.”
“Thank you,” Gabe replied sagely. “This won’t take long. I’m not a meddler.”
“And yet…”
He ignored that, folding his arms over his broad chest, smiling a little. “I think you know that Alex’s lashing out the other day was a defense mechanism. He doesn’t really feel that way, nor is he that hard of a man. He leaves that sort of thing to me.”
Poppy nodded once but said nothing. She did know that about Alex, but it didn’t take away the sting of experiencing it. Of being abandoned by him yet again. Of losing him in a more acutely painful way than before.
“I won’t pretend to know what you have been through in the last five years,” Gabe said bluntly, surprising her. “Nor will I pretend to know what Alex has been through, though I probably have a fairer idea of his suffering than yours.”
“They are hardly comparable,” Poppy protested in a low voice, shame heating her cheeks.
Hadn’t she been telling herself the same sort thing? That Alex had no idea what she’d suffered and had forgotten her in all of this? Yet to hear it said aloud was nearly unbearable, and she felt the need to defend Alex, even to his own cousin.
“Not all scars are visible ones, my dear,” Gabe chided, giving her a hard look. “You should know that by now.”
She swallowed and looked down at her worn fingernails tracing absent patterns on the wood surface.
“Yes, you may have a faint inkling of what Alex suffered physically,” he went on, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll be blunt and tell you it’s likely a hundred times worse than anything you can imagine.”
Impossibly, furious at Alex though she was, her eyes burned at his claim and her throat tried to close. Gabe cleared his throat harshly as if he, too, had the same sensations.
“But possibly even worse than all of that is what he endured in other ways that are less visible. Wounds that are much more difficult to heal. While the damage inflicted may be very different, this is the sort of wound that you, too, have experienced.”
“I’m not wounded,” Poppy whispered, intent now on her fingernails.
“Oh, please,” Gabe scoffed quietly. “Tell that to someone a bit less intuitive or observant.”
She looked over at him again, startled to find him smiling with the utmost gentleness. Fondly, even. As though she were a sister of sorts. Someone he truly cared for.
But he couldn’t, could he?
“You do not have to have the exact same stripes laid upon you to understand,” Gabe told her, his smile lopsided. “You have both suffered greatly by what has happened. In different ways, certainly, but suffering still, and in ways that linger for years. The difference is that Alex never thought his would end but by his death. Yours would at least be something you could eventually learn to live with or grow accustomed to, if I’m not mistaken.”
Poppy nodded yet again.
“I did learn,” she murmured. “It didn’t hurt any less from day to day, but I learned to live with the pain. It didn’t feel as sharp, nor did I dwell on it as much. I adapted to my surroundings and to my life. I had to.”
“Alex needs to learn the same,” Gabe insisted kindly, reaching forward to cover her hand with his. “We all want him to be the same man he was before all of this, but the truth is, he won’t be. Parts of him will be the same, will always be the same, but parts of him will be forever changed. He needs to learn how to live with those changes, how to adapt to his new life of freedom, and to accept his past as part of who he is now.” He squeezed her hand gently. “And he needs patience while he figures that out. It is something he has to do on his own until he is ready to let anyone else in.”
Patience. She wasn’t sure she had enough patience, not after all these years. It was selfish and cruel, but she wanted answers. She wanted proof.
She wanted Alex.
Poppy shook her head as the painful truth rose within her. “It won’t be me that is let in, Gabe. It will be you, his family. He left me again,” she whispered with complete honesty. “I don’t mean anything to him now.”
“Oh, my dear girl,” Gabe said with a small chuckle. “Do you forget that it was you he came to see when he escaped?”
“Only because it was closer,” she insisted firmly.
She earned a reproving look from him with that. “Believe me, he could have come to me if he wished it, or had word sent to me. But he didn’t. He went to you.” He grinned yet again, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s you, Poppy. You, above all others.”
She couldn’t bear that. Couldn’t believe that. After all this time, she just couldn’t.
Gabe sighed softly and rose, tugging her up with him.
“Come with me, Poppy. Come see him. Ask him.”
“I can’t ask him that,” she told him as she grudgingly rose. “Not now, he would say something I couldn’t bear to hear.”
“Then, ask him one of the twenty-seven other questions in your head,” Gabe responded, taking her shoulders in hand. “Don’t mind how he barks. Just listen beyond the words.”
Poppy exhaled heavily, but let Gabe take her out of the cottage and walk with her down to Parkerton.
“And you say you’re not a meddler.”
“Not habitually, certainly,” He said, shrugging one shoulder, “but being a spy, there does tend to be some meddling involved. And with Alex, I do tend to meddle. It does so annoy him when I do.”
She laughed at that, tossing her head back and letting herself do so freely, the fresh country air filling her lungs.
“Do you think he’ll go back to being a spy?”
“Not sure, to be perfectly honest,” Gabe answered easily, not seeming particularly concerned about it. “I’d rather he go back to being a human, if nothing else.”
There was a dark truth to that, and it sobered Poppy considerably. She hadn’t been fair to Alex, demanding so much and expecting so much. He was alive, and that should have been enough for her.
“I’ve been selfish,” Poppy whispered, shaking her head.
“So has he,” Gabe said at once. “That’s to be expected when you both have only had yourselves to think about all this time. Don’t waste a moment on guilt for that.”
He could say that all he liked, but guilt was Poppy’s constant companion of late. Guilt, doubt, and fear.
They made for a depressing trio of companions.
Parkerton Lodge was before them soon enough, and out in the garden, Alex worked tirelessly on clearing the rubble and the dead plants. The h
ouse didn’t look much better from the exterior, but she suspected the place had been almost entirely gutted from within. It would take ages to restore it, but it seemed Alex was willing to accomplish it, no matter what.
“I’ll go stand out of earshot,” Gabe murmured, squeezing Poppy’s arm. “I don’t need to meddle that much.”
She nodded as he left, and approached Alex as calmly as she could, several questions swirling in her mind. She couldn’t ask him much, wasn’t sure she wanted to ask him anything, but seeing him brought her a measure of comfort she hadn’t expected.
He paused his work when he saw her, leaning heavily on his spade.
“Poppy…”
The hesitation in his voice, the warmth in his eyes, settled her considerably. Gabe was right. It wasn’t over.
“I have a question for you,” Poppy said, folding her hands before her, keeping her expression calm.
Alex’s dark eyes remained on her, and he stood perfectly still.
She exhaled shortly, then asked, “Were you planning on marrying me, Alex? Before all of this? Was that ever part of your plans?”
His face tightened briefly. “I’m not sure that matters now.”
“I don’t care if it does,” Poppy replied, hearing the despondent note in his voice and taking courage from it. “But if I am to have no answers about anything else, you owe me that.”
She watched those words sink in and held her breath.
“Yes,” Alex told her in a very low voice, nodding once. “I was planning that.”
“Thank you.” She managed to smile only faintly, though her heart seemed to skip with sudden delight. She turned away, walking very quickly back towards the cottage.
Alex didn’t call after her, but she hardly expected him to. She hoped he saw her smile, and hoped it made him wonder. Made him hope. Made him smile.
But there would be time for that later. There would be time for everything later.
Poppy laughed to herself as she practically skipped home, now determined to give Alex everything he needed, even if it were time, space, and patience. He might hate it, might rage at her, and she might rage right back, but until he was a much better version of himself, until he was whole, and could tell her it was over, she would not believe it. After all, she had refused to believe he was truly dead for so long, how much more difficult could this possibly be?
The cottage was quiet when she returned, though it did smell a good deal better with the spices in the stew, and the bread rising nicely. Still too soon to bake, but it seemed that Gabe’s method would certainly work well. She made a mental note to take him at least half of a loaf for his care and instruction.
And meddling.
That made her smile further still, and she couldn’t wait to tease him about it when things became clearer and more settled for them all.
Whistling an absent tune, Poppy turned to sample the stew, knowing it wouldn’t be quite ready, but well on its way.
A band of fabric was suddenly forced into her mouth and pulled tightly, completely muffling her scream. Then, something hit her soundly on the back of her head.
And everything went black.
Chapter Eighteen
Alex wasn’t sure what Poppy had been about when she’d asked him that question today, but after three days of not seeing her, wondering if she finally hated him the way she ought to, the sight of her had struck him with an intensity he was entirely unprepared for.
And she’d smiled at his answer.
Why had she smiled?
It was too confusing, and too much to bear. How was he to manage his affairs and the renovation of his estate, taking up his lands and title once more, if his mind were too fixed on Poppy? His mind needed to be clear and open, and he needed to be above reproof in all things. At this moment, he could reprove himself for many things. His behavior towards her, for example. There was enough reproof there to feel guilty for a lifetime.
Distance ought to have helped him, but in order for that to work, there would need to actually be distance. Despite being removed from the cottage, removed from her, he felt anything but distant. He could see the cottage from the windows of his bedroom, and it tended to draw his attention quite fixedly when he retired. Not that there was much within the room to consider it his bedchamber in truth, but it had at least become a place of refuge for him.
And it was not as though he slept in the room much. He rarely slept at all anymore. The nightmares were growing too dark, too twisted, too haunting to risk enduring, and he had little enough to distract him during the day from the memories of them. But staring at the light in the cottage until it faded into the night seemed to give him a moment of reprieve.
He’d come to crave that reprieve nightly. If he could not converse with Poppy during the day with sanity and control, or even be near her, at least he could have this.
It might not be much, and certainly couldn’t last forever, but for now…
“Where is your head at, Alex?” Gabe asked, tossing a clump of dirt at his back.
Alex grunted and brushed at his back quickly, frowning at his cousin.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Probably true,” Gabe said easily as he worked away at the roots of a long dead bush. “But I’d wager I can guess.”
Impossibly, that made Alex chuckle, and he went back to work on the pile of rubbish they’d tossed from the house, which was now diminishing by the day, thanks to his efforts and the pilfering of locals.
“There’s only two guesses worth making, so there’s no wager in it at all.”
“I’d wager I can be very specific with my guess.”
“No,” Alex laughed, picking up a chunk of wood and tossing it in Gabe’s direction, not caring if it hit him or fell far short. The satisfaction was in the effort, and in the lightness he felt in it.
His nightmares may be worse, but his days were certainly growing easier. He was beginning to feel more himself than he had in years, and it was freeing. There was still a long way to go before he would truly be free, but he was beginning to hope, and that was just as foreign and freeing as anything else.
Gabe hadn’t said anything about returning to London or to his life as a spy, and Fritz had also been perfectly silent on the subject. They seemed content to respect his wishes and allow him the time he needed to heal and discover for himself what would lie in store for his life. If there were any doubts about his abilities given what he had endured, they hadn’t said anything, though they had exchanged looks enough when Alex had missed something or reacted poorly to assure him that they spoke about it privately.
That was to be as expected, he supposed.
“Trace! Rogue!”
Alex looked at Gabe in confusion, then turned to see Stanton dashing towards them, his horse nearby, and the large man was absolutely frantic.
“Stanton,” Alex greeted, wiping his hands off. “What’s the trouble?”
“It’s Poppy,” Stanton panted, bending over with his hands on his knees. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
Gabe tossed aside his spade and hurried over.
“I was just there hours ago. Everything seemed fine.”
Stanton shook his head, chest heaving.
“I’ve been settling the details of the harvest all day. Returned to the farm an hour ago. She’s not there, not on the land, not in the village… The lock on the cottage door was broken. Something isn’t right…”
Alex stared at the older man, his heart seeming to beat outside his chest, the day suddenly frigid.
“Are you sure?” he murmured.
“Positive,” Stanton said with a swift nod. “The stew she was making had completely spilled over into the fire, and the bread was never set to bake… Nothing was missing from the cottage, not even out of place. I’ve ridden all over the place. She’s gone.”
Gone. Poppy was gone.
Taken.
Various tumblers in Alex’s mind spun and shifted, clicking together and catching on one an
other, forcing away a fog he hadn’t known resided within him. Everything continued to spin and whirl, racing in forty-two directions with energy and ease, as though the path were familiar and the way clear.
Clarity. Suddenly, everything was clear as crystal, and a long-forgotten twinge of warmth began to burn within him and spread into his limbs. His brows snapped down and he nodded once.
“Go to all of the local contacts. Every single one of them. We need everything they have, information, rumors, speculation, conjecture. I don’t care if we can rely on it or not, I want to know.”
“Yes, sir.” Stanton nodded, straightening. “Report back here?”
“Yes,” Alex told him, moving for the stables. “Alert Thomkins in the village. He was my man before, and he’ll report here and take in whatever reports come if I’m not here.”
“Where would you be?” Stanton inquired as he walked with him.
Alex tipped his head towards Poppy’s home. “Cottage. I’ll investigate every inch of it for clues, any sign that you may have missed in your search for her.”
Stanton grunted once. “I didn’t miss anything.”
“There’s not time to worry about offended airs or wounded pride, Stanton,” Alex barked. “Go!”
The large man flashed a quick grin and mounted his horse, riding away quickly.
“I’ll go to Weaver,” Gabe told Alex as he came up behind him, “then meet you at the cottage. Two sets of eyes never hurt.”
“Good.” Alex turned, thinking quickly. “Have him send word to the League but leave out the Shopkeepers or the Convent until we know more. No sense in bringing up the entirety of British covert operations until we have need. But Stanton’s instincts shouldn’t be doubted, so preliminary warnings should be prepared.”
Gabe was already on his horse and nodding. “I’ll be at the cottage shortly. Tread carefully.”
Alex snorted at his cousin as he moved to the horse they’d brought over from Branbury for him.
“I’m always careful,” he responded.
“There’s a laugh.” Gabe shook his head and took off at a hard gallop for Branbury.
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