Shadowy Highland Romance by Emilia Ferguson

Author:Emilia Ferguson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Highland
Publisher: 0
Published: 2018-12-03T22:00:00+00:00

IN THE DARK

Adair sat in his chamber, looking up at the night beyond the window. Only a single star showed there, almost lost in the textured velvet of the sky.

What good is that small light in all that darkness?

He sighed and looked away, toward the fire. His heart ached.

He had passed Genevieve a few times in the hallway since their talk at lunch, and she had been cold and distant, like a figurine of glass. He couldn't understand what had happened.

“Well, you should be used to it. What did you expect? That someone would notice you? Would care about you?”

He laced his fingers together and looked into the fire, watching the way the flames twisted and danced. His heart burned with a sour, old anger.

Who would look at me, would treat me kindly? Father always said I was worthless, a troublemaker. Father always said that if...if it wasn't for me, if I didn't exist, none of that would have happened.

He felt his hands twist into his hair, palms covering his face, as he tried, unsuccessfully as ever, to block out the visions. People running through the flames, screams filling the air. The blackened pillars, burning, burning...

“No!” he yelled, throwing out one arm. It knocked the spindly wooden chair beside the bed and it crashed over, startling him. He bent down to right it and found himself sobbing, leaning on the chair.

“I didn't mean it,” he sobbed. “I didn't do it. I never meant it. It wasn't my fault...”

The tears racked his body, and poured down his face, running into the collar of his shirt and he didn't stop them. Sometimes it happened that the memories were too hard to fight. He had learned not to resist that, to let them flow. If he kept them held in too long, the tears would turn to rage, and the rage to violence.

He cried, then, for the small boy who had tried to say those things, to explain. Who had been shunned, and hated, and ignored. He cried for the utter futility of explaining.

At length, the tears stopped, as they usually did. He leaned back, sniffed, and blew his nose. Let his head rest on the bed a moment, exhausted by the emotion. “Come on,” he told himself. “You'll look a sight, going to dinner.”

He sniffed. He didn't know if he should go down for dinner, or if he should simply stay where he was. Downstairs was Arabella, Richard, and Genevieve.

He absolutely couldn't face her now.

She had, he realized, rinsing his face in the bowl on the night-stand, become a light in his darkness. Like that single star that twinkled bright against the velvet of the night. And now that she had turned away...? He sniffed sorrowfully.

“Now I'm in the darkness again. I should damn well be used to it,” he sighed, reaching for the flannel to dry his face. A knock sounded at the door.

“Ascott?” he called. His voice was weak and he cleared his throat again. “Ascott? Is that you?”

“Yes, it's me,” his friend's voice came through the thick wood of the door.

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