To Eternity by Daisy Banks Read Free Book Online

wedge of tomato on his plate as if it were the latest art offering to the Tate Gallery.
    Sian might be hurt if he told her his suspicions, yet he couldn’t live his life refusing to share the truth with her. As time passed, it would destroy them. Due to their situation, they both had to accept unusual occurrences, some of them difficult. He looked up into eyes full of fire and ice. After a small cough he spoke. “Martha Raynalds’s grandmother, a delightful woman, Dorothy Fowler, worked in this locality for some time. I, er…” He paused.
    â€œYou slept with her?” She set her half-eaten sandwich down.
    â€œA very brief liaison.”
    â€œDid she know the truth about you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDid you love her?”
    He shook his head. He shouldn’t have told her, should have kept the secret. “I was home on leave. We met at the Highwayman’s Rest. The pub in Heathstoke. Dorothy was a marvelous darts player. I spent a little time with her during my leave.”
    Her gaze held his, searching, but she didn’t speak.
    â€œNo, I didn’t love her, Sian. I have only loved twice, you know that.”
    â€œDo I?”
    â€œYes, you do.” He swiped the napkin over his fingers before he took her hand in his. “I have loved Julia and you. No other woman has touched me in the way you do. After Julia’s death, I thought I would never love again. A creature such as I has little right to ask for love. I’d not offered to make Julia like me, therefore she had no protection as I do. I never wanted another cruel disease like smallpox to steal my loved one from me in such a bitter way again. My passion for Julia seems a pallid thing in comparison to my feelings for you. I never anticipated I might find you.”
    â€œSo, why tell me of this woman Dorothy? Did you think your—” She shook her head. “It’s no good, I don’t understand, Magnus.”
    â€œYou would have discovered it, either in the dreams or from my reactions to her granddaughter. You would have known, and I thought it worse for you to find out then, rather than now from me.” He pressed a kiss to her palm.
    She leaned back from the table. The napkin slipped from her other hand. “You’ve booked them?”
    â€œYes. They’ll come to the house at the end of November. I’ve scheduled the visit to take place before the next full moon. From my conversation with Martha, as long as I’m agreeable to their terms and plans, once they’ve evaluated the garden, they’ll work through part of December to clear and repair, do some minor decorative planting. After the initial work, they’ll offer me more in-depth plans for spring.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œI’m not sure you do, but I thought it important to tell you.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “There’s more. I know it.”
    â€œIt’s an inkling I have. I won’t know for definite until I meet Martha in person.”
    â€œYou think she’s a relative?”
    He stared, not astonished she’d understood so quickly. Her pain radiated to him, but it was too late to do much to mend the situation. “It may be possible.”
    She removed her hand from where it topped his. The set of her shoulders squared. “Magnus, how could you?” She shifted her gaze from him to stare away across the dining room.
    â€œI wanted you to know.”
    The gloss of tears shone in her eyes.
    Guilt snapped through him. “Would you rather I’d not said?”
    â€œNo.” She faced him again. Her sadness poured like a corrosive through his soul. “But I wish you could understand.”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œNo, you’ve no idea. Since you told me the truth about you in September, I’ve spent hours longing for you to say we will be together always. That you’ll allow me to be your love in truth, that one day we’ll become a real couple and