Page 4 of When Hearts Surrender

Silas’s heart dropped to the floor, unfathomable pain carving through him when he recognized the unmistakable deep chocolate of her hair, the lithe and graceful frame of her body clad in her uniform, the dark gray wool worn by all the staff.

No. Please, I beg you.

Clutching his chest, he charged toward her, hoping she was still alive yet knowing from the stillness of her figure that she wasn’t.

Choking back a sob, he knelt before her, his fingers shaking as he brushed a few wet strands from her face. Her body was twisted and broken, lying amongst her beloved roses. Her eyes were closed, but her face was unblemished, beautiful even in death, even when lying in the macabre river of red soaked to the soil below her.

“Emma, sweetheart,” he rasped. He cradled her broken frame in his arms, tears slipping down his face. “Why didn’t you wait for me? I told you in my letter I was going to find you… Why didn’t you wait?”

He buried his face in the crook of her neck and sobbed, “I’m so sorry, my love. It’s all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.”

Crushing regret twisted around his lungs, robbing his breath. He was trying to do the right thing by his family—his legitimate family in the eyes of the law. He was going to find her when things were in order, when he settled his affairs with his younger brother to take over his duties and ended things with his wife, a cruel woman his father forced him to marry at a young age.

He was going to. He was going to do so many things…

And now there’d be no opportunities to do any of them, for what he’d done to her, to their child, was irreparable.

As he held her cold body in his crushing embrace, willing the lightning to strike him so he could go with her to the great beyond, his thoughts were filled with memories of her—them painting together under the moonlight in the rose garden.

She whispered, her hand clutching a paintbrush, “‘Hope is the dream of a waking man,’ and I’m living my dream every day with you.”

His voice was rough. “Aristotle said that.”

“And he would be right. I’m the happiest person with you.”

How wrong she was. If he had known the ending of their love story, he would never fall in love with the woman who could see through the glamour of his wealth and estate and could see the lonely man living inside him.

Then she would be alive.

“My love, didn’t you say hope is the dream of a waking man? Why did you give up on hope…on us?” His cries were loud in the garden as he held her tightly, her blood soaking through his clothes. His mind held tightly onto denial, even though he knew it was too late…much too late. “Don’t leave me. Please…don’t leave me.”

He should’ve known from the desperation in her voice as she pounded the door of his study last night, the hopelessness in her beautiful eyes when he told her there was nothing more he could do for her,that he wouldn’t leave his wife for her. They were all lies he spewed from his mouth because he knew his wife was listening in the next room.

And now, she and their unborn child were gone—her melodious laughter, her gentle touch, her warm heart, all vaporized into the rain, swallowed by the hallowed ground.

Something sharp scraped his forearm, and he looked up, finding a crow pecking at a crumbled cream envelope clutched in the hand of his beloved.

He pried the envelope from her icy fingers as the storm raged around them, his breath choking in his throat at the elegant swirl of his name on the front, the smudges from the rain blurring the words.

My Beloved Silas

With shaking fingers, he took out her letter, miraculously kept dry in her tight grip. Her last words to him.

My Beloved Silas,

If you read this, then I and our unborn child have already departed this world. I have risked everything and given you my all—my love, my dignity, my reputation. Being the foolish woman I am, if I could rewind time, I’m not sure I would’ve had the strength to stay away from you.

I want to tell you I understand the pressures of being an Anderson, of upholding your righteous family name to keep it untarnished from scandal. I want to tell you I forgive you and love you all the same so you can closeyour eyes at night in peace.

But I can never forgive you for depriving our child of a chance at life. As I bleed and feel his life snuffing out, I finally know what true agony is, and I wonder, had you been a man of your word, if things would’ve turned out differently.

You are a coward, Silas, and I can’t help but hold both immense love and hatred toward you. Your love is poisonous, a taker of lives. As retribution for our child who was innocent in our affair, I leave you with this:

I wish for your family to learn not to give love so cruelly, so selfishly. To learn the meaning of true sacrifice. Should a firstborn son of the Anderson name fall in love and marry, the person of his affections shall fall to an untimely demise lest the lesson be learned.

Yours, faithful in death,

Emma

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