Page 106 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
He was burning bridges, eradicating his past. Eliminating the man he’d spent the last decade striving to be.
With a self-deprecatory grimace, he fell into bed. Was he cutting off all chance of retreat so that no matter what happened with Lucilla in the Vale, he wouldn’t be able to take the easy way out and come running back?
He had to wonder.
He expected exhaustion to claim him—not the exhaustion of physical exertion but that of emotional turmoil. He felt scoured inside, as if, when he’d reached the point of being unable to suppress the fundamental truth any longer, it had erupted and he’d accepted it, embraced it, and just let go…let everything else go.
He’d let the truth in and let it own him.
Let it clear everything else out and become his new reality.
He closed his eyes. His body relaxed and sank into the mattress.
Exhaustion claimed his limbs, then crept higher to claim his mind.
In the last instant of rational thought, in the cavern of clarity his mind had become, he saw where he had been, and where he now was—and where she had been, where she still stood.
At her core, she possessed one attribute he didn’t have. Faith. Which led to commitment. Faith in the fact of simply knowing, and commitment to the path that that knowing led her down.
She’d followed the flame of her faith all her life. He…he could at least follow her.
Whether he had it in him to fully embrace his own knowing—the impulses he felt—he didn’t know. Presumably he would find out, because, as things stood, in setting out along his new road, those instincts, those impulses, were all he had to guide him.
There isn’t anyone else for me or for you—and there never will be.
In going forward, he was counting on that. He couldn’t deceive himself over how much he had hurt her in turning his back and simply walking away.
At the time, he’d been so angry—and, underneath that, so frightened and shaken—that he hadn’t truly appreciated what she’d been offering—allshe’d been offering—but now…?
He didn’t know if she loved him—if she could or would, if that was a part of their fated interaction. He didn’t know if he loved her, or if he could or would, either. What was love? What, between them, did love mean? That was one aspect he and she would have to learn.
But that he couldn’t live without her—that, he knew. That to be the man he needed to be, he had to return to her and claim the position by her side—that he now accepted without reservation.
The mists of sleep rolled in. One last thought drifted through his consciousness.
He might not know what love was—not enough to define it and, with honesty, own to it—but she’d won his heart long ago. His battle to win hers was just beginning.
* * *
He set out from Glasgow just after dawn, riding south into his true future.
Going home.
If home, and she, would have him.
That was the only question remaining in his mind; all the rest had been answered, or had proved to be unimportant.
Jaw set, the wind whipping through his hair, he rode Phantom down the road spooling south before them.
He was finally on his true and correct path. His mind was clear, his thoughts focused, and he was determined.
He might not yet have faith, but he was committed.
One way or another, no matter what was demanded of him, he would find his way back to her side.
CHAPTER 16
The first hurdle Thomas hadn’t expected manifested when, in response to his jangling of the doorbell, Polby opened the front door of Casphairn Manor.
