had deserved every punishment those twisted men designed for her.
No, she hadn’t described Adam to Ryam, but what if she had projected the man who did? Meddled in Ryam’s mind, without even realizing it? She rubbed her eyes and tried to think. Surely she would have remembered if she had been talking to Thorgrim’s ghost. But she hadn’t needed to be present for Thorgrim’s ghost to talk to others in her last life, and had no memory of anything he’d told anyone other than herself. But why would her mind have betrayed her and worse, betrayed him?
Every time she opened the journal she ended up with more questions than answers. Ryam had been much too far removed from her own offspring to have inherited some fluke of telepathy. Aside from his appearance as if from nowhere to make a marriage offer to her father, something she had attributed at the time to the work of rumors spread about the charges she faced, he hadn’t done anything that could have been termed rash. He fought for his king when it was required of him, and minded his own lands the rest of the time. The only way he could have created that sketch was if someone had deliberately implanted the image of Adam in his mind. If it had not been the angels, she was the only one who could.
A knock on the door jerked Eve from her reverie and she looked away from the window, setting the journal aside. Her tea was cold, but she drank it anyway.
Garrit let himself in and shut the door firmly behind him. “I’m not sure you’re ever going to forgive me for sending Mia to Paris.”
“Forgive you?” She watched him drag his fingers through his hair, his agitation palpable enough to make her stomach lurch. “What on earth is there to forgive? Sending her to Paris was an inspired idea.”
He made a sound very near to a snort, as near as a Frenchman came to one, in any event. “Inspired, but not very well thought out.”
“Garrit, what on earth are you talking about? With Ryan, Clair, and Jean, I find it hard to believe that she was able to get herself into any serious trouble.”
His face darkened. “So did we. But somehow, Mia managed.”
She searched his face then, noticing the worry lines around his eyes and mouth for the first time. “Tell me.”
“Adam found her.”
The mug in her hands smashed on the tile floor. All she could see was Lilith, the first woman made in the Garden, shattered in body and mind. Unable even to think for herself, when he had finished with her.
“I don’t know how.” Garrit said. “He was supposed to be in our custody. Safely away. No one ever could have foreseen this. What interest could he possibly have had in her?”
“Garrit, what did he do? Is she all right? Has he hurt her?” It all came out in a rush. She had a horrible picture of Mia, bruised and abused crying somewhere.
He took her by the arms and pushed her back into the chair she had been sitting in. She didn’t even remember having stood. “He doesn’t appear to have harmed her. Yet.”
“My God, Garrit. Any detail at all? Or do you not have any information?”
“She met him at one of Jean’s clubs and he hasn’t left her side since. No one even realized who he was until it was too late! I should never have let her go off with them. Between Ryan and Jean, we may as well have spelled the whole thing out.”
She hid her face in her hands and tried to focus on not hyperventilating. As long as he didn’t hurt her. What was he after? “He probably did it on purpose. Prevented them from recognizing him. I can’t imagine he isn’t fully capable. Especially after what he did to your parents to get himself here.”
“I am so sorry, Abby. We should have been looking, tracking him somehow. We should have known he was free.”
She stood up, holding her hand out to stop him. “I never should’ve let my guard down. I knew he wasn’t through with me. It was only a matter of time. If I’d been keeping tabs on him, this never could’ve happened.”
“Jean says she’s convinced herself she’s in love. It’s been a week, Abby. What the hell are we supposed to do about this without exposing everything? Mia’s smart. She’s caught on to far too much already.”
In love? Adam didn’t know the meaning of the word, never mind forcing someone else to feel it. Lust, perhaps. But not love, and not in any way that he was capable of maintaining. Not even Lilith, brainwashed as she was, had loved him. But what could she say? Telling Mia she didn’t love Adam would only make her more stubborn.
“I can’t, Garrit.” The words caught in her throat. “We can’t do anything.”
He stared at her.
“I can’t police her life and I’m not her parent.” Her mind raced while she considered what she could actually do. Much too little that did not turn her into her brother. If she used her power to force Mia from him, then what? She had spent a lifetime struggling against moving down that path, even in her subconscious mind. She would not take free will from her sister, of all people. She wouldn’t let Adam do it either. But if Mia really loved him, Eve had no choice now.
“Adam would’ve married someone else’s sister, or daughter or cousin and we wouldn’t have been the wiser. If it’s Mia he wants, and Mia who wants him…” She went to the window. The sun had disappeared behind black clouds and thunder rumbled, like an ache in her bones. The land outside looked gray, and even through the window she could hear the dogs barking, and the horses in their stable objecting to the coming storm.
She pressed her forehead against the glass and closed her eyes. She could protect Mia, at least. If she kept her sister close enough, Adam wouldn’t dare to violate her. That was the best way. The safest way.
“I can’t risk everything for one person, and people have to make their own mistakes. Stepping in now will only make her more determined. If we invite them here, I’ll be able to tell if he’s manipulating her. I can make sure he isn’t hurting her. But I can’t stop her from loving him, if it’s what she wants.”
“What if this isn’t about her?”
She sighed. “Then congratulations to him, he’s won the first round. But maybe we’ll get lucky and Mia will get bored with him before this goes much further. Her attention span is notoriously short.”
“You can’t believe he’d let this avenue into your life slip through his fingers if there was anything he could do to prevent it.”
She turned back to her husband, studying his face. “Making someone love you against their will isn’t easy. He won’t be able to keep it up.” She would make sure he couldn’t, as long as she lived and breathed. “Mia will either love him of her own free will, in which case it is not my place to stop her, or she will abandon him in time, and perhaps exercise a little bit more caution in her future romantic entanglements.”
Garrit’s gaze shifted to the journal. “I have to believe that you know what you’re talking about, but this situation makes us all uneasy. The family is coming back. Brienne’s already cancelled her flight.
“I guess that means we’ll want to keep the staff on for the duration.” Rain was starting to fall in heavy drops against the window. Lightning flashed, blinding in its intensity, and she scowled into the distance as the thunder clapped so loudly it shook the house. “What is it about that tree? It’s been struck again.”
Garrit stood beside her, one hand at the small of her back. “
“Sure.” Smoke rose from the tree, and lightning flashed again. The thunder which followed made the windows rattle. “Wait for the rain to ease up first.”
“Better now than later. I’ll take care of it. Go on.”
She glanced up at him again. His face had fallen back into the same troubled lines. He didn’t even look at her as she turned to go, his gaze locked on the tree once more.
Maybe it was genetic. Ryam had always been driven to distraction by thunderstorms too. The familiarity was almost reassuring, all things considered.
Chapter Twenty: Creation
