Still studying him closely, she frowned. “Why are your eyes getting red?”
“Are they?” He asked rhetorically. The pricking beneath his lids gave him all the answer he needed. “I wish I could make you believe you don’t need protecting from me.”
“Apparently, it behooves me to wish the same,” she spoke slowly. “And I don’t think you can make anyone believe anything. That’s not how belief works. We can’t know anything for certain. Can we?”
“Likely not.” He sighed. “Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”
She nodded.
“Sampson is captured, blinded, and bound,” he continued. “But his hair grows back. He prays, and God gives him strength one last time. He pushes apart the temple columns where he was chained and displayed as humiliation, bringing down the building and killing himself along with thousands of his enemies.”
“Well, that’s…revenge.” She was quiet for a time, frowning down into her night rail’s lace, puzzling. Finally, she looked up. “I don’t remember. Did Delilah die, too?”
He frowned. “I don’t think her fate is told.”
“Ha!” she said triumphantly. “Then the story cannot be primarily about her! Maybe it’s about trust and lies and greed and poisonous hatred that lures people to act in devious ways…”
Smiling wryly, he shook his head. The movement cooled the tears gathered in the corner of his eyes.
“Devious ways”—she cocked a brow—“like bribing a lady to betray a man who says he loves her but mustn’t truly because he only feeds her lies.”
He snorted. “I’m not sure if that’s brilliant or blasphemous.”
“Brilliant,” she confirmed with a nod. She smiled shyly. “Maybe the story means that sometimes, when you trust, you get hurt. And that victory is impossible without risk and pain.”
Tentatively, as if he were a skittish horse, she threaded her fingers into his locks.
“Auggie, I promise not to cut your hair.” She was teasing, but not entirely.
His tears’ sting became unbearable. “Wouldn’t you?”
Her face darkened. “I would cutWillard’shair. I would trick him and hurt him and use any means necessary to defend the innocents he harms.”
He didn’t blame her. Hell, he’d vowed to kill the man. But—“Be careful. Willard has nearly driven me to break mystandards. I’d like to think you, at least, would stay true to your ideals, even when fighting on behalf of innocents.”
The tears must be in his lashes now.
“Especiallywhen fighting on behalf of innocents.” He trailed his hand up her shoulder. “The more blameless the victim, the greater the anger.”
“Why Neville, I didn’t know you could be so wise,” she said in jest.
She didn’t understand. “No one wants to see something lovely and good destroyed.”
Her lips parted. “Neville, are you saying you want to protect me because, deep down, you thinkIam lovelyandgood?”
He was so, so helplessly lost. “Youaregood, beloved.” Tenderly he smiled as her image blurred through his tears. “Although I know you can be positively Machiavellian at times, too.”
Machiavellian. He’d recently used that word when thinking of fighting Willard.
Millie was lovely and good—at least in the sense of loyal. She had high ideals, but she was also cunning. Quick to see and exploit any opportunity that might give her advantage.
He was prone to divide the world into simple categories, while she wanted to experience everything all at once. He was cautious and methodical while she was decisive and sure. She challenged his fixed ideals, forcing him to examine them, discarding some, and strengthening others. Perhaps they could not only help each other.
Perhaps they needed each other, too.
“You challenge me in ways that make me better,” he said, speaking his realization aloud. “Do you think that’s the way I challenge you, too?”
“Perhaps.” She sighed and then laid her head against his shoulder. “I know I can trust you to tell me the truth. If I couldbe absolutely certain you esteemed me, I could talk with you the way I talk with Eliza when something has me baffled.”