Free Lord of Regrets by Sabrina Darby

lightness filled her. She was scared to examine the sensation, to discover what other weakness in herself she had just uncovered.
    “Marcus,” she said, his name barely louder than a breath in the sliver of space between their lips. She pushed at his chest, and her protest seemed to register with him.
    He finally stepped back and released her, but he looked jubilant, as if he knew what her thoughts had been, as if he knew he had won.
    Which reminded her that he hadn’t. They had a past, and that past was as bitter as it was sweet. Yet for all that they had shared and still continued to share, they were strangers.
    “I should bring Leona back in before she freezes to death.”
    …
    Marcus heard Natasha speak through the fog of his desire. She moved through space like a living painting––pale, rosy skin, golden cloud of hair, dark, intense eyes. Even the fabric of her plain, woolen dress seemed to take on the chiaroscuro of the masters as she moved, creating more contrast and more depth. He watched her slide around him and then followed her through the hallways of the house toward the back. They passed through pools of candlelight and shadow until finally they stepped out into the winter day and blinked in the white light.
    A dot of blurry red movement was the first sign of Leona. Marcus blinked again and he made out her small form, bundled in so many layers, lying in the snow, her arms and legs arcing back and forth as she worked on a snow angel.
    Then she caught sight of her mother and jumped up, her heels kicking at the snow, and the hard work of her impression was lost.
    “Come along, Leona,” Natasha called.
    “Do you see my angel?” Leona yelled back. Then she turned, pointing at the ground. Marcus could see only the corner of her chin, but he knew when her face crumpled. He strode out into the snow, letting the frozen day cool his previous ardor.
    “It is lovely,” Natasha said from a step behind him. The unidentifiable impression was anything but lovely.
    “You’ll simply have to make another one,” he said to Leona. “Of course, it is much easier to do when you have a fresh area of snow. Let’s move over here.”
    Still trembling on the edge of tears, Leona followed him the three yards to where the snow was still untouched. He felt Natasha’s gaze on them and despite the snow, despite the presence of his child, heat flooded his body.
    He helped the girl make a snow angel, the impression deep and clear, and then before she could propose that he too lie down on the ground and soak his clothes with the damp, he suggested a snowman.
    “I really think it is time to go inside,” Natasha insisted.
    “Do we have to? I’ve never built a snowman before,” Leona exclaimed. Natasha said nothing and the girl looked back to him. “How much snow do we need, sir?”
    “As much as we need to make it at least as big as you.” Marcus began packing the snow into one large ball, bemused at the two small hands in their red mittens that worked beside him.
    “Could we make a Cyclops? Mr. Duncan said that the Cyclops only have one eye.”
    “That sounds frightening.”
    She nodded. “But I can’t read the story yet because I have to learn Greek first.”
    “Ah, Greek.”
    She nodded again. “And before Greek, I have to learn Latin.”
    “Yes, and here is a bit of Latin you should learn,” Marcus said as he pushed more snow onto the growing mound. “Fortitudo fideles vocat.”
    “Fortitudo fideles vocat,” the girl repeated, her voice high and babyish, rendering the foreign language nearly unrecognizable to him. “What does it mean?”
    …
    Courage calls the faithful ones . Natasha knew those words because they were Marcus’s family motto. She stood there impotently, watching her daughter and her daughter’s father make a snowman––no, a Cyclops––together. The moment seemed unreal to her. But then, her whole life, from the first moment she had entered Marcus’s bed, had been an avalanche of