His tone was testy. His mood was even worse. Partly because of what he saw before him, but mostly because Beatrice, Henry had told him yesterday evening, had agreed to marry him.
Algernon knew he should be happy. It was precisely what he had wanted to unfold, but the moment Henry told him the news, the pain in his chest dropped heavily to his stomach, and he nearly vomited.
Now, after all but having to force her downstairs to have dinner with him, Beatrice sat at her usual place near his right hand, staring far too intently down at her untouched plate. She would not speak to him. Would not even look at him.
If she were still eating, he might not have cared so much, but after some convincing, he had pulled the truth from Mira anddiscovered she had refused food or drink for now nearly three days. No matter how much she wanted space from him—or even how much heneededspace from her—starvation was not something he could abide.
“Pick. Up. Your.Fork,”he commanded, his deep voice enunciating each word.
Beatrice kept her eyes on her plate, but she reached out in front of her. For a moment, a minute amount of tension seemed ready to leave Algernon’s body, but as her dainty fingers slipped around the stem of her wineglass instead of her fork, he suddenly felt ready to turn over the entire blasted table. He watched, his rage making his body vibrate as she brought the glass to her lips and drained the entirety of its contents.
She let out a satisfied ‘ah’ after she took the last sip, and finally, as she sat the glass back down, she turned her gaze to him. It was cold. Distant. As if she had never known him. Never trusted him.
Hurt sliced through his chest as she gave him that look, so much that he banged his fists atop the table.
“Go on, then!” she yelled with a quickness that startled him.
“Go on and what?” he bit back.
“Go on and lose your temper,” she retorted, her tone taunting as she picked up the wine carafe and poured herself another glass of wine. “Raise your voice and bark your commands as you dowhen things threaten to go anyway but the way you like them. Go on!”
She raised her glass to her lips again, but in a second, Algernon was out of his chair and had his fingers wrapped around the goblet.
“Do not,” he warned, meeting her glare with one of his own.
“Let go of my glass,” she demanded.
“No,”he all but snarled, trying to tug it out of her grasp. “I know you have not eaten or drank much of anything in the last few days, and if you drink that now, you will make yourself sick! You can hate my commands all you want, but I will not allow you to injure yourself!”
He pulled the glass away with a sharp yank, breaking the fine stemware where the goblet met the stem. The dark red wine sloshed over his hands, and with a growl, he threw it against the wall. The sound of glass shattering mixed with the dragging sound of Beatrice’s chair being forced back, and then she hurled the broken stem in her hand toward the same place that he’d sent the goblet.
“Look what you have done!” she shouted at him.
Algernon opened his mouth, ready to hurl a retort back, but it was as if Beatrice’s full rage had been let loose by his denial of her second glass.
“What more do you want from me?!” she half-shouted, half-screamed, her beautiful face contorting with a mixture of pain and anger.
“I have done everything you have asked of me! You wanted me to wear your clothes, I wore your clothes! You wanted me to marry your brother, I am marrying your brother! You wanted me to learn your lessons, I have learned your confounding lessons, so please, for once, allow me to make a decision that is fully my own!”
Algernon did not move. His heart thrashed wildly in his chest as he took in the rage and sadness in Beatrice’s expression, hating himself for not only what he had done but how he had allowed himself to feel.
“You are right,” he begrudged.
Beatrice’s expression turned wary, but she did not speak.
“I have controlled your every movement since I brought you to this house, and that makes me no better than any other man at that horrid auction I took you from,” he confessed.
Something shifted in Beatrice’s eyes. Pity, perhaps, or empathy.
“You are not?—”
“Do not,” he interrupted her. “Do not try to save me from the truth as that is what it is.”
He took a step back from her. Then another. Then he sat back down in his chair. He picked up his full, untouched wine glass and sat it by her plate. Beatrice eyed the glass, eyed him, then after a long moment of tense silence, she took her seat again.
Algernon nearly groaned with relief when instead of reaching for the wine, she grabbed a stem of asparagus off of her plate with her fingers and took a bite.
“I suspect you will never forgive me,” he gritted out.