“You want everything to stay thesame. For all your talk of building things and newness, you want things to be exactly as you’ve always had them. You want the same woman you’ve always imagined you wanted in the same place you’ve always lived, and the only reason you think differently is because almost everyone isgone. You’ve no history to uphold. No family to please. So spare. Me. Your. Scorn.”
Her voice broke on the last word.
Because his face went whiter and whiter and she felt like a murderer.
She never loathed herself so much. She’d never known she could fight so filthily, could reach for someone’s most vulnerable places and insert her sword. It was possible she’d never understood anyone else well enough to do that.
She wanted to apologize but only for inflicting pain. She wasn’t going to apologize for telling her truth. Because she was right.
“It matters to me, Hugh. They matter to me.” She said it desperately. Her voice cracked.
As though she was trying to convince herself.
And still it seemed he couldn’t speak.
“Well. I suppose it’s a good thing our plan is working a treat, don’t you? Can’t you sense Lord Bankham’s first ever insurrection on the horizon, future Lady Bankham?”
He said it without rancor, but with much irony.
Why did it feel like a slap?
She drew in a breath. “Well. And then you can go,” she said quietly.
“You left out ‘to the devil.’”
“While that is quite true, I never used to have those kinds of thoughts before I met you.”
He hesitated.
“I imagine you didn’t feel a lot of things before you met me.”
The words weren’t snide or accusatory. He said them evenly. They were, perhaps, almost a question.
Her eyes began to burn. Furious tears tightened her throat, and she was damned if she’d let him see them.
She turned around swiftly, prepared to run back the way she’d come. In all likelihood she could have done it with her eyes closed. Weaving through the trees that were so familiar. Treading the paths worn over centuries.
But as it turned out this was overoptimistic because she still managed to trip on a little branch that had recently fallen.
She saw the ground rushing up to meet her.
She never got there.
She gasped when she was yanked back swiftly and tucked into the hard shelter of his body.
Hugh’s arms were around her waist.
He turned her around, his hands holding her fast, reviewing her for damage.
She went still.
“Well? Are you going to kick me, like you kicked Gilly when you fell into the pond?”
“Bastard.” She said it quietly.
“You didn’t learn that word from meorfrom The Grand Palace on the Thames.”
“If you’d just let go and give me a little room to do it, I’ll kick you much harder than I ever kicked Gilly.”