He was the one to advance then. Lenora gasped as his hands closed over her arms, hauling her against the hard breadth of his bare chest. “Imagine my surprise when I uncovered the passionate woman beneath.” His voice turned husky then, his gaze falling to her lips. Heat pooled low in her belly, her breath coming in short gasps, the fury in her transforming to a dark desire.
In the next moment, his face contorted. He let her go so unexpectedly, she stumbled back. She watched, stunned, as he retreated to the far side of the bed. The lantern light caught in the planes of his muscles as he ran his hands through his hair. “Forgive me,” he muttered. “It’s no business of mine. Redburn is your future now.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “he is.” She swallowed hard, forcing down the regret that sat like a stone in her chest. The anger that had fueled her into coming here had already fallen away, like dead leaves in winter, leaving nothing but a stark, barren landscape of her heart. “Just leave me alone, Peter. Please.”
Before she could think better of it, she hurried for the door. But she found she could not leave, though her hand gripped the knob, anchoring her to sanity in the storm of emotions battering her. Letting loose a weary sigh, she closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the wooden panel, unable to hold her head up a moment longer.
“Why did you come back, Peter?”
“I told you why.”
But she was beyond hearing the pained undercurrent in his voice. Behind her closed lids, she saw him as he had been earlier that afternoon in Lady Tesh’s drawing room, the anger that had burst from him when he’d lashed out at Clara.
“You said you returned to the Isle to pay Lady Tesh back for helping your mother,” she managed, her rasping voice echoing back to her against the door. “But that wasn’t the only reason, was it?”
A short, heavy silence followed. And then, “No.”
“Judging from the way you fairly attacked Clara about her father, shall I assume the other reason was His Grace?”
“Yes.”
She remained silent and still, waiting. Finally he continued.
“When I was thirteen, I went to Dane, begging him to help my ill mother. She was dying. I had no money, no connections. He was my last resort.” He pulled in a deep, agonized breath. “He refused me, turned me from the house. She might have lived if not for him.”
“And so you would make him pay for not helping your mother.”
“Yes.”
Her fingers tightened about the doorknob. A harsh laugh escaped her lips. “At least I know now why you intend to never marry. You mean for the line to die out with you, don’t you? As punishment. That’s the debt he must pay to you for destroying your mother’s life, for destroying your life.”
The silence was so great, she thought he would never answer. Finally his voice reached her, a whisper in the heavy air. “Yes.”
One word that proved what a fool she had been even to consider making a life with him. Her heart, already fractured, shattered. Any chance for a happily-ever-after between them had been doomed from the start.
Without a word, she opened the door and slipped from the room.
***
Peter stared at the place she’d been, the devastation left in the wake of her departure making mere minutes seem like hours. He had thought he could not feel any lower after the subscription ball. But this left that in the dust.
He couldn’t stay at Seacliff any longer. He should have left as soon as Redburn arrived. It had been pure stubbornness that had kept him from leaving. He was the only one affected, he had told himself. Once the promise to his mother was seen through, he could leave, and never give this island and the people on it another thought.
Lenora had made him see in mere minutes how wrong he had been.
The agony on her face would haunt him the rest of his days. By acting the animal and attacking Redburn, he had brought her grief.
He could not hate himself more.
Again a flash of the agony in her eyes, the fury in her voice. Lenora did not deserve the heartache Peter had brought into her life. He would leave tomorrow, and never return. And she would never have to suffer from his presence in her life again.
But by leaving, he would once more be breaking his promise to his mother. The guilt from ignoring her final wishes had haunted him all these years. By seeing them through, he could finally lay his mother’s ghost to rest.
He sank down on the edge of the bed, his head dropping into his hands. But how could he stay here knowing he was hurting Lenora? Her face swam up behind his tightly closed lids, white with strain, and he knew in a flash he couldn’t. To hell with how this affected him. He’d lived with the guilt for half his life. What he could not live with was giving Lenora even a moment’s more pain.
He surged to his feet, pulling a shirt over his head, striding through the door. Making his way down the hall on silent feet, he paused only an instant outside Lenora’s door before moving off to the room at the far end.
He rapped on the polished wood. She might be sleeping given the late hour, he told himself, preparing to move away and return to his room—coward that he was.
