He might not even believe her. For who would want to consider such a thing?
And right now, she needed him to trust her.
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked. “Sorry?”
He drew away from her, like he was shrinking into himself. Shriveling into the coat that was a little too worn. Drawing intothe shadows of the forest. “I’ve frightened you again. It’s the last thing I want, but I can’t seem to stop doing it.”
Her heartbeat was as sharp as a chisel, cutting into her ribs. Maybe he remembered after all. The stable. His cruel words. “You don’t frighten me.”
He laughed—a sound that rumbled through her every nerve. “You’re lying.”
“I am not.”
“Every time we’re alone, you end up running away from me.”
She swallowed. Perhaps that was true.
“And maybe that’s for the best.” He studied her face. “You know something. At first I thought maybe it was… in my room, when you… when we…” He paused to gather himself. “But after you left, I realized things had begun to change the moment Julie died. You looked at me differently. Like you didn’t trust me, and like you had every reason not to.” He lifted a hand to the side of his head. “Then you disappear, take two horses and run off without a word, and I wake up in the stables, a shovel next to me and a head that feels like it’s been thrown into the winepress.”
If he’d seemed fearful before, now there was a quiet dread creeping over his features.
“I’ve had time to think. About you. And about Julie. I always thought she was odd, because she’d often say things that made no sense. Or look at me in a way that was… secretive. I thought she was merely flirtatious, and I hoped that by ignoring her, it would pass, but then she would act so hurt, and it became a cycle of guilt and kindness that went on for months. And then, suddenly, she’s dead. And you talk about her having some secret romance, and being given a wedding ring, and—” He cut himself off.
“You found the wedding ring in your room,” Mallory whispered.
He startled. “Youdidsee it. That’s why you ran.” He shifted forward, grabbing her hands, pleading. She tensed at the touch but did not pull away. “You have to believe that I would never have hurt her. I don’t know how the ring got there. I have no idea who killed her or why, but it wasn’t me, Mallory.”
“But you forget things.”
He fell quiet, startled.
“You don’t know how you got to the stables. And there are other times, too, when you have no memory of how you got to a place, or why you are there.” She wet her lips. “You do not know for sure what you were doing the morning that Julie was murdered. There is time missing that you can’t remember. Isn’t that so?”
Armand’s pallor turned gray.
But with her certainty that she was right, she was struck with a new realization.
He’d mentioned what had happened in his room. The way she’d pushed him away when she saw the ring.
Armand remembered their kiss.
Mallory’s breath hitched. It hadn’t been Le Bleu, and it hadn’t been her imagination. It had been Armand, the real Armand—and he had wanted her.Her.Strange Mallory, with her dark jokes and dark drawings and dark curiosities.
“Tell me the truth,” Armand murmured.
For an instant, the truth was there in her mouth, on her tongue, threatening to spill out into the world where she could never take it back.
She yearned for him in a way that terrified her. The very sight of him ignited a fire inside her. His self-conscious laugh made her want to crush her mouth to his. The way he rattled off unfamiliar plant names did something to the chemistry of her brain.
It scared her. It scared herso much. Far more than bloodthirsty monsters or odious spirits.
But her messy, complicated, irrational feelings were not what they were talking about.
Tell me the truth.
His calloused hands tightened on hers like a drowning man grasping at a piece of driftwood. He looked devastated—because he must have already known, without her having to say it.
