Distantly, Phoebe realized that they were both doing the same thing—lashing out because they were hurt and afraid. But that didn’t stop her from doing it any more than it stopped Aaron.
“And then you and I never would have been married, you do realize, don’t you?” she retorted. “Or maybe that’s what you would have preferred—I never was your first choice, was I?”
He was pacing now.
“Don’t be melodramatic, Phoebe,” he snapped. “I’m just telling you the facts of the world. This is how Society works. And in Society, women who foolishly allow themselves to be taken advantage of by cads who don’t marry them first find themselves shunned. And you—what? You trick me into helping you protect her so thatmysister doesn’t bear the consequences of your sister’s idiocy? So that you can corrupt my sister with this perversity?”
Rage choked Phoebe at the insult to her sister, feeling like a fist clenched tight around her throat.
“She fell inlove,” she told him. “Not because I showed her how to bescandalousbut because I loved her. I showed her love, and she wanted to find love in return. And yes, I think she was a bit naïve about how she went about it, but that doesn’t mean her principle was wrong.”
“How we go about things is what determines who we are,” he countered. “If she acted naïve in this, it’s because sheisnaïve. Just like you were naïve to think that you could gad about the city unchaperoned without getting into trouble. You’re just sour because the trouble landed on your sister instead of yourself.”
“I would rather be how I am instead of how you are,” she countered. “At least I showed my sister the benefits of caring for another person. You showed Clio coldness and disdain and broke her heart, instead.”
“Donottalk about my sister,” he snarled.
“Or what?” she challenged. She was lost to the ebb of her anger now. “You’ll send me away, just like you did to Clio?”
He slashed his hand through the air as though dismissing her words, and Phoebe found that his refusal to speak felt even more painful than any cruel words he could hurl at her.
It was like he was throwing her away, just like he did to anyone who did not fit into his vision of how things ought to be.
“Fine,” she said, feeling tears prickle in the back of her eyes. “Fine. If this is what you want—if you want to be alone so badly—I shan’t stand in your way any longer. You win, Aaron.”
She prayed he would stop her. He had to stop her, didn’t he? Hehadto.
But he just gave her a disdainful look, like she was a soldier whom he had failed to bring up to muster.
“Don’t make a scene, Phoebe,” he said, and his voice was icy in the way it had been when they first met. It was only now that she realized how far they had come from that initial meeting—and it stung like the press of snow against bare skin to hear it again.
She tore his coat from around her shoulders and thrust it back at Aaron, not waiting to confirm that he had it in his hands before she let go. Tears were blurring her vision now, and she needed to be gone before he saw them fall.
“Do you know what’s the worst part of all this, Aaron?” she asked, staring at the wall of the house so that she wouldn’t look at him. If she looked at him, she was going to start crying immediately. “That I let myself feel something. I knew better, but still, I let it happen.”
And then she left him behind before she could let herself reveal anything more that was really best kept to herself.
Just like her blasted, weak heart.
CHAPTER 24
Really, Ariadne was very understanding about a teary Phoebe showing up on her doorstep late in the night.
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe hiccupped. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Ariadne cooed, opening her arms to Phoebe even though she was wearing a dressing gown and had clearly been headed to her bed. “Come here.”
“Who do I have to murder?” David asked with more cheer than the question warranted as he, too, came into the parlor where the nervous footman had deposited Phoebe while he went to retrieve his employers.
“Well, she’s married to my cousin, so perhaps let’s hold off on that,” Ariadne said, offering her husband a small smile. “It does so annoy Xander when the Lightholder offshoots squabble.”
David got a very put-upon look. “Oh, if you insist,” he said. “If my services aren’t needed, I shall absent myself.”
And he did so, but not before pressing a kiss to the top of Ariadne’s head and pouring drinks for both women—Phoebe’s significantly larger than the one that he offered his wife.
“Just to be clear,” Ariadne said when David had left and both women had taken a sip of their drink; Phoebe relished the way the liquor burned her throat, “I will absolutely take your side over Aaron’s. But killing a duke is a hanging offense, and I’d like my husband’s neck to remain unstretched, so maybe we stop short of murder, eh?”
Phoebe recognized that this was an effort to cheer her up, and she tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob instead. Ariadne let out a small sound of dismay and wrapped her arms around Phoebe tightly.
