“I only wanted you to know the truth.”
“And what am I supposed to do with it? I can’t be happy about it. I can’t accept your love and fall willingly into your arms. Diana is wounded and broken, she may never walk again, and now to learn that she is heartbroken, too?”
A part of Madeline wanted to scream at Adam for waiting until this moment to tell her this. For telling her at all! For what could she do now, but suffer with guilt for the tragedy that had befallen Diana, and a lifetime of regrets for what might have been, if things had been different?
She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what to say, Adam.”
“Say anything. Scream at me if you like, for I was so wrong about what I thought would make me happy. You must think me a foolish man.”
Foolish? No more foolish than I.
Madeline knew she was as much to blame for this accident as Adam, for whether he realized it or not, she had helped cause whatever confusion he was experiencing now. She had acted like a wife to him in all ways but one. She had supported him, encouraged intimacy in their conversations. She’d taken care of his family and cooked for them, and she had been as charming as she knew how to be.
On top of that, Madeline had entertained terrible thoughts, wishing Diana would jilt Adam again so that she herself could pick up the pieces. Or she’d wished that Adam would jilt Diana so that for once in her life, Madeline—the ugly duckling sister—could be the chosen one.
The rain battered against the window, the panes rattled in the wind. Adam and Madeline sat in stony silence.
“I’m so sorry, Madeline,” he said. “Will you ever be able to forgive me?”
Madeline felt tears coming, tried to subdue them, but it was no use. She could not be with Adam now, despite what he was saying. She could never be so cruel, so disloyal to her sister when her future was so uncertain. Madeline breathed shakily and forced herself to speak.
“This has been a terrible day, Adam. I doubt you even know what you’re saying.”
Head bowed low, he shook his head. “I know exactly what I’m saying.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice quivering, “but I have to go and be with Diana.”
Madeline pulled her hand from his and rose from her chair.
“Wait, don’t go yet. I need to know. If this hadn’t happened, would you have cared for me? Would you ever have been able to love me as a man?”
She stared blankly at him. Her heart was reeling with chaos! She was aching inside. Aching! She loved Adam more than anything in the world and he had no idea. None.
A barn had collapsed on her sister, while the entire world was collapsing around Madeline. How could she possibly manage so much tragedy?
Her voice quavered as she spoke. “How can you not know the answer to that question?”
His face went pale.
She forced herself to search for the courage to continue. “Did you never once suspect that I loved you the first moment I stepped off the ship, and that I have been struggling all this time to crush that love? To defeat my feelings and stop wanting what I believed was forbidden to me?”
Her response was like a blow to Adam’s chest. The wind sailed out of his lungs. “You cared for me? But you never revealed it.”
“How could I? I was imprisoned by the same things you were. You were engaged to my sister, and I believed that you loved her.”
He took a cautious step toward her and touched her soft cheek with the back of a finger. “Madeline….” Her eyes were wide and bloodshot as she gazed up at him. Adam’s heart swelled with a relentless, overwhelming love for her. “Don’t tell me this can never be.”
She blinked, as if in some kind of stupor.
He couldn’t stop himself. She was so beautiful, uncertain and disheveled as she was. He lowered his mouth to hers.
A tiny little moan escaped her as he brushed his lips over hers, reveling in the gentle tentativeness of the kiss. Her lips parted and he let his tongue mingle with hers as he cupped her whole face in his big hands. How long he had waited to do just this.
He pulled back from the kiss and whispered as he rested his forehead against hers. “Please tell me we can work through this.”
She stepped away from him, her lashes sweeping downward. She sucked in a breath. Was she going to cry?
God, he wanted to hold her. He reached for her, but she took another step back, almost as if she feared him.
