“To be clear, you are not apologizingfordisappearing and breaking the terms of our agreement. You’re apologizing for not writing me a letter before you did so.”
“Yes,” she said, relieved that he understood. “Precisely.”
“Astonishing,” he muttered, throwing his head back with a bark of laughter. “Absolutely bloody astonishing.”
Her brow furrowed. “What . . . what is?”
His chin dropped with a snap and his amber eyes burned brighter than the fire when they clashed with hers. “Your obliviousness, for one. Do you really not see any wrongdoing in your actions beyondthe courtesy of a letter?”
“You never should have asked me to return to England with you!” she cried, springing to her feet. “That morning in my bedroom, after we... after we did what we did, you asked me to come back with you. To give up the pursuit of my dreams so that I might fall in step with whatyouenvisioned as a perfect wife.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he scoffed. “I haven’t ever asked you to give up being a doctor. It’s because of me that you were able to become one in the first place!”
Did the arrogance of men know no bounds?
“If I’d gone with you, would you have let me open my own office?” she challenged, her hands bunching into fists of indignation on her hips. “Would you have let me establish my practice? My list of patients? Or would your expectation have been that I immediately assume the duties of a countess?”
“Would I have wanted my bride to spend all of her waking hours away from our home after being separated for the first five years of our marriage?” Standing as well, he stalked to the window and slammed his palms on the sill with enough strength to rattle the pane. In the deathly silence that followed, the sound of an ember popping in the fireplace was as loud as a gunshot. “If I’m being honest, no, probably not.”
Her chest rose and fell as the truth, the hard truth, enveloped the room. A truth that left no place to hide and no one to blame, which was perhaps the hardest part of all. That they were both wrong... and they were both right.
“That is why I ran,” she said quietly. “We want different things, Stephen. Things that we cannot give the other. I don’t fault either of us for believing it might work when we started out, but at this point it would be folly to pursue a future where if we’re together, neither of us will have what we truly covet.”
“What if what I truly covet is you?” He looked at her over his shoulder, and the sudden bleakness in his gaze stole the very breath from her lungs. “In Connecticut, you told me that you wished you’d never married me. Is that still true? Tell me it is, and I’ll arrange for a coach to take you back to London today.”
She parted her lips to tell him precisely that... but to her surprise, the words wouldn’t come. Then again, she’d always been a terrible liar. “I wish... I wish there were an easy solution. I wish this were a cut I could mend with a few stitches. I wish we couldbothhave what we wanted.”
“You’ve been a doctor for three years.” He went to her and took her hand. Raising it to his mouth, he lightly brushed hislips across her knuckles. Resignation had replaced the anger in his gaze. Resignation... and the tiniest, smallest flicker of hope. “Stay here and be my wife for three weeks. I was going to force you, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good. So now I’ll ask you. Be a countess, Abigail. For three weeks. Then freely decide what life you would like to pursue. If it’s not a life with me, I’ll grant you whatever independence you desire. An outright divorce would be nigh on impossible, but we can go our separate ways and I’ll never darken your doorstep again. You have my word.”
Her heart stuttered.
The enormity of what he was giving her...
Of what he was offering . . .
It was difficult to comprehend.
But it wasn’t hard to accept.
“Yes,” she said, her tongue all but stumbling in its effort to push out the word before he could change his mind. “Yes, I agree. On one condition.”
His eyes narrowed. “What is that?”
“Well . . .”
Chapter Twelve
Cats.
Abigail wanted her cats.
Because of course she did.
And because he was helplessly, hopelessly,embarrassinglysmitten with a wife who was already counting down the days to when she could leave him, Stephen found himself on his way to procure said cats, leaving Summerwind House before dawn so that he might return by dusk.
Three years without contact.
Three cats to procure.
