Alice’s heart soared even as she feared that this wasn’t enough. She couldn’t tell what Hugh was feeling, what he was thinking. The storm still battered against the tiny house, but she felt as if it howled and slashed at them. But she wouldn’t give up—she’d made a vow.
‘But don’t you see?’ she said. ‘There wasn’t a reason to stop your kiss that day. I never saw you as you saw yourself. Like you do now. I only saw your strength, courage, perseverance.Thatwas the man I wanted. The man I vowed to marry.’
‘You saw me wrong. You keep seeing me wrong. To this day I don’t look at ale or wine like everyone else—as something to drink every day or, if it’s a good vintage, as something to use in celebration. I look at it and wonder if the next sip I take won’t wreck me, too.’
She’d seen him at parties, lifting his goblet and staring at the contents. ‘And yet you still drink?’
‘As a test...a challenge...a game.’
It was no game. He did it to prove he wasn’t like his father. If he continued to think that way there would only be bitterness about his past. There was no changing who had sired him, so he needed to see his father in a different way.
‘You sawyourselfwrong. Your father had difficulties, but there was good in him. Your mother may have asked for his help, but he must have paid for the way. He took you in.’
Hugh’s legs wouldn’t hold him any more and he leaned against the wall again. Alice stood there, looking far more fragile than he’d ever seen her. Her hair was wet from the snow, and she was shivering under the blanket she held.
He could see the blanket covering her. It was his...and he couldn’t quell the feeling of possessiveness that he felt.
She was always beautiful to him, and never more so than now. As she showed her love for that child, quaking and breaking everything inside him until he had no walls.
Then she had brought up his past with his father, and rewritten his childhood. How could she have known? A few words spilled at a dance when he’d been angry and she’d guessed accurately.
She was right. He had never seen what she had, hadn’t known such a boy existed. He only remembered the hardship, the shame. His begging of his father to stop drinking. He only remembered the relief when his father’s land had been sold and he bought his armour and turned his back on Swaffham.
Turned his back on Alice.
He had thought he wanted her then. It was nothing like now.
He had held her in his arms, felt the softness of her lips. Tasted her until it had driven him to the edge. He had avoided her for days now, just to stop this conversation. He knew she’d have questions about why he’d kissed her.
And all of the answers he could give her would bring him trouble. He had kissed her because he’d needed to distract her from the real traitor. Because he still wanted her. Would always want her.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said truthfully. ‘The present is too full of lies and deceit.’
She stopped her shivering then. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Even if we repair the past—even if your words are true, Alice—what is there now?’
‘There’severythingnow. There’susnow.’
‘Not for long. I’m selling this house. I don’t know why I kept it. I’m a knight, and I find information for the King. It’s what is expected of me.’
‘But—’
The door rattled, sleet slashed against the roof and Hugh raised his voice to be heard. ‘There is nothing else. What did you think? That you could heal me of my past and repair the present? Is this something like William? Do you want to fix me? What did I tell you? Life doesn’t work that way. Since I left here, years separate us. More mistakes, more barriers. You and I were never meant to be together. Life has made sure of that. We have no future.Isee that. Why can’t you?’
Tears were falling. Why hide them? She was baring her soul to this man anyway. To one who found the world lacking, one who stormed and raged within himself and never let it go. A few mere tears meant nothing.
‘Because you feel something—’
‘For you?Lust.’ His lips curled. ‘I used to be as sheltered as you when I lived here. Believing there was a right and a wrong way. But nothing is that black and white. Didn’t staying in London teach you anything? Didn’t your father show you how flimsy vows are?’
She gasped. Her father. Happy. Adulterous. Yes, she knew how men were, but Hugh had shown devotion and loyalty to his father. She had believed Hugh was different. But if he was, he was denying it.
And he continued to denythem. Maybe the years he’d been away had change him irrevocably. Maybe she had imagined their compatibility. Maybe she didn’t, but it didn’t matter because if he denied the truth of their connection, what was the difference?
Nothing.
And in that, her heart cracked. She didn’t want to run away this time, but if he denied there was something between them, then it wasn’t her who was turning her back.
