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His breath hitched. He could see how she’d drawn that conclusion. “But I didn’t actually—”
“Now,” she raised her voice, “you waltz in here blithe as you please, expecting me to...” She glared. “To what? Fall at your feet? No!” She stomped.
He stared down at the slender, slippered foot that had just caused the bedside table to jump.
“I will not! I am not someone you can take for granted. I am not someone you can hurt without consequences.”
She clenched her fists and lifted them partway, as if preparing to take a punch.
“You bullied Millie into submission! I will not allow you to browbeat me, too!”
Bullied? He blinked. Browbeat?
Shock parted his mouth. An icy silence hardened and stretched between them, slippery, dark, and uncrossable. Suspended in disbelief, he steadied his bewildered gaze.
“How could you?” she asked in a whisper.
By instinct, he leaned forward—not too far, just enough to demonstrate his attention and concern.
He recalled the words he had overheard the expectant mother speak. In the slightest difficulty, I perceive a dreadful disaster.
Deliberately, he folded his hands behind his back. He prepared for the first, hazardous step onto slick glaze. He was going to be very, very careful.
She’d gotten everything garbled, but the facts she’d stated were essentially true. He had argued Neville’s case to Millie, he had taken possession of Calder, and, moments ago, he had been buoyant with anticipation.
“Why did you request my presence?” she asked.
That question was easy to answer. He stated his reason in the simplest, yet most profound, of terms.
“Because I love you.”
Her breath went ragged, her face crumpled, and something within her withered. A wounded sound escaped her lips—an animal shot. If she allowed, he’d become her shelter.
He took a tentative step. “Is my love a reason you can accept?”
She lifted her elbow and covered her face with her forearm. She’d used the defensive posture before. Only, this time, she tucked her eyes into the crook of her elbow.
Careful. Gentle. She’s wounded and will run.
He replied in a hushed tone, "I requested your presence to seek your consent to pose a question I've previously asked.”
Again, the silence, still cold but cracking. Each of her shuddering breaths manifested in his body as his physical pain.
His throat dried. His eyes heated. His vision’s outer rims went soft. “I wish to implore you again,”—his voice broke—“but this time on bended knee.”
“S-s-si-mon.” A wail rather than a word. “S-s-stop.”
Stop talking? Stop loving her? Stop, he hoped, melting her heart?
“How can I trust you when you never tell me anything about yourself?” Her shoulders shook with sobs. “How can I trust that you love me, when I don't even know who you are? I've fallen in love with someone I made up!"
No. No she hadn’t. “May we sit?”
“Why?” she sniffled.
“So we might talk.”
“About what?”
