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She stared at the back he’d turned to her, closing himself off.

She’d unconsciously pushed him away simply because she hadn’t been able to see him as anything other than her friend. She hadn’t known how to love him, because she’d hardly known love herself. That part of her life had been empty, punctuated by her father’s neglect to Mrs. Coleman’s derision. Even her mother, the only woman who’d loved her unconditionally, had left her, dying before Ina was even old enough to remember her properly.

With Gavin she’d fooled herself into thinking she was somehow less alone. She’d believed they could stand together through everything. Now she understood that all she’d been was a fool. She was alone, just as she’d always been. Just as she’d always be.

“I want to go home,” she said. This time she wasn’t asking. She was telling him.

“You’re not a princess locked in a tower. No one’s stopping you from leaving.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the hurt of his careless words, but still she forced herself to ask, “Will you come with me?”

Maybe if they were no longer under his mother’s malicious influence they could begin to heal. She could almost make herself believe that leaving this house would fix everything.

“I’m staying at Oak Park,” he said. “You may do as you wish.”

Her false hope shattered. If Gavin wouldn’t leave, they were at a stalemate with no recourse.

“Then there’s nothing left to say.” And she walked out, letting the door slam shut behind her.

Chapter Twenty-One

SHE’D LEFT HIM. Ina had walked out of his room without a look back, gutting him as sure as though she’d held a knife clutched in her hand.

It had been a mistake to ask her to tell him she loved him. He was pressuring her, and he knew that whatever words she might come up with would only be to appease him. It was just that he’d spent so much of his life waiting and hoping she might one day wake up and feel for him the way he felt for her.

He could now finally see what everyone around him must’ve known for years. He was an idiot.

Ina would never be able to break away from the idea of him as her friend. Why else had she fixated on Grace?

He should’ve realized it wouldn’t take his mother long to hold over Ina the fact that he’d once loved his sister-in-law. It was just the sort of thing his mother would use to her advantage to drive a wedge between them. And yet he’d been stunned when Ina had suggested that he might still harbor feelings for Grace, the woman who’d thrown him off for a better offer from his own brother.

That was when the anger truly broke. He didn’t know what else he had to do to prove to her that he was a good man who wanted to give her the entire world. If she’d let him, he would’ve made Ina his everything.

And yet you still won’t take her out of this unhappy house.

The thought plagued him as he rolled over in his empty bed late at night. Simply picking up and returning to Edinburgh wouldn’t solve anything. Oh, it might dampen this fire, but there would be others that would crop up one after another. The fundamental problem was that his wife didn’t love him. He’d given her his heart, and she couldn’t do the same for him.

It was the story of his life, always losing. He’d played second to Richard all his life, always losing in their games and coming up short in his parents’ affection. As a grown man, he’d lost the woman he’d loved to his brother. When he’d bucked his father’s demands and gone off to write, he’d thought perhaps he’d cracked his unlucky streak, but then a second book hadn’t materialized. Every way he turned he lost again and again, and had nothing to show for it.

That was why the estate mattered. That was why fulfilling his duties as baronet was so vital. He had to prove to himself, his family, and the world that he could do this. For once in his life he wanted to win.

That was why he remained firmly rooted on the mattress in the safety of his room. He’d already lost his heart to Ina once. He couldn’t do it again.

Sleep eluded Ina that night. She’d returned to her room in shock, staring blankly at a spot on the wall as Ruth helped her out of her evening dress and into a soft cotton night rail. Then she’d gotten into bed and stared at the ceiling, sleep eluding her.

Gavin had made his choice. The baronetcy and Oak Park had won out over their marriage. He’d told her to go. He wanted her to go back to Edinburgh without him.

Hot tears slid down her cheeks and onto her pillow. She wasn’t falling in love with him. She was already there, but he’d hardly given her a chance. He’d demanded her affection but then closed himself off before she could say anything, too stunned by the intensity of his feelings to figure out how to even begin reciprocating them.

And then he’d turned away from her. The fight had cut too deep. Their argument seemed too hard to break through and too steep to scale. He’d told her he was finished with her, and with those words condemned their marriage.

“Then I’ll go,” she said into the darkened room. There was nothing left for her here at Oak Park. This place had brought them nothing but sadness, escalating a fight that likely was inevitable. She and Gavin didn’t work anymore. Their union had broken them.

She needed to go home. With the comfort of her friends and the solace of her work, she just might heal enough to be able to forget.

Ina threw off her bedclothes and jammed her feet into the slippers Ruth had left for her. She grabbed the dressing gown at the foot of the bed and shoved her arms into it, drawing the sash tight around her waist. Then she yanked on the bellpull to summon Ruth. Normally she didn’t like to wake her hardworking maid in the early-morning hours, but this was urgent. If she delayed, she might lose her resolve.

Moving softly, with only the dim gaslights to guide her, she went to the sitting room attached to the boudoir. If she’d had her way, she would have stripped the entire apartment of the swaths of velvet and gold-fringed tassels in favor of light gray walls and white trim. She’d have removed the furniture covered in heavy gilt and pulled the old, stodgy paintings of stormy seas off the walls. But this wasn’t her home, and neither was it her room.