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“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I just . . . I have to go.” She was stammering. Stammering .
“Here.” Aidan took her arm and led her gently down the stairs and into a hidden corner around the side of the house. “Tell me.”
His warm fingers touched her chin, a startling contrast to the cool air. She closed her eyes against the beautiful pressure of him tilting her face up. She tried not to remember this same touch, long ago, this same motion just before he’d pressed his lips softly into hers for the very first time. Her eyes burned, wanting to weep.
“Katie—”
“Don’t call me that!” She heard his sharp inhalation and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please don’t call me that. I’m Kate now.”
“All right,” he said carefully.
“And . . . I’m sorry but I can’t see you again.”
His fingers held her chin for a moment, tightened almost imperceptibly before they fell away. “Of course.” She didn’t dare look at him, didn’t dare to see what emotion chilled his voice. “Then I will take this opportunity to say good-bye. I’ll leave for London in the morning.”
“Yes. I think that’s just as well. I didn’t mean . . .” She forced her eyes open, willed away the tears before they even formed. “I only meant that it is too strange, seeing you. It’s discomfiting. And there are . . . There is my husband. I’m sorry.”
His mouth had lost its gentleness; the cold shadow of his eyes fell impersonally on her face. “Of course,” he repeated. “Would you like to return to the party?”
“No.”
“Let me walk you home at least. Did you bring a cloak?”
He retrieved her cloak and reappeared again. This time, he did not offer his arm, and she was grateful. He was far too real now to touch.
They walked as strangers, silence between them like another companion. Clouds passed the moon and shifted darkness over them, only to be banished by the bright lights of windows they passed. In and out of shadows they walked. He did not speak until they reached her narrow lane.
“Katie . . . I mean, Mrs. Hamilton . . .”
Her feet slowed, but she didn’t stop and turn to him until she’d passed into another patch of darkness.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for how things ended between us. If I could go back, I’d change so many things.”
She could not see his face, thank God. She could pretend it wasn’t him as she nodded. “I’m sorry as well.”
And what else was there to say? They made their stiff farewells at the door, she avoiding his eyes, he bowing perfunctorily. Then she fled into the shop and up the stairs to lie down in her bed fully clothed, wrinkling her best dress and not caring in the least.
He was leaving.
She was relieved and somehow burning with anger also, because even his departure disturbed her, flooding her with desperate regret.
My God, how could she be attracted to him? Granted, he was handsome, he always had been. But she’d not looked at a man with anything more than a distant sort of weariness in so long. She’d assumed herself immune to men and their charms.
Staring at the ceiling, she watched pale light fade as the moon rose past her window. The darkness thickened. She stared.
Her body had betrayed her. It seemed to have some memory of Aidan and the love she’d once felt for him, the passion. The idea was foreign to her now.
She knew, intellectually, that she’d once wanted him, even that she’d enjoyed making love with him, but
she could not really remember it. It was as if it had happened to someone else, someone who’d told her the story. She knew he’d touched her body but she could not recall the feeling of it. Her mind was crowded with the impersonal grip of her husband’s hands, his blunt fingers digging into her flesh. Worst of all, she had ruined those memories of Aidan herself.
David Gallow had been her husband, and so she’d shared his bed. Still, for the first few months of her unwanted marriage, she’d thought Aidan would come for her, so every time her husband had taken her she’d been tortured with guilt. She betrayed Aidan, letting another man do that to her. It had seemed impossible Aidan would still want her, could still desire her, if she let another man touch her.
In defense, she’d tried to fill her mind with thoughts of him, ignoring her husband’s impersonal assaults. She’d thought it would lessen the betrayal, thinking of Aidan. Instead, it had obliterated all her memories of his gentle attention to her body.
Kate couldn’t remember their lovemaking, but her body seemed willing to draw him near again. She could not do that. She was not free to do that.
