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“Say my name, Eliana.” His fist, balled tight, lifted at his side.
Why had she asked Watson to close the door? Some false sense of propriety over what was going to be a delicate conversation? Idiotic. Stupid to think this was going to unfold in any other way.
Her eyes closed. “Howard, please. Lord Troubant talked to you and I believed that to be the end of us. I—”
“The end of us?” He jabbed another step forward, his chest bumping into her as his voice snaked into a growl. “You don’t decide the end of us, Eliana. I decide. You didn’t give it enough time. I was going to show you—show you what we could have, but that was ruined. You didn’t understand the first time.”
Her hands wedged up between them and she pressed against his chest. “Except we are done, Howard. What we had was enjoyable, I still appreciate your company, but there cannot be more between us.”
His head shook, fury lighting blazes into his brown eyes. “You don’t decide the end.”
She pushed off of him, gaining another step. “You need to leave now, Howard, or I will scream and my staff will be here in a breath.”
His hand around her neck was instant, clamping the wind out of her throat as he shoved her backward.
Her back hit the wall next to the window, slamming the air in her chest upward, only to be blocked by the grip he had on her neck.
Crushing. Crushing her air. Her voice.
“The old man is dying. It won’t be long now and I’ll have the Kallen estate—all of it. And I take you with it. Whatever you and my uncle have, it is mine. You’re mine. Don’t you ever forget it.”
Black dots started to ring her vision, moving inward, taking the light. Her mouth gasping for air, she fought the blackness, fought back into the light, into the room. Fought for strength into her right leg. Just enough. She jammed her knee upward with all the strength she could muster just as she started to drop, the blackness winning the battle.
His hand fell from her neck and he doubled over, screaming.
She tumbled toward the floor, the wood planks coming fast up at her. She hit the floor hard, her arms wide, not able to block the fall as she landed brutally on her chest, her belly.
Her breath gone. Gone for good.
{ Chapter 13 }
Rune stood in his guest chamber, looking down at the leather satchel bursting with papers on his bed.
Not that he’d spent more than the first night after arriving here at the Raplan dower house in the bedroom. Elle had not been shy about where she preferred him to sleep the last two nights—in the comfort of her bed, naked next to her. He’d had no objection to the arrangement.
Just a few minutes ago he’d entered through the back door of her house and had gone straight up to this room so as to not be seen.
He needed to look through the papers by himself. Needed to remember alone.
His fingers went down, opening the top flap of the bag and pulling free a tied stack of letters shoved into the very front of the bag. He set them on the bed and started flipping through more of the papers and scraps of vellum buried deeper within the bag until his gaze strayed to the stack of letters.
Letters his father had written him during the years when they were separated after his mother died. All of the letters had been saved for Rune, as there had been nowhere for his father to send them.
The past, staring at him as it always did.
A sigh on his lips, he set the satchel down and shifted to stand in front of the letters.
The second night after his father had found him in the Port of Veracruz, he’d sat—still livid that his father had shown up out of nowhere on that pier to claim him again—crouched by the fireplace for light, reading letter after letter after letter. Learning that his father had never abandoned him. Had done everything in his power to find him.
And he had. Eventually. His father had traded everything to get back to Rune, to find him. And it had cost him his life.
Undoing the twine holding the stack together, Rune took a deep breath, then picked up the top letter from the bundle and opened it. Words he knew by heart, but was still driven to read, for the quick, efficient scrawl held the last vestiges of his father.
October 13, 1811
My beloved son,
Two days ago I learned your mother died and you are nowhere to be found. Devastated does not begin to describe the loss I hold in my heart at losing not only your mother, but you as well. I have pulled apart this town, searching every corner, every street for you. I will continue my search for you tomorrow. And every day thereafter, until I find you. Make no mistake on that. I am coming.
