“Damn it all to hell,” he groaned and buried his head in his hands.
He couldn’t live without her.
He had to live without her. And he had no idea how he could do it.
“Damn it all to fucking hell.”
In an excess of feeling, he flung his arm out and sent everything on the desk flying. The delicate whisky glass landed with a crack against the marble fireplace and shattered into tinkling shards.
“Your Grace?” Verity hovered in the doorway before him as if his imagination had invoked her.
He lunged to his feet and stared at her in helpless longing. Hungrily, he dwelled on every detail of her. He recognized her rose pink gown from the glen. She’d looped her hair back in a loose knot, revealing the perfect shape of her jaw and neck. Her hands were bandaged, and her slender throat was bruised. On her ashen face, the knife cut stood out as a stark red line. His anger and guilt surged anew at the reminder of what she’d borne because of him.
“Verity?”
Gently, she shut the elaborately carved double doors behind her, but she didn’t venture further into the room. Her hands twined together nervously at her waist.
The gesture pierced him to the marrow. Surely she knew she had no reason to be afraid of him any more.
“I thought you’d be asleep. You’re exhausted.” The struggle for control made his voice flat.
How he sometimes missed the man he’d been. That man would have spirited her away to serve his pleasure without a thought to what was right or what she wanted. That man would take her and keep her and never let her go.
“I’ve been watching over Ben. The doctor says he can travel tomorrow if we go slowly and find appropriate transport.”
“Stay here until he’s recovered.”
Stay here forever.
But she was already shaking her head. The pure lines of her face set with determination. “Kylemore, I must leave. Nothing has changed between us.”
“No, nothing has changed.” The saddest words in the language. He wanted to argue, object, insist she wait, but any reprieve merely postponed the inevitable. “Take one of my carriages so you travel in comfort.”
She bent her head in acknowledgment. “Thank you.”
Surprised at her ready agreement, he watched as she edged closer to the light. The brightness illuminated marks of weariness and unhappiness under her translucent eyes.
It slashed him to the heart to see her looking so defeated. His gaze focused on her cheek, where tendrils of hair escaped her simple hairstyle.
“Does your face hurt?” he asked in concern. “Christ! I should have been there to stop anything happening to you.”
She smiled with an edge of irony. For a moment, Soraya’s knowing, sophisticated ghost hovered. Then she was gone.
“Given what you prevented, I think I can manage to forgive you. It’s only a scratch. It could have been much worse.”
She drifted across to the wall to trail her hand along the alabaster top of a side table. When she raised her eyes, they were somber. She’d been pale when she’d entered the room; now every trace of color had drained from her face, leaving her white as new parchment.
“I’ve come to say good-bye,” she said softly but implacably.
In a heartbeat, he circled the desk to reach for her. Then he remembered he no longer had the right to touch her.
“Oh, mo leannan,” he said gruffly, although he knew it would achieve nothing. “Don’t do this.”
“I have to.” Then, with visible effort, she added, “It’s over and I must go. Heaven bless you, Your Grace.”
His heart laden with despair, he watched her turn to leave. She straightened her back, as if she prepared to face an invincible foe.
It was an act of lonely gallantry. It was an act of breathtaking grace. As she walked away, he had no difficulty remembering that this woman had once held the glittering world in thrall.