“You cannot know that,” he bit out as his knuckles whitened from his fierce grip. “One day, I could be like him. One day I could hurt you—”
“I do not care about one day,” she cut in. “I only care about now.”
He ceased. A muscle tightened in his jaw as his gaze traveled over her. “Then you are an innocent fool, like everyone else. I know the pain that awaits on the horizon. It will steal everything from you, Jack. It will leave you a husk of a person, terrified…cowering…”
Her heart ripped asunder then. For he was not speaking of her. He was speaking of himself. What had happened to him as a boy?
He had been the husk, terrified, cowering.
And clearly no one had saved him.
Her eyes filled with tears and they spilled. These? She did not dash these away, for her heart was broken. Not because of him. Butforhim.
“That pain is not here, my darling,” she whispered. She drew in a shaky breath, determined to make him see. Determined to shatter the lie he had spun for himself. “And the truth is it maynevercome.”
The emotions that darkened his face at her words nearly undid her.
And, clearly, they nearly undid him. He looked away then, shaking his head. “Jack, cease—”
But she could not. She had to make him see. She stepped toward him, longing to take him in her arms. “You are living your life afraid of something that mayneverhappen. I want you,” she declared. “I wantallof you. I want all of younow. I do not need to wait to see who you are in the future. You are good and kindnow.
“You chose me at Vauxhall, protecting me from Drexel. You chose me in the chapel last night. You wanted to help me when my life was falling apart, and you helped my brother, too. You helpeveryone.Now, my love, you must choose you. You must help yourself,” she said. “I cannot live a life of fear with you, James. Frightened of shadows that may never come. Choose me, too,now.”
“It’s too late, Jack,” he whispered. “I cannot.”
She stilled, her body going cold. “I cannot live half a life, always hoping—”
“We’re married,” he pointed out abruptly.
“Yes, we are,” she agreed, her body shaking as if she was being torn asunder. “But a scandal has already fallen, James. I can leave you now to the life alone you clearly want. If you are afraid to be yourself with me, then we cannot be together. At all.”
Those words… Those true words nearly killed her. But she had to say them. She had to love herself enough to know that living in his shadows would never be enough.
No matter how much it broke her heart. Forthem.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
One week later…
“I must admit, Stone, that your—until recently—hidden talent for cocking it all up is really something.” Blackbrook leaned against the door to James’s study and continued, “I had no idea that a wedding celebration could feel like a funeral so quickly, and I say that as someone who has experienced a funeral in the near past.”
Stone picked up his brandy, tilted back the crystal snifter, and drank the entire lot. He eyed the empty bowl nestled in his palm, realized it was not going to suffice, set it down, and grabbed the decanter from the tray on the floor beside him. He’d spent a great deal of the last week on the floor, a circumstance completely foreign to him. But the events which had unfolded seemed to warrant such circumstances. Quite frankly, he’d never felt so damned out of sorts in his entire life.
Somewhere in the whole ordeal of realizing that his life had completely gone to hell, he’d lowered himself to the floor, his father’s portrait still looming overhead.
Trying to remind himself he’d done the right thing despite the pain, he had his back pressed to his desk, and he kept looking upward at his cautionary tale.
Even so, the old duke did not appear to appreciate his efforts.
He pulled the stopper and replied, “I am apparently capable of excelling in many fields.”
Blackbrook crossed the room and sat on the floor beside him. “You look like hell.”
“I feel like hell,” he drawled. The brandy sloshed in the decanter, and he took a long drink. It burned. He wanted that burn. He needed something, anything, to pull his thoughts away fromher. And how he’d disappointed her. Even if it was going to make him feel like death when he was done.
He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all. “I had no idea I could feel as low as I do now, after I did so much to change my life. But it is all my fault. In the end, I have truly made a muck of this.”
Except that’s not what he had said to Jack. He closed his eyes and lowered his head into his free palm. He’d blamedher. What kind of monster was he? He’d allowed her to stay in his rooms. He’d loved the moments they’d been together. They’d made him feel more alive than he had felt in his entire existence.