“Please, Malcolm. I trust you, of all people, not to toy with me.” She wrapped her arms around her ribcage. “I cannot help but think you were just about to k-kiss me, and yet . . . and yet, you pulled away.”
The fire popped in the hearth.
Rain pattered against the window panes.
Viola licked her lips.
Malcolm couldn’t stop himself from staring at her mouth.
“Why?” she finally breathed. “Why did you not kiss me?”
15
Viola’s words froze Malcolm in place.
Her direct question merited a direct answer.
But what was he to say?
One man has already overset ye today. I dinnae wish tae be a second.
Aileen’s death nearly destroyed me. I cannae risk feeling such grief again. Not with a woman I could love so well as yourself.
Our stations in life are too disparate to forge a life together, and so, why begin?
“Malcolm?” she prompted, her blush turning splotchy and pained.
His answers choked him, as he recognized them for what they were—excuses.
In truth . . . he was afraid.
Afraid to offer his heart to another again.
Afraid to confront the agony and horror and grief of his past.
Like a red deer stag caught in the stark flame of a stalker’s torch, he blinked into the light, frozen and surprised, slowly understanding that his very indecision would be his downfall.
Tightening her arms further around herself, Viola turned her head to the right, gazing at thedreichlandscape out the window.
Silence hung.
The mantel clock ticked in time to the rain.
“Everything between you and me has, from the moment we met, been so open . . . a book easily read,” she whispered, clearly not misreading his hesitation. “And so, I had assumed us to be of a similar mindset with regards to . . .” She motioned to the space between them. “But I was apparently wrong.” Head high, she turned for the door. “I apologize if my forward behavior caused—”
“Viola.” Malcolm intended merely to stop the thread of her thoughts. To assure her that she was not to blame for his reaction.
But her name came out in a pained rasp. Laden with his longing, with anguish at the distance between them.
Startled, her eyes snapped to his. He hated the confusion and hurt he could see in their depths, pain he himself had caused.
“Why?” she repeated. “Help me understand. Have I misunderstood what was happening between us? Do you dislike the thought of kissing me?”
No. Quite the opposite.
She had not misunderstood.
Malcolm swallowed, his fingers flexing against the urge to reach for her.
