“Do not say another word, Juliet.” He closed the distance between them, stared down at her beautiful face…and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss her or wrap his hands around her slender white throat and throttle her. “You have no business.”
“Concealment is a game we undertake, yet our secrets are surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as what we disguise. Sarah Thacker did not simply die, she was tortured to death.”
He jerked back as if she’d slapped him. Then, eyes narrowing, hands clenched, he said, “Be quiet, Juliet!”
“There is fear and rage boiling in your soul, Joshua. It is infested, like gangrene, eating away at you.”
He gripped the ax in his hands and closed his eyes. “I was responsible for her…she died because of me…of who I am.”
“Should I fill myself with insidious poisons as you have? Sustain myself with fear as you do? To keep your Sarah on a sacrificial altar and pretend the rest of the world does not exist.”
A furnace of rage roared up inside him, its destructive force verged on eruption. He beat it back, certain that once unleashed it would devour his sanity. And in the midst of this whirling, red-hot fury stood Juliet. He wished that numbness would overcome him. He wished he did not see and hear and feel so clearly, and yet he could not escape the riot of images before him. Sarah, bloody and tortured. Juliet and Sarah, alternating faces, both meeting the same fate.
He opened his eyes, glared at Juliet as if she were some bizarre creature, a curiosity, distorted and repulsive. “Get away from me, Juliet. I can’t stand the sight of you. Get away from me before I do something I regret.”
With a loud growl, he smashed the ax into the stump and cracked it in half.
Juliet froze. Her knees shook. Good Lord, what was she thinking, pushing him to his limits like that? How stupid.
Stupid. God, she’d been even more than stupid, believing her own fantasies.Bitterness rose in her throat. She turned and ran before she made a further fool of herself.
She ran and ran, tears flowing, arms thrashing at the air and the invisible visions of a life that would be out of her reach. It was her fault for having dared to dream, to be that susceptible, that vulnerable.
Not knowing or caring which way she went, she pushed through rough undergrowth. Trees, bushes and branches barred her path on every side. Thorn bushes snagged her hair and ripped her clothes. Rough branches tore at her hands and arms. A prison to hold her back. But she had to get away, far, far away and kept pushing on, farther and farther.
Out of breath, she leaned against a tree and wept. Collapsing to the ground, she wept for the mother she never knew, wept for the loveless life she had, wept for the all unfairnesses bestowed on her head. Even now in this alien land, she had come to love…again that love had been ripped from her.
Finally, her tears spent, she sat up. A clarity suddenly shone through the dark forests of her mind. No. she would not allow it. She would not be a pawn at someone else’s whim. Never again. She would not go back to England. No, she would not. There was nothing for her there. Somehow, she would find a place in this New World.
The forest became silent around her, except for a few birds chirping. For a long time, she sat lost in sorrow for the way things were and for the way things were not meant to be. Her mind alternating between new resolve and her shattered dreams, the tears came again and with them, more sobs. That ugly loneliness swelled and heaved, then through the stillness, the regular beat of quiet footsteps. A bush stirred and Joshua knelt in front of her.
“Juliet.”
He followed.Why?Why couldn’t he let her alone to deal with her pain and misery? She wanted to beat his chest with all the wrongs incurred on her. Yet her arms lay leaden at her sides. She lifted her head. Faced him. Opened her mouth to tell him to go away, but the words clogged in her throat.
“Why are you here, Joshua?”
“Because you can’t leave me alone.”
In a half-haze, suddenly she was in his arm. He drew her closer, cushioned her against his warm chest, her mouth buried deep against musky, beloved flesh. His words had sounded like a cry for help, a beseechment.
“Why do you torture me like this?” He raised his head and stared wildly into her eyes.
Ignoring the burning ache in her throat, Juliet cleaved to him. Within her embrace his heavy frame twisted with spasms as he fought with his violent inner demons.
“Let it come,” she murmured, cradling his head on her shoulder. “Let it come.” Whispering comfort and love, she consoled him and waited, waited, waited patiently for the turbulence to subside, for the demons to retreat, for his body to still. Then she framed his tortured face between her palms and kissed him. Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Joshua.”
“I couldn’t keep her safe…if I couldn’t protect her, how can I protect anyone else?” He shuddered. “I love you, Juliet. But do not love me.”
He loved her.He had said it.
But his face contorted again. “How can I protect you? Snapes told me in the gaol at Fort Oswego he was going to kill you, do the same thing he did to Sarah.”
Oh, God.The realization hit her like a punch to the stomach. Snapes? The signature on the letter was signed, “MS”.Milburn Snapes. Joshua had told her of his vendetta against the Rutland family. Her blood chilled.
No.“You will not push me away. I will not allow you to be driven into hiding by real or imagined fear, pinned there by a deluded acceptance you’re helpless to do anything else but hide. Apathy survives solely on lies and can only be washed away by truth.”
His fingers clutched the rumpled confusion of her hair, tightened. “It is proof you cannot stay with me.”
