They both sat at the same time, next to each other on the bench.
Lucy inhaled sharply; her chest squeezed tight with sorrow.
So many people had been hurt: Linnie. Tremaine.
Arran was too fixed on his own perception of guilt to see the one who’d suffered and lost the most was, in fact, Arran himself.
He’d been betrayed not by a stranger, but a friend.Twofriends. For even as Arran did not realize it, the gentleman he spoke of? The Captain Tremaine, who’d punished Arran forsaving his life,had committed the greatest of wrongs against Arran. He’d developed a healthy mistrust of all.
And after Lucy’s deceit, he’d never trust again.
Chapter 11
Arran studied Lucy carefully.
Her head remained bent over the task she’d taken up, her long, capable fingers deftly guiding the wrought-iron turner as she shifted each biscuit from the hot tray to the cool one between them.
Such mundane movements.
Such a placid moment.
And yet nothing inside him was calm—nor was the restless energy humming beneath her innocent frame.
He’d laid himself bare. The darkest, blackest sins he carried. He wavered between fear of the disgust he’d see in her expressive eyes…and a quiet, unexpected peace. He’d finally spoken the ugliest chapters of his story aloud, and in doing so had felt—if only for a breath—freed. He had needed to tell someone.
Anyone would have done, as long as they weren’t bound to the McQuoids.
Liar.
It wasn’t about confessing to anyone. It was about confessing toher. Thiswoman. A stranger he’d known mere days, and yet felt more at ease with than anyone in years. She saw him. She listened. She hadn’t dodged his truths or pretended the worst hadn’t happened.
Her silence now threatened to unhinge him.
Lucy’s eyes widened.
His gut clenched, a brutal twist.
Here it comes. The reaction he’d expected. The one he’d prayed he wouldn’t have to see.
She rose suddenly. But she didn’t flee.
Arran followed her swift movements as she crossed to the cupboard, skirts whipping around her ankles—giving him an unintentional glimpse of trim ankle and soft calf.
She stretched up on tiptoe for plates, and he devoured the sight. His breath thickened. He traced the line of her calves, the flex of delicate muscle—
And then she was back beside him, setting a plate before each of them as though nothing had passed between them. As though his sins hadn’t stained the air.
For a moment, he thought she meant to let it lie. To leave what he’d shared here, in this quiet, sacred little pocket of warmth and shadow. And if she never spoke of it—if he never knew her thoughts—he found he didn’t care. Not when she still chose to sit beside him.
Arran reached for his biscuit—and froze.
A heart shape.
Something light flickered in his chest. Ridiculous. Foolish. The kind of feeling a young lad might have—certainly not a man who’d seen the ugliest parts of life.
Why had she chosenthatone?
You’re daft, man.
