A muscle ticked along the ridge of his jaw.
He wanted to deny her. For the simple reason he hated Lucy that much, but he loved his family more and wouldn’t want to disturb a recovering Campbell.
As proof, Arran’s gaze went to the entrance of his cousin’s chambers, and the nod he finally gave Lucy was nearly indiscernible.
Lucy entered her guest rooms with Arran hot on her heels.
The moment they were inside, he shoved the door closed with the heel of his boot. He sharpened his steely eyes on Lucy…and waited.
“You know,” she said quietly.
Did that steady voice actually belong to her? How when Lucy’s heart and soul were crumpling like a dying star?
“You’ll have to be more specific. I’m not sure to what you refer, Miss LeBeau.” The dreadful grin he curved his lips into told a different tale.
Grief slumped her shoulders. “Yes, you do, Arran.”
He quirked a brow. “Ah, because being skilled in deception yourself, you’re adept at calling out lies as you hear them? Say it, Lucy.” He raised his voice. “Bloody say it! For the first time since you entered my family’s home, be honest aboutsome—”
“He is not my betrothed,” she cried out.
Arran took an angry step towards her. “Or your sweetheart,” he spat. “Or anything to you.”
Miserable, Lucy shook her head. “N-No,” she whispered.
Arran drew back in feigned shock. “And there we have it.” Holding his hands aloft, he brought them together in a jeering clap.
She’d always known he’d meet the truth with anger.
But this? Nothing could have prepared her for the agony knifing at her insides.
Her eyes grew damp.
“I believe you have something in your eye, hmm?” Arran gestured cruelly to her tears.
He only made them fall.
Lucy clamped her lower lip between her teeth to still its trembling.
Something flashed in Arran’s eyes. She thought it might be a flash of pain. But she merely saw what she wished to see.
Releasing a sound of disgust, Arran yanked a kerchief from his jacket and hurled it at Lucy. “Here, dry your tears.” The black scrap, embroidered with his initials in gold, sailed through her fingers, where it fell forlornly upon the floral Aubusson carpet.
Ignoring Arran’s part order, part angry offering, she wrestled with her lower lip. “I don’t like you this way, Arran.”
“You don’t like me this…?” His eyebrows soared. “You don’t like me this way?” A dark, ugly laugh burst from Arran’s lips. “My God, the bloody gall of you, woman. You don’t like me this way?” This time, he spat that echo. “Madam, you are a damned stranger to me. I do not care what you like or don’t like about me or bloody anything.” He gave her another cool once over. “You are nothing to me. You are even less than nothing.”
Had he hurled those words in fury, it would’ve been easier to bear than this undisguised pity.
“Please hear me out,” she entreated.
“Are you talking to yourself again oropenlybegging me, Lucy?”
Lucy sucked a sharp breath in through her nostrils. The ease with which he took intimate knowledge only he knew about Lucy and hurled it like a barbed lance struck worse than any actual spear to the heart.
She’d seen him in so many lights. Teasing and tender. Cold and cynical. But never, God save her, never malevolent.
This cruelty proved the greatest cut yet, the one to break her.
