“Glad you are here. Now. We cannot change what has happened, but we can grow stronger from it.” He smoothed a stray tendril of hair away from her face and admired her, the sylvan goddess from so long ago back in his arms. “We can go on, as we must.”
He drew back slightly so he could absorb every detail of her in the early morning light. Her face had not changed, still as interesting and lovely as ever, accented now by a few faint lines that had not existed eight years before. Her breasts were fuller, rounded and womanly.
Her waist was narrow, and he could see her rib bones as she breathed in and out. She needed to eat more. Needed to look after herself. Undoubtedly, it was the strain she had been under in the last few months.
Reality returned, intruding upon their false idyll.
It settled into his stomach like a cold, dark weight. The threat against her remained, just as real and terrifying as ever. There were men who wanted to spill her blood. Faceless, nameless enemies who would slay her in the same coldhearted fashion they had assassinated the duke.
This was no dream after all.
“Why do you frown?” she asked softly, her fingers brushing over his furrowed brow.
He did not want to speak of the ugliness surrounding them, did not want to bring the darkness into their light. At least not for this moment. Not while he could keep it at bay. And so, he caught her fingers in his, brought them to his lips for a kiss. “I do not want to make you the cause of speculation or gossip. The servants will soon be about.”
She was silent for a beat. “Yes, of course. You are right. I must go. I daresay I have already tarried far too long as it is.”
She rolled away from him in one swift motion, rising from his bed. His eyes devoured her—the copper curls that hung past her arse, the petite legs, the trim ankles. All that mouthwatering expanse of creamy skin. Tarts, he decided. Cakes and tarts were what she needed. Some indulgence.
Did he detect a stiffening in her posture? She paced the chamber, looking for something. For her nightrail, he would guess. It was currently crumpled and wadded beneath his pillow. He retrieved it and rose from the bed as well, going to her, staying her with a gentle hand.
“Ara.”
She stopped. Looked over her shoulder, worrying the delectable fullness of her lower lip. “It is as you said. I need to go. Why do you delay me?”
Ever stubborn. “Ara, look at me,” he demanded softly.
She did at last, her expression guarded.
“You are all I care about,” he explained. “Your reputation. Your safety. Your happiness.You, Ara. I never stopped caring about you, not in all these years.”
She bit her lip again before answering, so quietly he could scarcely hear the words. “I never stopped caring about you either, Clay.”
She threw her nightrail over her head, and without bothering to free her bold locks from the constraint of the fabric, she turned and fled to the door joining their chambers. All he could do was watch her go, knowing she took his heart with her.
Chapter Twenty
What had sheexpected?
A proposal?
A declaration of love?
He had not offered tender words of undying devotion. Instead, he had offered nothing. No hope. Oh, he said he cared about her, that he had not stopped. But one cared about whether or not it may rain on a Tuesday when one was invited to a garden party that day. One cared about whether or not a pair of boots caused blisters. One cared about too much pepper in a dish and not enough salt.
Foolish, foolish Ara. You are older, wiser. You are not the naïve young girl who fell in love with him. What did you think you would accomplish by falling into his bed? And even if he does care for you, you are in mourning. You cannot marry now even if you would wish it.
Ara poked at her breakfast as if it were her enemy. She did not want to eat. Did not think she could possibly stomach a bite.
Her world was in disintegration.
She had risen from Clay’s bed that morning, alive with the realization that her entire life—and the ruin it now was—had been orchestrated by her father and mother. Embittered by the knowledge she had allowed herself to be so easily manipulated.
Dear God, she could not stop thinking about her father hiring some cutthroat to beat Clay and carve open his face. Could not stop thinking about the deliberate betrayal that had prompted either her mother or her father to read her journal without her permission and then use what they had read to keep her and Clay apart. To hurt them. A choked sound tore from her before she could contain it as she recalled Clay’s recollection of that day, the violence done him.
“Your Grace?”
Ara glanced up from the eggs she had been so liberally stabbing to find Clay’s mother watching her with a smile affixed to her lips. Looking as if she had asked Ara a question.
