Tom searched her face. “You are determined to do this?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“It is time for you to go, Sidmouth,” Jack said.
“Come to me if anything changes,” Tom told her. “And I will return in thirteen days.”
She covered his hand with hers. “It is for the best, Tom. I promise.”
If only she believed her own words.
JACK WAS FUMING.
Seeing Sidmouth touch Nell in such a possessive fashion, watching her take that bastard’s side, listening to her reassure him, had woken the beast within. He had known he had a fight ahead of him, but the evidence had been glaring and unwanted before him: he still stood a very real chance of losing Nell forever.
It took every bit of his restraint to await her in the drawing room whilst she said her farewells to Sidmouth. As it was, he paced the floor like a lion trapped in a cage, restless and bloodthirsty. He half expected her to hide from him rather than return as she had said she would.
But the door clicked, and she was there.
She hovered at the threshold, looking pale and uncertain. Miserable, in truth. She looked the way he felt inside: ravaged.
“I know how you must have felt that night,” he told her, his voice raw as he stalked toward her. “I know how devastating it must have been. Because when I saw his hand on you, the way he touched you as if you were already his, I wanted to tear him limb from limb.”
She shook her head slowly. “Multiply that feeling by a thousand, by a hundred thousand, and then perhaps you will know my pain. You think it difficult to see another man’s hand upon my elbow? Imagine how it would feel to find him naked in my bed, kissing me.”
No. Damn her. He would not imagine that.
He raked his fingers through his hair, feeling as if he were about to crawl out of his skin. “You have kissed him, haven’t you, Nellie? You told me so yourself. What else have you done? Have you sucked his cock, too?”
Her slap echoed in the sudden silence of the chamber. His cheek stung, but he relished the pain. He wanted her anger, her hurt, her fury. He wanted to shake her from her tower. Bring her to the lowly dirt with him.
She stared at him, her expression stricken. “How dare you?”
“How dareyou?” he returned, feeling vicious. “How dare you refuse to believe me, refuse to forgive me, and then choose another man over me? Do you not see? What you are doing with Sidmouth is every bit as much of a betrayal, only worse. Because you are not in your cups. You are lucid and wide awake. There is no confusion here. Your every action has been committed with great intent.”
“No,” she denied. “What I have done is nothing like your betrayal. I was true to you, Jack. Always.”
“Not after I left,” he countered, needing her to see she was not the angel she imagined herself to be.
They were both flawed. Imperfect beings. United in their brokenness.
Together, they could become whole again. She had to see it.
She stiffened as if he had been the one to slap her. “Kisses, nothing more.”
The smile he gave her felt ugly. “How familiar our stories sound, my love. Yet I am willing to forgive and you are not.”
“We are not in these straits because of what I have done,” she reminded him coolly. “It is because of what you have done, and you alone.”
“It is?” he asked solemnly. “It seems to me we are both culpable in this tragedy of ours. Is forgiveness so impossible a feat?”
“You tore me apart.” Her voice was raw, trembling with emotion. “For so long, I was afraid there was nothing left, that I would never recover. You broke my heart and shattered my trust, and then you just gadded about the world for three years as if I no longer existed! I hate you for that, Jack! I hate you for what you did to me, to us.”
There it was—real and true emotion from her.
How could he move them both past this untenable stalemate?
Jack acted on instinct, hauling her into his arms, against his chest. “You were with me, everywhere I went. I saw you everywhere. I left because you asked it of me, not because I wanted to go. Do you know what I think, Nellie? I think you do not hate me at all. I think you still love me. I think you never stopped, just as I never stopped loving you.”
