Juliet looked at him in shock. “If I did that, it’s not because I was trying to alienate you but because you had no need for more friends. They would have only betrayed you.”
“What good did that do me when you turned out to be an even bigger betrayer than ten friends put together would have been?” he asked, glaring at her when her mouth opened and closed without a sound.
“I thought that you were my friend but you were going behind my back, saying all sorts of terrible things about me, to make sure that no one would want to be friends with me.”
“That’s not true. It was all just a misunderstanding. Those people probably did not understand what I said,” she protested heavily.
Benedict shook his head, unsurprised. “Even now, you’re unable to stop yourself from lying. Of what use are your lies when I already know the truth? I already know the truth, Lady Terell.”
She stammered, looking around her like she would find her way out of this in the bushes.
“Everything I did was all for you. I wanted to be the only one for you, Benedict,” she whimpered. “I knew that you were so wonderful and that if anyone else found out how good you were, they would try to steal you away from me.’
Benedict was amazed by her thinking. He had never met someone more pathetic than she was in that moment. It was no wonder Letitia who had always been able to see through people, never liked her from the start. Unfortunately for him, it had taken him longer than it should have for him to realize it.
“Benedict, please, I came back for you,” she said, stretching her hand out to touch him. Instead of the forgiveness she expected from him, he was absolutely disgusted by her and moved away from her arm’s reach.
“Please keep your hands away from me, Lady Terell,” he said, the strength in his voice showing that he meant it.
“You wouldn’t have done this before,” she said, her hands falling to her side as she glared at him like he was the one who had wronged her.
He raised a brow. She was still the same woman who thought that her beauty and title as a lady afforded her the right to whatever she wanted, whose mood often soured when she did not get it.
“I am not the same person I was before,” he responded, seeing no need to explain any further.
Juliet’s face soured. “Is it because of that woman?” she asked with a raised voice.
“What are you talking about?” he asked her.
“That wench I saw clinging unto you moments ago,” she spat venomously. “You would turn me down for someone like that?”
Benedict was furious as he realized who it was she was talking about. He supposed he should have expected it after the way she glared at them while he was dancing with Augusta but he would not take the slander to her name.
“Don’t you dare speak of her like that. She is ten times the woman that you would ever hope to be,” he warned.
Juliet withdrew a bit, looking at him like she was standing in front of a stranger.
Good. She is beginning to see that I do not care for her antics.
“You are being unreasonable right now. Are you just saying all of this to hurt me?” she asked him. “I am back now, and for good, Benedict, so you can come back to me. I know that the reason you didn’t send me any letters was because you had to hold yourself back but if you had, maybe I would have come back earlier than I did.”
Benedict was stupefied. Never before had he witnessed such ridiculous display of delusion. Was she purposely trying to act dense or was the really the depth of her madness and he had been too much of a gentleman to see it all this while?
“You no longer need to hold back, Benedict. I know you were hurt but you will soon forget about it when we are back together again. All you have to do is tell me that you need me and I will come back to you,” she said.
Benedict paused to look at her. Maybe this was some elaborate scheme on her end to torment him. He stared deep into her eyes and saw the truth reflected there. She was truly and utterly insane.
She fully believed that there was no way he would not want her back after what she did. That he had been pining over her after she disappeared, had likely never gotten over her absence, and would welcome her back the minute she offered herself to him like she was doing him a favor.
After she had left him and left London with no way for him to reach her, Benedict had been heartbroken because he had never expected that level of betrayal from her. Although he had never loved her, and he doubted much that she was able to feel something as complicated as that, he had not imagined she valued their friendship so little and would give it up without a second’s thought.
Benedict had however been more angry than heartbroken. She knew how difficult it was for him to trust anyone and yet she had made it all the more difficult with her betrayal.
Although he had picked himself up and carried on with life because he didn’t want her to win, in a way, she had won. She had managed to make him even more closed off from others than he had ever been. Benedict had never thought that he could ever bring himself to trust another person that wasn’t his family member ever again or allow himself to be affected by others.
He had succeeded in that, keeping everyone at arm’s length. That was until Augusta had barged into his life with her desire to save everyone.
Benedict figured that Juliet had been content to stay away from him for so long because she knew the damage she’d been causing for years and that he would never move on to somebody else.
