“It’s really nothing,” she argued as he hovered over her.
“Then it will not matter either way,” he said. Even when in discomfort, she would not let go of her stubbornness. “Now, please.”
There was a crack of vulnerability in his voice. Reluctantly, she lifted her sleeve, revealing the scrape across her upper arm. Alexander’s jaw clenched as he took her wrist carefully in his hand, angling her arm to see better.
“You are seriously hurt,” he said through gritted teeth. “When did he do this to you? I thought I arrived in time.”
Penelope tried to shrug it off as nothing.
“He shoved me to get through to Odette,” she explained, lips pressed together. “But it is only a scratch. The important thing is that Odette was not harmed in any substantial way.”
“Only a scratch,” Alexander echoed bitterly. His thumb brushed faintly across the edge of the bruise beginning to bloom beneath the skin. “It could’ve been worse had I not arrived in time.”
“But it wasn’t,” Penelope insisted in a tone that was almost pleading. She was the only thing willing his mind to stop going to dark places. “Shouldn’t we focus on that? You came in time.”
“You did not tell me before you left,” Alexander exhaled a sharp sigh. “I only found out when the footman informed me that you had left in a hurry .”
“Oh,” Penelope muttered, as though it was a new discovery for her. “So that explains how you managed to find us .”
“It does not explain anything,” Alexander felt his anger rise again. “You did not tell me, when it was your responsibility to do so. You did not take Fergus or Lewis with you, when I expressly forbid you to leave the premises without them. Now, do you understand why I am so cautious?”
For a moment, Penelope was silent. She looked at him and then away.
Alexander tilted her head towards him, and made her look him in the eyes.
“You broke my trust. After everything we spoke of last night… after I told you I needed to know you were safe… you still left.You lied to my staff. You left without protection. And you took Odette with you.”
“No, that is where you are wrong,” Penelope began to shake her head, “I understand that it must seem like I snuck her out to the park but that is hardly the truth. In reality, I had gone to find her.”
Alexander stared back at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I am telling you,” Penelope’s tone was flustered. “I woke up to find Odette missing from the estate, and I had a sinking feeling that she had escaped to the park. I went looking for her, and found her there.”
Alexander stood up then. “If you knew that she had done something to put herself into trouble, why did you not come to me?”
“I couldn’t waste time…”
“You should have told me,” His voice thundered then. He exhaled sharply, gripping the back of his chair until his knuckles whitened. “If I had arrived a minute later… a second later…”
His throat worked around the words. “They would have taken you both.”
“I wasn’t trying to disobey you,” Penelope said softly , behind him. “I was trying to bring her home.”
Alexander’s fingers tightened around the wood. He could still see it, clear as day: her struggling beneath the man’s grip, the wild terror in Odette’s eyes, Penelope’s voice crying out. The image wouldn’t leave him.
“You could have been taken,” he murmured. “You could have been hurt worse.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“You have a gash down the side of your shoulder,” he said hoarsely. “That counts as an injury, and one that is my fault.”
Penelope’s eyebrows knitted together.
“It’s not your fault in the slightest.”
She was trying her hardest to convince him, but Alexnader knew she was misguided. In fact, this entire thing was solely his fault. If he had not made the enemies that he had, those around him would not have to live with the restrictions that they do.
