How could that touch be as devastating as a passionate embrace?
Genova turned and hurried on. She’d given him a wrong impression and now felt as if armor had been stripped away. Heaven knows what he’d do next, or how she’d respond.
“It’s quite enlivening to be thought a wicked woman,” she said to correct things, “when I’ve spent my life enshrined in virtue.”
“A saint doesn’t kiss as you do, Genova.”
“Not even if married?”
“You’re a widow?”
She heard shock and was tempted to let him think that. It wouldn’t do. “I was engaged to marry.”
He stopped her again, gently, looking truly compassionate. “He died?”
She turned her head away, staring blindly at a gnarled and leafless tree. Look what she’d done now. She didn’t want to talk about Walsingham.
“He lives. I broke it off.” Then the words tumbled out. “And thus I broke his heart. You see what a wicked woman I am.” She had never before admitted the shame she felt at having treated Walsingham so cruelly.
“Why did you end it?”
Why couldn’t she rebuff his quiet question?
“Because I didn’t love him,” she said with a sigh.
“Because I believed that marriage should be made for love.”
“Believed?”
“Believe,” she corrected, compelled to turn and face him, because she did still believe, despite everything.
“Remarkable. I suppose your parents were idyllically besotted.”
She raised her chin at his tone. “They were in love. It’s not so unusual a situation.”
“No?”
“Lord Rothgar and Lady Arradale are in love.”
She expected flippancy, but he said, “Perhaps.”
“And Lord and Lady Bryght.”
“And I would have thought him as cynical a bastard as I am. I grant you your point. The same goes for Walgrave as best I can tell, and he and I used to hunt in the same pack.”
“And consider Thalia. In love after sixty years.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“You can doubt that?”
“Doesn’t love have to be tested by reality and time, or else isn’t it only a dream?”
She blinked at him. “You’re right.”
“I am, occasionally. And for the most part, love fails under the test.”
“You’re not right about that. I gather your parents were not devoted.”
