"I'm walking away from everything we would have destroyed." She opened the door. "Your position. Your future. Your chance to do good in the world. All the things that make you who you are."
"You make me who I am."
"No. I showed you who you could be. There's a difference." She stepped further away. "Someone else can show you that, too. Someone more suitable. Someone who won't cost you everything."
"I don't want someone else."
"You will. Eventually."
"Lydia…"
"I love you." The words escaped before she could stop them—the truth, raw and terrible and inescapable. "I love you more than I've ever loved anything. And that's exactly why I'm doing this. Because loving you means wanting what's best for you, even if that's not me."
"You are what's best for me."…
"No. I'm what you want. That's not the same thing."
"Lydia, please…"
"Goodbye, Frederick."
She walked out of the study. She heard him call her name, once, twice, a third time with something that sounded like a sob, but she didn't stop. She didn't turn around, and she didn't look back.
She walked through the corridor, past the portraits of his ancestors, past the rooms where they had shared secrets and stolen kisses and built dreams that were now crumbling to ash.
She walked out of the manor and out of his life.
And she didn't let herself cry until she was out of sight of the windows.
Chapter 21
The walk home was a blur.
She didn't remember the gardens, didn't remember the paths, didn't remember anything except the sound of her own footsteps and the roar of blood in her ears. Her body moved automatically, following the familiar route back to the village while her mind replayed the conversation over and over.
Goodbye, Frederick.
I love you.
That's why I'm leaving.
She had done it. She had actually done it. She had looked at the man she loved and told him it was over.
And he had believed her. He had stood there with his heart breaking in his eyes, and he had believed her.
Because she had made him believe. She had used every truth Helena had told her, every fear she'd ever felt, and turned them into weapons. Had struck at the places where he was most vulnerable, his guilt about his position, his fear of destroying her, his desperate need to be worthy of love, and she had watched him bleed.
She was a monster. She had become exactly the kind of person she'd always despised—someone who hurt the people who loved her, who used their feelings as leverage, who justified cruelty by calling it kindness.
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let him go.
But it hadn't felt kind. It had felt like murder. Like cutting out her own heart and leaving it on the floor of his study.
She reached the forge without any memory of how she'd gotten there. The fire had burned down to embers in her absence; she rebuilt it mechanically, adding kindling and coal without really seeing what she was doing.
Work. She needed to work. She needed to lose herself in the rhythm of hammer and metal, the way she always did when the world became too much to bear.
But when she picked up the hammer, she found she couldn't lift it. Her arms were shaking too badly, her hands trembling so violently that she dropped it twice before giving up.
