“Do I not?” she snapped. “You know nothing of what I have had to do to survive. You think you are the only one with a burden. Is that not a typical flaw of men like you?”
He stood abruptly, causing the lantern to flicker and cast shadows over his face. “And what flaw would that be, Miss Montague?”
She did not flinch. “The belief that no one else carries weight. That your suffering is unique. I did not ask you to protect me. I only asked you to trust that I could protect myself.”
His lips parted to respond, but nothing came.
The horses shuffled in their stalls, restless. Lydia noticed the pulse at his throat and the effort it took for him to keep his hands still at his sides.
“If you would just let go for one moment—” she began, but her words trailed off, an accusation as much as a plea.
He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it more disheveled than she had ever seen. “Let go?” heechoed, his voice rough. “If I let go, everything I am holding together falls apart.”
The words hung between them, painfully honest.
She swallowed, feeling the air thicken. “Then let it.”
He looked at her, truly looked, and something in his expression changed—not softened, exactly, but clarified—like still water revealing the bottom.
She did not know who moved first. Perhaps it was both of them, the distance between them a string pulled so tight it could only snap.
They stood nearly chest to chest, breath mingling. She saw her own reflection in his eyes—stubborn, wounded, alive.
“Do you want me to go?” she asked, her gaze locked on his.
He shook his head, a barely perceptible movement. “No.”
“Then say what you mean,” she urged.
His voice, when it came, lacked the control she was used to. “I should not.”
She let the moment linger. Then, as if testing a fragile bridge, she reached up and placed her palm against his chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart, even through the layers of fabric.
He did not push her away. He did not move at all, except to breathe.
She dropped her hand but not her gaze. “You are not the only one afraid, Maximilian.”
It was the first time she had used his given name. The intimacy of it surprised them both.
“It is my duty to protect you, even from myself,” he said.
Outside, a gust of wind made the lanterns sway, the light casting flickering shadows across their faces. Inside the stable, the animals stilled, unwilling to interrupt what might be a truce or the prelude to confrontation.
Lydia drew a shaky breath, suddenly aware of how cold her hands had become and how warm her face felt.
She nodded once, then turned and walked into the dark, leaving him to inspect the carriage.
The straw crunched softly under her steps as she exited.
The sound of the stable door closing behind her was not an ending but a promise.
Lydia reached the edge of the yard before her nerve failed her. The stable door had shut, but their words still simmered in her mind, each one echoing back at her with increasing intensity. She turned,fists clenched, and marched back across the straw-strewn lane, ignoring the muck and the night wind on her throat.
She found Maximilian exactly as she had left him, bent over the wheel, fingers gripping the rim. He did not look up. His breath came fast and uneven in the cold.
She approached him, close enough that the wool of his coat brushed against her skirt, and said quietly, “You cannot keep doing this.”
He straightened, not fully turning. “Doing what, Miss Montague?”
