Her shoulders tensed. Another knock, firmer this time.
“Kitty,” Norman’s voice came through the door, sending her pulse into a frantic rhythm. Her heart hammered so violently she feared it might crack her ribs. “May I please come in? Kitty?”
Kitty’s reflection stared back from the looking glass, her wide eyes betraying the shock thrumming through her veins.What is he doing here?After everything that had just happened, did he truly wish to see her?
She definitely wanted to see him—but she was the one who owedhimgratitude. She was the one who felt…things, every time he was near her. Yet, for all her certainty about her own traitorous feelings, his remained frustratingly unclear.
Until now.
That reaction—the protective fury in his eyes, the barely checked tremor in his voice as he shouted at the entire room—spoke louder than any carefully worded confession. And try as she might, she couldn’t pretend not to understand.
She rose with deliberate slowness, her movements weightless as a feather. No answer came from her mouth—none could bridge the chasm between her thoughts and the action.
The door swung open beneath her trembling fingers before she’d consciously decided to open it for him.
Norman stood just beyond the threshold, his expression storm-dark, his cravat slightly askew as though he’d run a hand over it in frustration.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low but tight with emotion.
“Yes. Thank you,” she nodded. “You cannot imagine how grateful I am for…uh, for earlier.”
He studied her, as though he didn’t believe her. As though her simple answer could never be enough.
“Why didn’t you come to me immediately?” he asked, stepping into the room without waiting for an invitation. The door closed behind him with a quietclick.
Kitty felt her shoulders stiffening. “Come to you?”
“Yes,” he said, voice rising. “The moment you saw him. You should have walked away. You should have come straight to me.”
Her lips parted in disbelief. “I beg your pardon?”
“You let him approach you. You let him speak to you,” his eyes—that impossible shade of blue, sharp as winter ice—held her captive. There was no mistaking the anger still coiled beneath his controlled exterior, as palpable as the static before a summer storm.
But she wasn’t sure what?—
“Let him—?” Her temper began to surge, swift and cutting. “Forgive me, but I wasn’t aware I needed your permission to exist in a room.”
Norman’s jaw tightened. “That’s not what I meant. You know it’s not.”
“Do I? Because it sounds remarkably like I’m being scolded for not running into your arms the moment I was in danger. Besides, where were you? We were supposed to do the scene together—yet you couldn’t even be bothered to see me.
“Is that it? Because I had no idea where you were. Even if I had considered running to you—which, for the record, I did not—you’ve given me no reason to believe you care what happens to me—as long as the scandal doesn’t involve you, that is.”
“Kitty—”
“Don’t. I am a grown woman. I am perfectly capable of handling myself.”
His gaze sharpened, and something in it made her pulse thrum faster. “You’ve made it rather clear, haven’t you, that you and I are meant to keep our distance? You practically carved a line between us with your coldness, and now you’re upset I didn’t cross it?”
“You misunderstand?—”
“No, I understand perfectly. You only wish to be near me when it suits you—when you can play the hero and chastise me for not being sufficiently helpless.”
Norman took a step forward, his brow furrowed. “Is this another one of your schemes? Were you hoping for scandal? Hoping I’d make a scene, so the engagement would fall apart and you could be rid of me once and for all?”
The words landed with the weight of stones.
She stared at him. How could he not understand? He was the one who had been hot one minute, cold the next—and yet she was the one breaking the engagement?
