“It didn’t happen to me.It happened to her.”He shook his head, as though shaking away the past and any hurt that remained from it.“I don’t tell you this in a bid for sympathy.But the look in your eyes just now—Gemma, that’s the same look my mother had as she lay there dying.And I can’t tell you what it does to me to know that you hate me that much—that I’ve made you hate me enough that you would endure any pain to get free of me.”
A spasm of pure agony crossed his face, hardening his jaw and turning his eyes to dull green stones.“I always knew you were planning to leave.I never doubted that, because you see…people leave.My mother left me.My father ignored me.To my brother, I barely even existed at all.So I was certain you wouldn’t stay, and in my rush to protect myself from the pain of hoping for more, I pushed you away and closed myself off.I should have opened myself up for you instead.I should have laid myself bare.I’m sorry, Gemma.I know you’re going to leave, and that I deserve to be left, but I can’t let you go without telling you that you’ll be taking every bit of hope, laughter, and light with you.”
Gemma turned away, not wanting to see the torment in his eyes, not wanting to be tempted to believe the worst lie of all.Because it had to be a lie, didn’t it?
He didn’t love her.He couldn’t love her.
Without warning, the lump in her throat broke open on a sob that nearly broke her ribs.Air wheezed in and out of her lungs on another sob.Pain in her head, in her temples, behind her eyes, and she squeezed them shut only to feel wetness running down her cheeks.
Oh God.For the first time in years, Gemma was crying.
ChapterTwenty-One
Hal felt every choked cry Gemma made like a knife to his gut.His brave, bold Gemma who never cried—this was what he’d brought her to.
The couple nearest to them, the Mulgraves, cast concerned glances over their shoulders.Moving on instinct, Hal shielded Gemma from their stares with his body, giving them a reassuring smile before guiding Gemma away from the crowd toward the relative privacy of the inn.He didn’t think she would want the entire village to witness her tears.
He kicked open the door and maneuvered her through it, into the cool, dim interior of Five Mile House.The familiar scents of the place seeped in: the malty tang of ale, the sweetness of fermented apples, the linseed oil they used to polish the old wood of the bar until it gleamed.Hal hoped they were as comforting to Gemma as they were to him.
She did not seem comforted.If anything, her weeping had grown more intense.He struggled for an instant, knowing that the last thing she probably wanted was to be closer to him.But he could not stand here and listen to her cry without trying to help.It wasn’t in his nature.
Slowly, giving her time to protest, he enfolded her in his arms.She stiffened for a moment, then seemed to collapse, turning her face into the side of his throat and dampening his collar with her tears.
Hal held her, murmuring soothing nonsense into her hair, and savored the feel of her for what might be the last time.
They fit together with a kind of perfection Hal had never dreamed existed.
He might never have this again, he knew.Not just the physical pleasure of the closeness, but the chance to be the one Gemma turned to, with her cares and her troubles as well as her joys and successes.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” she wailed, the words muffled into the wool of his coat.“I didn’t even cry when I saw the satirical prints about us.”
Hal froze.“Satirical prints?”Ah, God, that must be what the unopened letter from his friend and solicitor, Jonathan Reed, was about.Hal had found it when he returned to the Manor, wet and dripping and heartsore, after the encounter with Gemma in Westcote Brook.He’d been too distracted getting dry and changed to open it at once, and then he’d forgotten about it.
She cried harder.“They were awful.Awful!Drawings of me, falling flat on my face while you and Thorne looked on, laughing.Thorne told everyone about us, about the foolish, deluded Lady Gemma, on the hunt for a duke to marry, having no idea there was one beneath her nose all along!”
“Thorne?That bloody bastard, I’ll kill him,” Hal snarled, muscles coiling.
“Stop.”Her hands clenched in the fabric of his shirt.“I don’t expect any better from Thorne.He’s a thoroughgoing scoundrel.You made me believe you were different.And anyway, Thorne isn’t the one who lied to me.”
All the fight drained out of him.Hal closed his eyes, despising himself.“No.That was me.”
“Whoeveryouare,” she sniffled.“I don’t even know you.”
Hal’s heart squeezed painfully.
“You know me, Gemma.I promise, you know me better than anyone.I shared things with you I’ve never shared with another living soul.Everything between us was true.”Self-loathing gripped him in an iron fist.“And then, because I was afraid to trust, afraid to try, I let you keep believing a lie…and made you hate me.”
She made some movement against his chest, maybe shaking her head, maybe merely wiping her tear-stained face.She sagged against him, letting him take a bit of her weight, and he gladly gathered her closer and gave her something to lean on.
“I wish I could hate you,” she muttered.
Hal’s breath caught, lodged somewhere behind his sternum.It was an opening.A small one, but Hal had not brought his estate back from the brink of total ruin by failing to seize upon every opportunity that presented itself.
“Gemma.Do you know what day it is?”
She turned her face up to his.The quizzical pinch of her brows made him want to kiss her.Everything made him want to kiss her.He forced himself to settle for cradling her face in his hands and using his thumbs to smudge the tear tracks on her cheeks.
“It’s May Day.”Her mouth turned down in an unhappy curve.“The day the earl returns to hear my answer to his proposal.”
