“And don’t say it’s because I ran you over. I absolutely did no such thing.”
“You could have killed me!”
He huffs and leans back, now looking at the ceiling. “We’re goingto need to find some common ground.”
“If I tell you why, will you let me leave?” I ask.
“You’re not my prisoner. But I must admit I am curious.”
My eyes sting at the memory. It was like a light within Lydia had been snuffed out by Emmett’s hand. Some part of me has always blamed him for the way everything fell apart after.
It was two years ago. I was too young to attend events, but I was still awake, in the drawing room, reading with Papa, when Mama and Lydia clattered through the door, much too early to be home from a ball. It was Lydia’s first season, soon after her bargain and debut at the Pact Parade, before things had gotten bad for her.
Lydia fell into Papa’s arms, her body racked with big, heaving sobs. I rushed to kneel at her side.
“What happened?” I asked.
Mama was red-faced, talking too fast. “I can’t be sure. One moment she was the belle of the ball, dancing with Prince Emmett himself; the next, she was stumbling, running from the party in this state. What happened, my darling?”
Lydia ran up the stairs, sobbing, screamed, “Leave me alone!” and slammed the door.
I called for a cup of tea and a few minutes later knocked softly on her door. I entered to find her crying, still in her rumpled gown.
“I’m off to murder him after delivering this tea, so you might as well tell me what he did,” I said.
She looked up at me with her tear-streaked face. “We were dancing, and everything was fine. But then he—” Lydia hiccupped. “He asked me to meet him alone in the garden. When I told him no, he told me I didn’t belong there, that I should go home.”
“That’s it. I’m killing him.”
Lydia let out a watery laugh, “I’m sure you can find him in the garden with some other girl.”
She told me later that it was particularly devastating because she suspected he was right. I could see how what he’d said haunted her.
I’ve hated him ever since.
I turn to Emmett now, his face unreadable in the low light of his room. “Two years ago, you attempted to seduce my sister at the Vaughns’ ball, and when she rejected you, you told her she didn’t belong there. She cried all night.”
Emmett sits up, a disarmingly confused look on his face as he searches for the memory. “Lydia Benton? When did we?” His face falls. “Oh—”
“So you do remember?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t what you think.”
I reach for the hidden door. “I said why I don’t like you. Now please let me leave. That was our deal—”
Emmett interrupts me. “She was hyperventilating.”
“What?”
“Lydia. She was hyperventilating when I asked her to dance with me.”
“That seems cruel, to pull a breathless girl into a dance.”
“No, not like that. I could see her, sitting alone in the corner, panicking. I know how it feels at those awful parties. All those people watching you like you’re something for sale, waiting for you to do something worth gossiping about. I was trying to give her an escape.”
“That doesn’t explain the rest of it.”
Emmett sighs. “I asked her to come to the garden with me so she could catch her breath.”
