She looked down.He was right.Her hands trembled against the fabric of her gown.
He reached, slowly enough that she could have pulled away, and covered her clenched hands with one of his own.
Warm.Steady.Very real.
Her breath caught.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “you can tell me.”
He meant it.She heard it in his voice.Not as a tactic.Not as a politician.As a man.As afriend.
It should have made it easier.
Instead, it broke something loose in her chest.
“I can’t,” she blurted.
His brows drew together.“You can’t tell me, or you don’t want to?”
“Both,” she said desperately.“If I tell you, I’m afraid you’ll hate me.You’ll tell my father.You’ll never speak to me again.”
His thumb brushed absently over the back of her hand.“Those are very confident predictions for someone who I hope has come to know me better over the past several days.”
She jerked her hand back as if burned, shot to her feet, and stalked toward the fireplace.Her reflection flickered faintly in the glass, hair pinned perfectly, cheeks flushed, eyes too bright.
“I came here to be honest,” she said, pressing a hand to the mantel.“I rehearsed it.I was going to tell you everything.I was.”
“What changed?”he asked behind her.
“You,” she said.
Silence.
Then quietly, “What did I do?”
She laughed, harsh and thin.“First, you upended your reputation.Then you defended me.You looked at me as if I were worth defending.You told a room full of men whose opinions mean something in Parliament that my thoughts mattered more than their comfort.”Her fingers dug into the wood.“It was intolerable.”
“I suppose that’s one way to describe gratitude,” he said dryly.
She spun.“Don’t you see?I have done nothing but mock you for years.I have turned my words into weapons against everything you stand for.I have done things that would make you want to never speak to me again, and yet you?—”
Her voice broke.She swallowed.
“You’ve made me feel,” she whispered, “like I am not wrong for being who I am.”
His face changed.
The control didn’t vanish; Nicholas never lost it entirely.But something in his expression warmed and darkened and sharpened at once, as if she’d reached past his armor without meaning to.
He stood.
“Bea,” he said softly.
She backed up a step.“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t come over here and say something kind to me,” she said a little desperately.“I don’t deserve it.”
