He snorted, turning his head so he could look at her. The bleakness of his expression made the blood drain from her face, her body sway off-kilter, and her feet turn to lead. He pulled away. There was no getting through this whole. The rift had already taken place.
His voice was strangled. “I used to think so. But then I let friends I’d grown up with wait on me. I pushed aside my distaste for people who willingly ruin the lives of others and invited them into my home. I accepted a business deal that made me a whole lot of money but took away the jobs I promised my people. I tell myself all of it will let me change lives in other ways, but I’ve just turned my back on who I am. And for what? You? A woman who’s ashamed of who I am?”
Each word was a sharp, stinging cut.
“I’m not ashamed of you,” she whispered.
“No?” His tone was cruel, mocking. His face was twisted in a hateful expression, and he didn’t resemble the man she loved.
“You didn’t pretend to your friends that you’d never done any work at the firm? Like work was a filthy secret?”
“I didn’t want them to knowI’ddone that. But I love what you do. I love what you’ve achieved. I’m so proud of you.” She gripped his shirt, desperate for him to hear the truth of what she was saying.
“You’re proud of me? Yet you dress me up in silks and velvets because I wasn’t good enough the way I was.”
Guilt crashed into every corner of her. Because shehadlooked down on the clothes that he wore, the house that he lived in, the way that he’d spoken and acted. She had decided—twice—to turn him into a different gentleman.
“I thought it would be easier for you,” she said. Whether he liked it or not, he was going to be an earl. He was going to have to move in those circles. She was trying to smooth out that course.
“Easier for me or easier for you?”
She couldn’t answer because she didn’t know what the truth was. It was all mixed up. So much had changed—her, him. Life had become a constant tumble, head over feet, over and over. She didn’t even know what she wanted.
And her silence damned her.
He took another step backward, shaking his head as though that split second of non-answer confirmed something he hadn’t fully believed. “Go back to London. You were planning to leave us soon anyway—just do it now.”
“I wasn’t planning anything of the sort.” How could he possibly think that? That after all they’d achieved together, she would pack up and leave?
“You didn’t ask Lord Roxburough if he’d be interested in selling his town house?”
“For theSeason. Just for the Season. I assumed you’d come with me.”
He stood, putting miles between them with every step he took away from her. “Well, I don’t want to. You should go, though. I’m better off—we’re all better off—without you around. You contribute nothing and just muddy everything up.”
And there it was. The truth she’d fought against her entire life. She was no use to anyone. No use as a daughter, as a fiancée, as a wife, as a partner.
She’d tried. Lord knows she’d put every ounce of effort she had into proving her worth. She’d spent her days working tirelessly in the firm, helping build it into something bigger and better. She’d spent her evenings leading a household that she had become proud to belong to. She’d loved Cassandra like a sister, giving her all the support and guidance she could.
And she’d spent her nights and days simply loving him with everything she had.
And still it wasn’t enough. He didn’t want her around. He had plans to go to the Americas without her, and he hadn’t even bothered to discuss it with her.
“Fine. If that’s what you want, then fine. I’m leaving. And not because I don’t like my life here. Not because I miss the balls and the theater and people. But because of you. I deserve better than your constant judgment, you damned hypocrite. I deserve someone who loves me without conditions. Who accepts me for whoIam.”
It felt good to get the words out. Her entire life had been about trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Her father’s. Her friends’. Now her husband’s. Not any longer.
If the past months had taught her anything, it was that she wasn’t perfect—far from it. But she was who she was, and she wasn’t going to twist herself up into any more knots trying to be what someone else wanted her to be.
If she wasn’t good enough for him, then she was done.
She waited a moment for him to respond. Instead he looked out over the rubble, as though she hadn’t spoken a word.
She swallowed. “Good-bye, Ben.” Her voice cracked but she squared her shoulders and turned back toward the house, picking her way through the debris and trying not to cry.
John was standing at the edge of the wreckage, horror-stricken. Tears ran down his face, creating rivers of soot. “Wh-where are you g-going?”
“Back to London. It has been a pleasure knowing you.”
