She looked up to his face.
He looked down, his brown eyes gentle and also... bright. Wet. With tears. He cried too.
The realization hit Isobel like a roiling wave from the North Sea. When the force subsided, the shimmers in her belly, as resilient and reliable as the tide, bubbled up.
She was doomed.
She took a deep, shuddered breath. “There,” she whispered. “So now you know.Thatis why I was in Iceland andthatis why I did not wish to come back. And that is how I am in the acquaintance of the Vagns, God love them.”
“I was wrong to compel you,” he confessed. The look on his face was pure misery.
“I would never have agreed without the offer of the building—you did not compel me, you made it worth my while.The building is worth it,” she assured him. “The building will change my life. And, ultimately, this return to Iceland will have no impact on me, except perhaps to allow me some... reckoning.”
“Does ‘reckoning’ with pain really ever make a difference?” he asked, his voice a scoff.
“I think, perhaps, it does. On the very rare occasions that I have related this story, I have felt better. Perhaps I feel better already.”
“You do?”
“No,” she said, laughing sadly, “but I can see where I might.”
“You are too generous.” His words were angry. “I have wronged you on behalf of... ofReggie.” He made a face. “It’s exactly the sort of thing he, and only he, would cause me to do.”
“It’s your cousin’s fault, is it?” She released the handfuls of his coat and laid her palms flat against his chest. She could just feel his heartbeat through her gloves.
“Of course not. Even when itisReggie’s fault, it is never really his fault. I did this, and cannot think of what I’ve done to deserve anything but resentment from you. But I am grateful. And I understand your... trepidation.”
“If I’d told you from the beginning, I feel sure you would have left me alone. And perhaps that is why I did not tell you. I didn’t want to be left alone—not yet—by you.”
His face took on a sharper expression. He ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back and sluicing rainwater onto the yoke of his coat.
“Do not,” she said. “We’re both ‘adults of the world,’ so I needn’t feign obviousness or pretend there is not a considerable . . . attraction between us. But as an adult, I can make responsible choices. And I will. I chose to assist you on this mission but also to do nothing else with you. So flatter yourself if you must, but don’t indulge indelusions of grandeur.” She forced herself to drop her hands and shrugged out of his hold. It was the adult thing to do.
She added, “And do not feel guilty about dragging me to Iceland. I am many things, but a coward is not one of them.”
“No,” he said softly, “I would say that you are not.”
They stood a moment longer, staring at each other through the mist, rain soaking every garment, the brigantine gently rocking beneath their feet.
“So, what do we do now?” she asked softly. Her brain hadn’t allowed her to think beyond telling him.
“I suppose we plan for how to quickly and peacefully extract my cousin and his lot.”
“I may put on dry clothes first,” she said, shrugging out of his coat.
He watched her peel the wet garment from her shoulders. If she’d asked him to accompany her to her cabin to assist with the dry clothes, he would have done it. If she’d asked him to take her to his cabin, to see her dry and comfortable andcomforted, he would have done it.
Her pulse leapt at the thought, and desire began to beat back the cold.
She would not, of course. And he would not. And his expression, although hungry and proprietary, was also assessing. He was looking at her with new eyes. He looked at her like a stranger who’d just revealed that they hailed from the same hometown. They’d hit upon this sort of shorthanded intimacy. A new kinship. They knew some of the same people and places. They understood the culture of this shared thing.
Did he consider herlessfor having traveled and cavorted and leapt from carriages? For having loved and lost so much? Or more like him? Or both?
Again, she dared not ask.
“Meet again in an hour?” she asked quietly, extending his wet coat.
“Alright,” he said. “An hour.”
