“Yes.”
Heartbeats counted out the silence between them. Eventually, he said, “I have to go tomorrow, Danielle. I must try to recover him.”
“Yes,” she said.
If he asked her to come with him, she would go. If he asked her to help him gain access to this French captain’s castle, to “dangle her” as he’d said, she would help him. But she wantedhimto ask her. She wanted him to say the words.
He couldn’t see beyond this rescue, this she understood. He couldn’t or wouldn’t make any declarations. She understood this less, but she was new to this.
What hecoulddo was ask her for her help. She could be included in decisions about how they got on. And lived. And where. And when.
But he must stop making assumptions; he must ask.
From the beginning, all he’d had to do was ask.
Chapter 22
Dani knew she was alone in the bed before she opened her eyes. She was cold and unmoored. When she felt for the place where Bannock had been, her hand stretched on and on. She held her breath and listened. Was she alone in the room? No. She heard rustling. A drawer slid shut, footsteps, a coin scraped across a tabletop. He’d gone from the bed but not from the room. Not yet.
She sat up and pushed the heavy fall of her hair from her face. Sunlight at the windows was dulled to lavender through a curtain of rain. The candles were gutted but fire jumped brightly in the grate, throwing off heat. Bannock stood near the wardrobe, fully dressed, dropping folded shirts into a case.
Her chemise, she saw, had also been folded. It sat in a puffy square at the foot of the bed. Dani had never slept naked before, but last night, it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Now she gathered the sheet and clutched it to her breasts.
“Hello,” she said simply.
He paused in his packing and looked up. They locked eyes, but only for a second. His gaze dropped, taking in her dishevelment, and bare shoulders, and what was surely hope on her face. She couldn’t hide any of it, so she did not try.
Bannock returned to his packing.
“So, today...” she guessed.
“Nothing about this is ideal,” he said. His voice was flat. “The longer I remain, the worse for Welty and the worse for you.”
“I have not asked you to remain,” she said. In her head she added,But you could ask me to go.
His hands froze in the act of folding a cravat. He looked up. “No. You have not asked me to stay. Another reason to go.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she shot back. “It’s obvious that I hold you in affection, Bannock. God knows why—”
“Yes, God knows why.”
“—and it’s unfair to suggest that I’ve tried to restrict or contain you. I have not.”
“Last night—”
“You were never sailing to France in the hours after the wedding, you said so yourself. It was my wedding night, forgive me if I didn’t want to spend it alone.”
“I’m glad to have given you what you wanted.”
“That overstates things.”
She sounded petulant, she could hear it, but she felt petulant. His immediate departure was unnecessary. He could see this, surely?
Yes—an old man was being held captive. Andyes—Luke was tormented by guilt and nightmares, and he must reckon with all of it. But they’d just been married,for God’s sake. Under false pretenses. And she’d accepted it. And now he wasleavingher with—apparently—nothing more to say about it. No promises, no assurances, no second look at his original plan to “dangle her.” And God forbid he make some proclamation of... of—
“I’m sorry,” he said, locking the case. He looked at the ceiling and closed his eyes. A muscle worked in his jaw. He looked miserable.
Ask me, she willed him, feeling miserable herself.
