“Disappoint you? I’ve done everything possible to make amends.”
Did that stretch to touching her beneath the stars, making love in her bed? Did it include all the beautiful things he had said and done?
She threw the dagger to the floor and pulled the ribbonsof her mask free, letting the disguise fall away so she could breathe again.
No matter how fiercely she felt for him, she could not remain here. Not in this house. Not with a man who let the past poison his future.
“I’d like to leave Shadowmere. You can do one last thing and I’ll ask nothing of you again.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, though it was her heart that ached. “Send for Charlotte.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mr Ramsey arrived to escort her to Dominic’s study and carry her valise. He’d brought a small wooden box and wrapped the pink teapot and cups in broadsheet pages, stacking them neatly inside.
“Hawke says you’re to take the porcelain.”
She stared at the box. “I can’t take it. It belonged to his grandmother.”
“They’re Hawke’s orders, not mine.”
Her eyes blurred for a moment. “Leave it. Please.”
He ignored her plea. “Hawke’s never given a woman anything. Best to accept it with good grace.”
A diamond necklace would have suited a mistress.
This felt like he was giving her a piece of his soul.
“Is Charlotte here?”
Part of her prayed the answer was no, that it wasn’t too late to change her mind. That they might argue, kiss, and spend the rest of the day in bed.
But the noises of the damned, the howls in the darkness, the heavy heaving of a hundred lungs meant she could not suffer another night at Shadowmere.
“She’s with Hawke in the study.”
The thought of seeing him made her chest tighten.
For a moment, she could scarcely breathe.
How did you say goodbye to a man you loved? How did you accept this might be your biggest regret?
“We should go now.” The sooner it was over, the better.
She left the cottage and couldn’t bear to look back.
Mr Ramsey didn’t speak until they entered the house. “I know he’s not gone about things the right way. He can be a stubborn devil. But you’ve unsettled him in ways I’ve never seen before.”
She pictured the possessive glint in Dominic’s eyes as he entered her, the look of surrender when he came undone.
“It’s difficult to know what’s honest and what’s said to serve his purpose.”
Mr Ramsey frowned. “He’s been pacing that study like a caged beast all morning. Surely that says something.”
“Yes. That he’s lost control and despises the feeling.”
“There’s more to it than that.”
He’d used her to prove a point.
