George did shut up then. But he stayed conscious, his eyes open and every time she turned her head to look at him, he was looking back at her.
Near the edge of the forest, the gamekeeper and a group of other men approached, all carrying muskets or pistols. George insisted he be put down. He was quite all right, just had been shaken, he was a grown man, for God’s sake.
She put her hand on George’s arm, keeping him back from the group as they headed toward the house.
“May I speak to you?”
“Yes, yes.” He got in front of her and stopped walking, blocking her. “That’s all I want. To talk to you. Please. Please let me tell you how sorry I am about what I said at tea. About Thornwick marrying you. It isn’t what I meant. It isn’t what I think. At all. Quite the opposite, in fact.” He gulped. “I want to marry you, you see? And I was quite desperate. And desperate men are foolish men. And foolish men say hurtful, untrue things when something important is slipping through their fingers.”
She shook her head, unable to speak. Why would he say he wanted to marry her when he never had before? She wasn’t good enough for him. He had said that, in essence, during tea. And it didn’t matter that he wanted to take it back now. Because she had felt the truth of it, for years.
George was a man made up of rules, wasn’t he? And he had broken a rule by fornicating with her at her insistence. He was feeling guilty, and this was his way of making it right.
“Are you saying no, Phee?”
“I’m saying . . .” She looked up at the sky, blinking back her tears. “Why now?”
“Because I’m stupid.”
She brought her gaze back down to his fiercely intelligent dark eyes. “We both know you’re not stupid, George.”
“Yes. I am. I wasn’t paying attention. I was stuck in a past where you were still fourteen and needed an older brother. You didn’t need a lover or a husband. ”
He thought she needed him. He didn’t need her. That was true, too. And it was hateful. Because what kind of marriage would that be? He would condescend to marry her, and she would spend the rest of her life with a clutching need to please him.
Because she still wanted to please him. More than she wanted to please Thornwick. What had those unfailingly accurate arrows been, except for a desire to do well in front of him even if it meant enraging her betrothed?
George had all the power. He always had done. She must claw something back for herself.
She took a deep breath. “I won’t marry you. And I want you to leave.”
His face fell.
She hardened her heart and went on. “Leave right away. Leave me alone. Let me sort this out. By myself. Not under your influence.”
“But Phee—”
“If I am ever to be any kind of real person, anything more than a girl, I must know my own mind.”
“You don’t know it now?”
“I know I’ve made a promise. I know you hurt me. But mostly, I feel like I know everyone else’s mind better than my own.”
“Do you know I love you?”
“Yes. You’ve loved me my whole life.”
“And maybe you feel something for me?”
She took a deep breath. “I feel a lot of things. A jumble of things.”
“Do you promise not to get married without letting me talk to you again?”
“So you can make me do what you want, just as you always have?”
“I—”
“You’ll leave. You won’t speak to me or Thornwick. I’ll come and speak to you before I marry. Is that our bargain?”
