Renard picked up the nearest cushion and held it at the ready. “You’re acting hysterical. I know this is a shoddy way to propose, but—”
The boot went wide when she threw it. His gaze followed where it landed beside the desk. He turned with a smug grin when a book came flying at his head instead.
He missed the immortal works of Shakespeare with a more lucky than agile duck-and-swerve.
The tome smacked into the desk and cracked the book’s binding. Getting ready withThe Great Works of Byronnext, Renard tackled her to the chase before she could destroy another priceless piece of his friend’s library.
She flailed beneath him, using her hands to strike at him when everything else lay out of arm’s reach.
“Desist, at once!” He trapped her wrists together, underestimating her range, and rage, when she bit him in the hand. “For the love of God, Camille, stop! Don’t marry me, then. Don’t have anything to do with me or the title. I will tell my sister the truth. After that, I’m sure she’ll still support you. I meant only to spare you from any unpleasant exposure—”
“You will tell no one, do you hear me?” She muttered something unflattering about men and their botched heroics. “Not only would your crazed shouts be more than exposing, worse, someone might actually believe your nonsense.”
“Camille—”
“Youdid notkill your parents, Renard. You were fourteen. And it was anaccident.”
The conviction in her words clawed at the shame and regret that had taken up residence in his chest all those years ago. But those claws couldn’t scratch deep enough to set him free.
“Release me,” Camille said quietly.
Realizing he still held her trapped on the chase, Renard pulled away and sat at the foot of the furniture, putting hishead in his hands. All this was his mess. Every bad thing that had happened to those around him could be traced back to that afternoon. He’d played with fate and ruined the plans of so many lives. Fate, in turn, had dangled love and contentment before him, and he’d nipped at the bait like a horse to the bit, even though he’d known better. Getting others involved had been a mistake. He’d gone after Camille with nothing but selfish need driving his actions, and nothing but tragedy had come of it all.
Even now he clung to the idea of saving her, when she clearly did not want a thing to do with him anymore. Perhaps she’d never cared for him, and it had all been a conceited illusion of his own making. God, he’d more than ruined Camille’s life, he’d taken her innocence, her home. A part of him was devastated she’d ever thought him capable of cold-blooded murder. The other part knew, premeditated or not, hehadkilled.
A warm body pressed to his side. Renard looked up to see Camille sitting beside him, her face scrunched in concentration.
“I...” She started and stopped three times before she sighed and said, “I don’t know how to comfort you. Kindness, warmth—they were things I was never taught. Emotions were unnecessary, nothing but liabilities. But you feel so much.” She waved around the room, her gaze going to the books and shoes flung across the room. “You makemefeel. Grand emotions and tiny ones, ones that make me want to scream and others that are so subtle, I need to whisper or they’ll vanish.” She rubbed at her forehead. “I can’t understand what you’re feeling right now. You in no way are responsible for your parents’ deaths, but you disagree. Normally, I would call you an idiot and force you to admit I’m correct. It took my insufferable brother to point out the flaw inmylogic.” She smirked and offered a humbling shake of her head. “Your feelings matter, and it is possible they may not... be wrong.”
Renard stared at her. If she’d serenaded him while wearing a man’s trousers and vest, he couldn’t have been more surprised. Her words stirred the dregs of kind feeling left in him, one particular feeling he dared not give name to. “Did you just admit to being wrong?”
She scowled. “Terrible listener as always, Your Grace.”
“You said I was right.” She’d said far more.“You make me feel.”
“I said you maynot be wrong.”
That feeling grew in him until its namesake became hope itself. “By extension, that makes you wrong.”
She stood. “Never mind. You are an idiot. Everything must be a battle between us.”
“No, wait!” He took her hand and guided her back to her seat. “Please,” he said in earnest. “I must know. All this time I thought... Never mind what I thought. I need the truth, Camille. You ran to protect me?”
She bit her lip, but she did not look away. “Yes.”
Renard’s heart soared. She’d never admitted to sharing his affections. She still didn’t now, but the words didn’t matter. She’d never gone to the Yard, never wanted her connection with the dead men to lead back to him. She’d runforhim.
The past year of anguish and worry disappeared. None of it mattered anymore now they were together again.
“Milly.” He pressed a kiss to her hair, her temple, her cheek. He skimmed her mouth’s edge when she pulled away and stood.
“It won’t work, Renard,” she said, though her flushed cheeks disagreed. “We are poison together. Now you tell me you have an heir who could take everything away. Can’t you see that? You are titled and arrogant. I am prideful and cold. We’d make each other miserable!”
He watched her pace and was grateful to be alive. “You’re right.”
“You’re not listening again—what?”
He stood. “You’re right. We don’t agree on anything. You refuse to be reasoned with, and I am the worst sober gentleman,andvain,andarrogant. Miserable, you say. Misery never meant a thing to me until you were gone where I couldn’t follow. We are a futile combination. I won’t deny it. You are common, I am an aristocrat. Society may damn us, may run us out of every town in England. And I will welcome it all.” He took a step forward for each declaration until he’d backed her against the window. “You admitted you were wrong. You’ve changed over these months in ways I’m only beginning to understand. And, if you can change, so can I.
