“Come, sit down.” Charlotte patted the seat next to hers. “Tell me about your adventure. Woman’s intuition says I may have reason to congratulate you.” She stood and crossed for the bell pull. “I’ll ring for tea and—”
“I killed our parents.”
The entire room stilled at his words. He swore the fire banked before coming back to life.
Charlotte stared at him. “What?”
Renard swallowed. His body flushed with heat and ice, but he wouldn’t look away, wouldn’t run. Not anymore.
“I started the fire in the stable when we were children.” He wouldn’t falter or spin a tale of foolishness. He stated what had happened as fact and gave Charlotte the truth she was owed.
“I took Papa’s pipe and went to the barn to taste my first tobacco. When I was done, I didn’t put it out properly. Before I knew what had happened, some of the stray straw caught fire.”
He saw the wall of flames in his mind as if it were that day. The lack of rain had left the wood panels of the barn bone dry. Everything had gone up in a matter of seconds. It was all he could do to throw open the gates and pray the last two horses would run for safety.
He hadn’t run for help, hadn’t cried out. Unable to move, he’d stood there and watched, unknowingly leaving his sister to burn. His fingernails bit into his palms. He lowered his head, no longer able to meet his sister’s shocked gaze.
“Our parents died because I didn’t think to check if someone else was using the quiet of the barn.” His apology wasn’t enough;it would never be, but the words must be said regardless, no matter how insufficient. “I’m sorry, Lotte. I’m so damn sorry.”
The silence stretched between them, damning and awful. Renard bared it, knowing the wrenching in his chest would be nothing compared to the tortures of hell.
“You don’t smoke.”
His head snapped up. Certain he’d heard her wrong, he asked, “What?”
Charlotte shook her head. “Hamish said he’d never seen you smoke. It’s not that you can’t; it’s because youwon’t.”
The statement threw him.
She must be shocked indeed if she hadn’t begun cursing his existence.
While he waited for her to lose her composure, he offered, “Other way around.” The lingering smell of burning wood and flesh was a permanent fixture in his mind and a compulsory memory for his body. Too long in any gaming hell with its stale air and throat clogging vapors and he’d go running to the privy to relieve his stomach of its contents. He’d learned to steer clear of the hells and find his oblivion the smokeless and cheaper way: pubs, one where both working men and women co-mingled and where there was no chance a man would light his pipe.
“The smell still makes me sick. Whenever my city cook would put pork on the menu, I’d leave the house entirely, afraid one whiff of overdone meat would leave me running for the nearest chamber-pot. I had every grocer strike pork off our ingredients list in the country, just in case.”
“Ren.” Charlotte reached for him. “It was an accident. You no more caused their deaths than I.”
He evaded her outstretched arms by sitting on the divan. The sound of her nickname for him grated. She was too trusting still. His little sister, who’d hung on his every word as children as ifhe’d been some hero she’d admired, she couldn’t see he was truly the villain.
“It doesn’t matter if it was an accident,” he spat. “I started the fire, and they are dead. Society won’t take well to parricide, no matter the circumstances. Our parents, you, all I’ve ever done is hurt those I love.” He’d spend every single day worshipping the ground his wife walked, thanking God Camille hadn’t condemned him after learning the truth. But his sister, his sweet, little sister would grow to hate him as much as he hated himself. He dropped his head in his hands, unable to meet Charlotte’s gaze. “I’m the worst sort of monster.”
He waited for the sound of the library door to slam shut. She must have realized now; she was better off without him in her life. Those years in the country alone hadn’t broken her; she’d taken that silence and forged a life of quiet resolve so strong, not even Hamish had stood a chance. She’d grown into a formidable woman, no thanks to him—
“Renard Leopold Louis, if you ever say that again, I will never forgive you!”
Renard looked up and startled at the tears in Charlotte’s eyes.
“Lotte—”
“No.” She shook her head, the tears falling down her cheeks. “All this time. All these years, I reached for you, waited for your grief to lessen so we could face our lives together as a family. But...” The word cracked with emotion. “You’ve carried this guilt by yourself, thinking I wouldn’t understand.” She offered her open palms, her gesture and expression pleading. “Renard, don’t you see? If I hadn’t been in the hayloft, if I had listened to Mother and stayed in the garden like I was supposed to, they’d never have perished. Mother and Father were there because of me, becauseIwouldn’t listen. If you are set on carrying the blame, then I must shoulder its weight alongside you.”
Renard shot to his feet. “That’s nonsense, Charlotte! Of course you aren’t to blame.”
“Neither. Are. You.”
Renard paused. The fierceness with which she said those three words resonated to the darkest depths of his soul, where guilt and shame had set roots so deep, his hope of reconciling their relationship had all but choked out.
Now that hope sprang towards the light, the stock so thin and frail, a single gust of doubt would rend it to the ground. He couldn’t believe she forgave him.Wouldn’tbelieve, else he break beyond all reparations.
