Her voice was so soft. So gentle. How he wanted to move toward that gentleness.
This weakness in him for her infuriated him.
“I regret more than I can ever adequately say the... the injury done you. What you witnessed was the end of something I never expected even to begin, and which has been a source of solacebefore I met you. I have entered into our marriage in good faith and I am resolved to be a good wife to you. I honestly did not know that he would be there at the gate, or that he would... he would kiss... I did not know thatIwould... I’ve no experience at all of...”
Her eyes on his face were bewildered and tormented. Beseeching.
Oh Christ.
He briefly hovered a palm across his eyes.
He wanted to hear that she regretted it. But he didn’t dare ask, because he knew she didn’t, and he knew she wouldn’t lie.
If he hadn’t witnessed it with his own eyes, Magnus would never, ever have known that his new wife had kissed her allegedly erstwhile lover on their wedding day.Shewould have known, and her lover would have known, and he would have gone on, a blissfully ignorant fool, for the rest of his life.
To date, no one had made a fool of Brightwall without paying a price.
And now he was flailing. Here he stood, closer to forty years old than to thirty, infuriated and almost frightened that despite everything he’d survived and learned and lived, despite every sacrifice, every triumph—none of that had taught him how to reconcile or abide any of this: her white-faced terror, her perfidy, her loveliness, her beautiful mouth, her pleading, tormented eyes, his own madness for wanting this one, specificwoman so badly that he’d engineered what he’d thought was a shrewd triumph.
Instead he was now confronted with a tragedy—a farce—he had somehow not foreseen. He had outsmarted himself. He had trapped both of them.
And he didn’t want to admire her in this moment. If he was brutally honest with himself—he generally was—he did anyway.
He could not abide her suffering, because it made his own heart feel like shards in his chest.
He could not abide the fact that this very conversation made it so clear that they didn’t know each other well enough to maneuver through it, and now likely never would.
Let alone well enough to ever touch each other’s faces tenderly.
And yet they were legally bound to each other. Married strangers.
Forever.
He gave a soft, bitter, almost wondering laugh. “And I would have done anything for you.”
He heard her breath snag in her throat.
She must have realized that whatever he decided to do next, mercy for either of them wouldn’t be a part of it.
The next morning he left for Spain.
Alone.
Chapter Eight
After Magnus departed following their rather draining, future-deciding conversation, Alexandra had gone back to sleep. It had been a proper, deep sleep until she awoke with a start from a dream of being trapped in a thicket. She had heard Magnus’s voice calling to her from far away. She had called out to him, too, until her voice was hoarse. But he’d been too far away to hear her, and his voice had grown ever fainter until it stopped.
She rubbed her palms against her eyes and slid from bed to part the curtains.
It had gone full dark; no doubt she had already missed dinner. She could not have guessed what time it was.
She smoothed her hair in the little face-sized mirror hanging over the writing desk, then opened the door a crack and peered out.
Magnus was sitting on the settee in front of the fire, a book in his hands. He’d shed his coat and cravat and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. This was a bit startling, but certainly fair: they were married, and he was allowed to be comfortable.
It wasn’t as though she’d never seen a man’s forearms. She had a brother and a father, after all.
She’d never seen forearms quite like the ones currently on display.
