She recalled the vicar popping out his head from the church when they were laughing, Mrs. Sneath’s bulging eyes, the clatter of cart wheels on the road. God only knew how many villagers had passed the churchyard and seen them. It might have been a servant in a kitchen garden or looking out a window, who told another servant…Isaiah and Isolde had been so wholly absorbed in each other that none of the possible ramifications of this had even penetrated.
She was as aghast as if she was realizing all of this about a stranger, not herself: How could this person be soshockinglycareless? With her reputation.
With Jacob’s pride.
With Jacob’s heart.
She knew her stunned silence incriminated her.
“Is this…is this thing with Redmond my punishment for leaving?” Jacob sounded bewildered. “Do you hate me so much?”
She reared back, astounded. “What onearth? How can youthinkthat of me?”
“If I hadn't said anything about it now, if you hadn’t seen me, would you even have told me about this later, when I saw you?” he pressed, relentlessly.
“I wouldn’t bother to tell you because I wouldn’t want to hurt you or upset you overnothing.”And yet her too-strident defense might as well have been a confession.
Not only that, she’d just betrayed both men with this lie.
She grew more appalling in her own eyes by the second. And likely in Jacob’s, too.
But Jacob’s injured self-righteousness had momentum. “If, as you say, you wouldn’t want to upset me, it implies you know full well how I feel about him. And yet here you are. Here you’vebeen. With him. Isn’t that true?”
With that, her simmering temper combusted.
“I do not recall you ever specifically requesting that I never speak to Isaiah Redmond. If you had, I might have done it anyway. Because you aren't my lord and master, Jacob Eversea, are you? You’re not my husband. We’re not engaged. You've no rights over me at all.”
He flinched. God help her, she savored the landed blow.
Another ghastly silence ensued. Behind them, Jacob’s mare whickered softly. Her reins were looped about the tree branch.
She took a breath. “Jacob.” She turned his name into a soft plea. Her voice was shaking. “Please.Please. Let’s just walk together. You must be exhausted. Youmustknow how I’ve missed you. Every moment of every day.”
“Yes,” he said bitterly. “Clearly you've been profoundly grieving my absence.”
She jerked as though he’d slapped her.“I'm not the one wholeft!”
Her anguish echoed in the churchyard.
Too late she fully realized how much his absence had truly cost her.
His breath left him in an audible rush and he staggered back a step.
She'd just thrown into his face something she'd sworn to herself she’d never do.
She felt gutted with remorse and…
…free.
She’d needed to say it aloud. He’d needed to hear it.
Spiky misery circulated in her gut. Terror parched her mouth. They were careening toward something terrible and momentous, and she could not seem to stop it.
Jacob was white with fury. His eyes were like bruises.
“Jacob…” her voice was parched with fear. “Why were you gone so?—”
“Because I almost died,” he said flatly.
