A faint, sad smile touched Emmeline’s mouth. “I am trying to be both. It is proving difficult.”
Juliet looked at her then, and the remorse in her face was almost unbearable. “He is angry with you because of me.”
“He is angry because I hurt him.”
“And because I asked you to.”
“Yes,” Emmeline admitted.
Juliet pressed a hand to her mouth, eyes shining again. “I should have gone home the moment you found me.”
“Perhaps,” Emmeline said softly. “But fear rarely asks wisdom for permission before it acts.”
Juliet gave a broken little laugh through her tears.
Emmeline said nothing.
Juliet looked down at her trembling hands. “I keep telling myself I ran because Rowan would not have listened. Because he would have forced me to go through with it. Because he would have chosen duty and reputation over me.” Her voice broke, and when she lifted her eyes again, there was shame in them now, raw and clear. “But that is not true. Not entirely. Perhaps not at all.”
Emmeline’s chest tightened.
“If I had gone to him,” Juliet continued, “if I had stood before him plainly and told him I could not marry Lord Wellfield, I do not truly believe he would have dragged me to the altar.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “He would have been angry. Disappointed. But he would not have forced me.”
“Juliet…”
“I was a coward,” Juliet said, and the words came out with such quiet violence that Emmeline fell silent. “I was afraid of his anger, so I made him crueler in my mind than he had ever been to me. I made him into someone I could run from without guilt. And then, when everything fell apart, I kept hiding behind that version of him because it was easier than admitting I had wronged him terribly.”
Emmeline looked at her, seeing the girl beneath the scandal, beneath the deception, beneath the chaos she had caused. And even with her own heart aching, she could not hate her. Howcould she? Emmeline knew too well what it meant to stand before a life arranged by others and feel the walls closing in.
But understanding fear did not make its consequences disappear.
“It is not wrong to have been afraid,” Emmeline said. “But it is wrong to let fear make a villain of someone who loved you.”
Juliet closed her eyes, and the tears slipped faster. “I know.”
“And it is wrong to let others suffer for the choice you made.”
Juliet nodded, pressing one hand against her stomach as though the truth pained her there. “I know that too.”
“Then tell him.”
Juliet looked at her again.
“Tell him the truth,” Emmeline said gently. “Tell him you were afraid. Tell him you were unfair. Tell him you are sorry.”
Juliet’s mouth trembled. “Do you think he will forgive me?”
Emmeline thought of Rowan’s face the previous night. The coldness. The hurt. The way he had saidwiseas though he had sealed them both into separate rooms.
“I do not know,” she said.
Juliet drew in a shaking breath. Then she nodded once.
“I will beg his forgiveness,” she whispered. “I owe him that much.”
Aaron looked back, waving one hand. “Biscuit found a stick!”
Emmeline lifted her hand in return. “A triumph.”
