“And what part,” she returned, her voice tightening inside her very throat, suffocating her, despite her efforts, “am I meant tae have misunderstood? The part where I am given again? Or the part where I am expected tae submit with gratitude?”
“Elaina, listen tae me?—”
“Ididlisten,” she snapped, and the restraint she had fought so hard to maintain was now slipping entirely from her grasp. “And I can scarcely believe me own foolishness.”
She shook her head, as though the thought alone might undo her.
“I thought—” Her voice faltered, though she forced herself onward. “I thought ye were different.”
The words lingered, fragile and wounded.
“I thought ye asked me because ye…”
She could not say it. She could not bear to place it between them now.
Duncan’s voice followed swiftly. “I dae.”
But she recoiled from his confession, as though the very sound of it now pained her.
“Nay,” she said, with quiet finality. “Dinnae dare offer me empty comfort after the truth has already been spoken.”
“Itisthe truth.”
“I agreed,” she continued, her voice trembling now despite her resolve, “because I believed ye meant it, because I believed ye asked me as a man who…” She faltered again, before she gathered what remained of her strength, “who cared fer me.”
The silence that followed was no longer empty. It was full of all that might have been said, had trust not already begun to fracture.
“I willnae be used again,” she told him more softly, though with a steadiness that admitted no persuasion. “I willnae be passed from one man tae another, made tae serve alliances and ambitions, nay matter how kindly they are presented tae me.”
Duncan stepped closer. She could see the desperation in his eyes, but she wasn’t certain whether it was because his plan had been divulged or because he truly meant what he was saying.
“Elaina, ye are nae being?—”
“Nay,” she cut him off, feeling anger rising inside of her.
Elaina could scarcely bear the weight of her own thoughts, for never had she felt so entirely deceived, nor so wholly to blame for it. That she, who had sworn never to be misled by a man’s charm should have believed him so readily, so completely, was a humiliation she could not easily forgive.
What she had taken for sincerity, for care, for something rare and honest, now revealed itself as nothing more than careful persuasion, a means to secure her agreement and bind her to the very alliance she had fled. That Duncan might have spoken of love while entertaining such intentions filled her with anger, but it was herself she resented most: for trusting him, for hoping, and for allowing her heart to betray her better judgment so completely.
“I willnae move from one prison tae another,” she told him, feeling the quiet conviction in her tone far more powerful than any raised voice. “Nae even fer ye.”
That, more than anything, seemed to still him. It made both of them silent. There had been a time, not so long past, when she would have given anything to remain where she stood.
Now, she could not stay there another moment.
“Elaina…” she heard him call out, but she had already turned away.
She did not trust herself to listen to him further. She left before he could reach her and undo what little strength she had managed to gather.
By the time she reached her chamber, her composure had all but deserted her. She closed the door behind her with trembling hands, and the sound echoed far louder than it ought, as though marking an end she had not wished to acknowledge.
For a moment, she remained where she was, with her breath uneven and her heart beating with a painful insistence she could neither quiet nor ignore.
Then she moved, driven by the singular need to leave before her resolve failed her entirely. The trunk was opened and garments were gathered without care for order or precision. Her hands, though practiced, betrayed her with their haste, folding what they could and abandoning what they could not.
She would go. She had to, before he came to her, before he spoke again and before she listened.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
