Page 18 of When the Sky Breaks

Iforced myself out the door and spent the next ten minutes sitting in the hallway with my head in my hands—listening to make sure she was okay. Eventually, I worked up the courage to go back in and check on her, grabbing a clean towel in case she was still awake and I needed to keep up a pretense of practicality. So I cracked the door open and saw Sorcha curled up on her side, dress still disheveled, clutching the ranch’s big tortoiseshell cat to her chest, and sobbing. I shut the door again immediately and bolted down the stairs, where I ran straight into Ansel.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” Ansel said jovially. “I know you said you sent scouts out to the hillsides but . . .”

“I need to talk to you.” I grabbed Ansel’s arm and steered him down the hall. “Privately. Now.”

I hurried through the house, dodging servants and guards along the way, and shut us in our tiny office. I lit a lamp and herded Ansel into his desk chair—too wired to sit. Instead, I paced. The room was cramped with one desk, overfull with two, which made it a repetitive three steps one way, three steps back.

“I made her bleed,” I finally said, stopping and making myself look Ansel in the face.

“I think that’s normal, Neal,” Ansel said, simply.

“No, you don’t understand,” I said, pacing again. “It was on the sheets, her legs . . .”

“You’re overreacting,” Ansel soothed.

“I’m not.” I paused, then, “Ansel, I don’t know what came over me. I shut off the lamp. I wouldn’t let her undress. I wouldn’t even let her kiss me.”

Ansel stifled a laugh.

“You did what?” he asked.

“It was like I was scared to watch,” I admitted.

Because she had been warm and soft and perfect under my hands. Because it had felt so many eons better than any of the times I’d snuck off with some servant girl after midnight while I was studying. Because if I’d let myself, I would have felt things.

Ansel raised an eyebrow.

“Let me get this straight. You wouldn’t kiss her, wouldn’t let her undress, wouldn’t even light a lamp, and now you’re shocked that she’s upset? What did you expect, Neal?” Ansel asked, snorting. “That she’d thank you for treating her like she’s invisible? You’re married.”

“And I went back to check on her afterward. And she hadn’t moved. Not at all. She was lying there holding one of her cats, crying.”

“So you left?” Ansel’s voice dripped with condescension and disbelief.

“I didn’t want to make it worse.”

“And you ran off to me instead of comforting her?” Ansel snorted.

“She made it very clear up at the cabin that I had to commit one way or another. Either I married her because our parents requested, to strengthen our political position or . . .”

Or because I loved her.

I stopped. I couldn’t say those words out loud—not right now, not to Ansel of all people.

“If I let myself,” I continued, taking a deep breath, “if I kissed her . . . this is my job, Ansel. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her.”

“Yeah, but that’s a stupid plan anyways,” Ansel drawled.

I froze. Shit. He was right.

I crept back up to Sorcha’s room. The cats had multiplied. She still held the big tortoiseshell against her chest, but now the orange tabby lay on her feet, missing half an ear with jowls that proved it liked to fight, and a little black kitten licked at the skin behind her ear. The water on the table was untouched. She clearly hadn’t moved. She was still crying.

“That went badly,” I said softly, taking the water and sitting down on the bed beside her.

Her grip on the cat tightened, but she didn’t respond. The little black kitten stopped licking her and glared at me.

I paused before continuing, “You’ll be sore for a few days. I’ll find you some medicine to take the edge off.”

“Thanks,” Sorcha mumbled into the cat. “Did it hurt for you too?”