And with that, she took a step back and slammed the door.
As the panel trembled on its hinges, she pressed herself against it and slowly sank to the floor, holding back sobs.
She wouldn’t cry.
She would not be the roiling pot of emotion he thought all women were.
For he was just as wild with emotion as she. And his fierce denial had brought them both into hell.
Her body shook.
She could not believe the things that he had said. That she had said.
She could not believe how cruel he had been.
Not love her? Determined not to love her?
It hurt. Dear God, it hurt. And she was a fool, just as he’d said, for thinking that she could have a marriage with mere logic.
Because the more she considered it, the more she thought it possible that she had loved him from the moment she had strode across the ballroom to speak to him and he had turned and asked her to dance…
It was a disaster. All of it.
And she could not stay.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Will could not tear his gaze from her door, all his control slipping away from him. That shield she had asserted that he possessed? It shattered within him, and the pieces were piercing his heart.
That complete lack of decision jarred him. His insides coiled with…panic. She had shut him out. Everything he had fought against and promised himself wouldn’t happen was happening. Bloody hell, how could he have done this?
He’d failed everyone. He hadn’t protected or kept anyone safe. The hell of it coursed through him, and he wanted to collapse with it.
Half of him insisted that he storm forward and pound on the door and gain admittance. Mine, his heart growled.
After all, she was his. She belonged to him. By every law of England, he owned her and he could force her to stay with him. He could rope her to him, and somehow he could make that horrified look on her face vanish. He could find a way to make his laughing Beatrice come back.
Surely he could make her understand. If he but said the right thing. If he could but make her feel as he had felt trying to hold his brothers together all those years ago, she’d see. She’d see and let him back in.
But he couldn’t.
The way she’d looked at him, with pity as if he was some broken thing that could never be mended. And who could ever want a broken thing?
He pressed his eyes shut and turned. What a sodding fool he was.
Who the hell had he been trying to convince that they could be friends?
He snapped his gaze open and caught a flicker of his reflection in a gilded mirror glowing with dawn light.
But he couldn’t make himself lift his gaze and meet his own eyes.
He couldn’t bear to see what she had seen. All these years… All these damned years, he’d kept the dam in place and the emotions firmly pooled behind.
With one look and a few words, she had cracked that wall, and he could feel the force barreling down on him.
Her words had ripped him apart.
She loved him?