“Put… put me down.” For the sake of the pride that was all she had left, she wanted to command, but her request emerged as a breathy whisper.
“No.”
He sounded harsh. When he’d caught her in his arms, she’d fleetingly imagined he sounded like the man who whispered endearments as he took her to the stars.
She’d never hear that man again.
Her heart raced with fear and distress. “Please, Jonas, I can walk.
”
“All right.”
Abruptly he stopped and set her on her feet. Immediately her head began to swim. She sucked in a jagged breath to curb the roiling in her belly. She couldn’t be sick. Not now. Not in front of Jonas. That would be too mortifying. Anyway she’d need food in her stomach to be sick. Bile flooded her mouth. She started to tumble headlong down a black tunnel.
From far away, she heard Jonas swear as he swung her into his arms again. She tried to stiffen in protest, but her muscles remained as floppy as wet muslin. In her heart, she was still strong and determined, but her body let her down. She waited for him to say something snide but he kept silent. This time, she didn’t fool herself she was anything other than an inconvenience.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, once she gained temporary control over her unruly digestion.
“To my carriage,” he said shortly.
She told herself it didn’t matter that he hated her. Only building a secure future mattered. Over the last months, that grim thought alone had kept her trudging ahead. It lost its comforting power when Jonas clasped her tight in a cruel travesty of how he’d once held her.
“Are you taking me home?”
“No.”
Without the strain of staying upright, she began to feel marginally more like the old Sidonie Forsythe. The Sidonie she’d been before her life disintegrated. She hoped so. She had a sinking feeling this meeting was about to become very uncomfortable indeed.
Her mind worked frantically. Jonas said he’d spoken to Roberta. She could imagine what her sister had said. Especially as he’d then set out to find Sidonie. After all, he could have looked for her any time in the last three months and the silence had been telling. Even when he’d offered her an allowance, the correspondence came from his secretary. Refusing the generous payment had sparked fleeting satisfaction. Until she’d realized her response had probably never progressed beyond some industrious underling’s desk.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“We need to talk about that.” He waited while a footman opened the door to a large town coach. “Among other things.”
“Jonas, I… I don’t want to go with you,” she said, suddenly afraid. This smacked too much of abduction. She wriggled without effect. “I’d rather walk home on my own.”
“Too bad,” he said uncompromisingly. But his touch was gentle as he placed her inside the carriage. He climbed in after her and the footman closed the door with a click that to Sidonie’s oversensitive ears sounded like prison doors slamming shut. The scents of leather, Jonas, and confined space flooded her senses, but her troublesome stomach remained quiet, thank goodness.
“You have no right to bundle me in here like a parcel,” she said mutinously, then fell mute as Jonas wrapped a rug around her so carefully, it was as if he protected a crystal vase from breaking.
Instead what he broke was her heart.
Except her heart had broken months ago. No wonder she remained so lifeless despite all her bracing little lectures to herself to look to her future. Nobody could live without their heart.
“Stow it, Sidonie. And don’t even think of running. In your current state, you couldn’t walk across the road. I’d just have to pick you up again.” He slid onto the bench beside her and turned to lift a bottle of brandy and a glass from a leather pannier on the door.
“I’ll be sick if I drink that,” she said with a spurt of resentment as the coach rolled forward.
He shot her an unreadable look. “It’s for me.”
“Am I so terrifying that you need Dutch courage?” she asked with false sweetness.
He didn’t smile. “Definitely.”
He splashed golden liquor into the glass and downed it. Then he returned the bottle and glass to the pannier with a deliberate slowness that played on her nerves. As she was sure he meant it to. When the silence extended, Sidonie could bear it no longer. “Roberta told you, didn’t she?”
Another of those unreadable glances. “When we were together, you made me a promise.”