“I’m sorry.”
The words fell from him, direct from his heart.
Her eyes sparked anew. She looked up, in the mirror met his gaze. “Sorry?” Temper, disgust, and disbelief mingled in her tone; her eyes were burning disks of fury. “Sorry for all the years I lay beside that man? Sorry for all the nights I had to put up with his rutting?” Her voice changed. “Do you want to hear that he was a dreadful clod of a lover? Because he was. You at twenty-three knew far more than he ever learned.”
There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do to defend himself against the accusation in her eyes. He held her gaze, forced himself to, and hoped she could see how much he hurt, how much her words had cut him, how much he now bled, for her.
She seemed to. She drew another careful breath, again drew back from her dangerous edge. She refocused on her reflection; her face stony again, she reached up and pulled another pin from her hair. For a moment he wasn’t sure she was going to say anything more. He was floundering, trying to find some verbal way forward, when she drew in an unsteady breath and in a voice devoid of emotion stated, “You left me. You made my bed for me, and I was the one who had to lie in it—with Randall.”
He didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. They’d always—in the past—been open with each other. “Can you forgive me?”
Again she didn’t immediately answer, but continued pulling pins from her hair. Then he sensed rather than heard her sigh. “If you want the truth, I honestly don’t know.”
He heard, knew that was the truth—and it terrified him. Sent a sheet of ice-cold fear cascading through him.
To have her within his grasp and lose her again…he knew, in that instant, that he couldn’t bear that. Couldn’t live with that.
That he had to, somehow, find a way to recapture lost dreams—his, and hers.
She pulled out the last pin and her hair tumbled down, falling across her shoulders in a dark mahogany wave. The sight held him; he watched as she picked up a brush and applied it to the silky locks.
A minute ticked by, then he turned away. He knew, beyond doubt or question, that if he left her now, backed away from her revelations, he would never win her back. Stopping by a chair, he shrugged out of his coat, set it over the chair’s back, then unbuttoned his waistcoat, then set his fingers to his cravat.
Wielding her brush, she glanced at him, frowned, opened her mouth…after a moment she shut it again. She studied him for a moment more, then rose and, brush in hand, walked to the window. Slowly brushing, she stood looking out at the night.
He unraveled his cravat, dispensed with it and his waistcoat, then sat on the chair to pull off his boots. Setting them aside, he rose, yanked his shirt from his waistband, loosened the collar. He glanced at her, then, unlacing his cuffs, crossed silently to her.
Halting behind her, close, he waited while she finished brushing out one long tress, then slid the brush from her fingers and placed it on the chest of drawers beside the window.
She said nothing, did nothing.
He reached for her, wrapped her in his arms and simply held her. Waited, his cheek against her sleek head, until at last she relaxed, until she leaned back against him. He tightened his hold, swore on his heart, on his soul, that he would never again let her go.
Bending his head, he pressed a kiss to her temple. Murmured, “I have one last question. When you came asking for my help, why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you mention what’s been standing like a six-foot-thick wall between us?”
He wasn’t sure she’d give him an answer; he couldn’t demand one. Her hands resting over his at her waist, she continued to look out into the night.
Then she lifted one shoulder. “Pride, I suppose. That was all that was left to me.”
He tried to keep them back, but the words came out anyway. “Was it really so easy to hate me?” He used the term in the full knowledge that she never did anything by half.
Her chin rose. “It’s become a habit.”
“Break it.” Not demand, not command. A suggestion.
“Why?”
The response he’d expected. He turned her to him, into his arms. Looked into her eyes. “Because of this.”
He bent his head and kissed her—and knew he would have only this one chance. One night to give her reasons to try again. One night to make her believe in him again.
One night to find some hope that she would trust him again. Sometime.
That sometime she would be, again, as she had been long ago.
His.
Unquestionably. Incontrovertibly. Irrevocably.