Margaret glanced at him. “He didn’t stay to make sure you were mortally wounded?”
“I made enough noise to attract attention. If I hadn’t, he might have finished the job. This is just a scratch.”
Yes, that was why he looked pale and had a sheen of perspiration on his brow. Even the hat couldn’t hide the toll even a twenty-minute walk was taking on him. Margaret forced herself to cease asking questions so Holyoake might save his strength. Once outside of Seven Dials, she complained that her feet hurt and made him hail a hackney. Inside, he gave her a long look from the other side of the conveyance.
“I could have made it.”
“Yes, but I’d rather you not collapse. You’re too heavy for me to carry back to that awful building and up a flight of stairs.”
He let out a sigh and closed his eyes. “I’ll be fine once I have something to eat.”
She made a neutral sound and, since he had his eyes closed, took the opportunity to study him. She liked him with the beard. He was what, about eight and twenty now, and the beard made him look older, more mature. She could barely see any trace of the boy she had known when they’d been children or even when they’d first married. She wondered if, when he looked at her, he saw any traces of the girl she’d been.
In the three years she’d been gone, she felt as though she had lived a lifetime.
“You didn’t come after me,” she said, only realizing she’d spoken aloud when he opened his eyes. His eyes were so lovely, unusual but dark enough that she could lose herself in their amber-gold depths.
“No, I didn’t,” he said.
Margaret thought that would be the end of it, and thank God. Why had she even mentioned it? She looked out the window of the coach, watching the throngs of people moving along the side of the street and across it.
“I wanted to,” he said.
She closed her eyes, surprised at the sting of pain inflicted by his words.
“I had to all but tie myself down not to go after you. But every time I gathered my coat and my hat, I thought about what would happen when I found you. What would happen if I dragged you back. You’d come, and you’d stay for a little while. We’d argue; we’d make love. And then you’d leave again.”
She opened her eyes and caught her breath at the intense way he was looking at her.
“In those days of fighting myself, I finally realized something,” he said.
“What was that?” she whispered.
“You needed something more than me. I would never be enough for you, and as many times as I dragged you back, you would leave again. You were all I ever wanted, but I had to accept the same wasn’t true for you.”
Margaret lowered her lashes, reached across the coach, and put her hand on his knee. Then she moved her hand slightly and pinched the tender skin of his inner thigh viciously, causing him to jump.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“That was for that pile of excrement you just spouted.You were all I ever wanted. What a load of horse manure.”
