“Here, at Seastorm.”
“Extend your holiday? Because we have not found the manuscript.”
“I mean to live here. No more travelling. I intend to try my hand at writing. Books about my travels. And to take up my father’s studies. And I plan to do so from Seastorm, from my home. I wish to start a family.” He wanted little girls with golden hair and wicked smiles. But now… now… the woman he wanted that with wasleaving. He’d chosen to leave, too, to leave the life and work they’d shared for six years, but her departure seemed more permanent.
They would both forge new lives without one another. An impossible thought. His legs went weak, and he fought to stay upright, clenching every muscle in his body to do so. He couldn’t accept it.
Not without trying one more time.
“You tell me with ease”—his voice shook, for he did not try to stop it; let her hear his desperation—“where you want my hands on your body. I want you to tell me as easily as you tell me what you like when I touch you—”
“I can tell you nothing.” She snapped at him like lightning.
“You have been telling me. Stories about your cursed parents.”
“Crumbs. You deserve more than that.” She raised her skirts and ran for the door.
He followed, caught her arm, and whirled her around to face him. “This is the last time I chase you, Gwendolyn. Those footsteps the last I set in your direction. At least tell me why you reject me.”
“I am ruined, Jackson.”
“Not good enough. I do not care. My uncle and aunt and cousins will not care. My—”
“I care!” She ripped out of his grasp and stumbled backward toward the door.
“Tell me. Trust me. I dare you. If it ends how you are convinced it will, then you’ve lost nothing. If it ends how I think it will, then we both gain so much.”
“I can’t. You do not understand.”
She kept saying that. A lie she would not let go of. But what did he know? Perhaps he wouldn’t understand. But he couldn’t know if he would or not until she trusted him. He almost laughed.
And that, apparently, she would never do.
“You choose a life alone then,” he said.
“I do.”
He shook his head. “I do not envy you that. I hope you realize it is of your own making. None of us have asked you to sacrifice yourself.”
“’Tis no sacrifice.”
“I don’t believe you.” He paced past her, keeping his distance.
“Jackson.”
He didn’t look back. His steps didn’t even falter as he walked into the hallway and away from his heart. Best this way. Their entire relationship had been only clandestine trysts and chases. No more. She did not want him enough to open to him, to trust him. She’d rather run than trust him, and if he knew a damn thing about lovers, it was that trust was a necessity.
His parents had trusted each other entirely, not a single wall between them. And the study Jackson had done of intimacy between lovers had all emphasized the need for trust in an act that made the skin as well as what beat beneath it as vulnerable as possible.
She was leaving? Well, he’d always only wanted to give her exactly what she wanted, so he’d let her go, and start the work of building a new life for himself right here.
He slammed into his bedchamber, expecting to collapse in a heap of anger and regret, sorrow and despair, but a fire blazed in the grate, cheerful and warm, and the rug before his bed looked soft in the moonlight. He kicked off his boots and yanked his legs free of his stockings and wiggled his toes in the thick pile before taking a seat in a welcoming armchair by the fire.
He felt hollow, a large Gwendolyn-shaped chunk of himself missing, but a spark of hope lived in his breast. He’d meant what he’d told her, about staying here and building a good life. It did not fill the gaping wound in his chest, but it felt nice to know that even when wounded, his home would be waiting to heal him.
Thirteen
Gwendolyn slammed the door to her bedchamber and paced the length of the room and back. Over and over and over. Until her lungs ached from lack of breath. And still, other parts of her ached, too. For him. But she clutched her anger to her, her righteousness, herknowingthat she was right. No matter how willingly he gave himself to her, she could never have him because she was ruined, utterly, and in more ways than she could identify. And he deserved a queen, a woman of perfection to match him in optimism and cheer, to help him build the future he wanted.