Be with him.
Just take that one step.
“I...” Words failed her.
He took a step back, his lips pressing together before he said, “You can either choose love or choose misery for us both, but regardless of your choice tonight, if you are with child, we will marry. If I must drag you to the bishop kicking and screeching, I will.”
For the last time that night, Deerhurst turned on his heel and walked away.
Numbness settled over her limbs.
“He is right, you know.”
Phaedra whirled to find her aunt hovering in the doorway.
“Aunt, I...”
“No need to explain. I understand more than you know, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is right—your fears are keeping you paralyzed, and you both are paying the price for that.”
“I know our situations are different.”
“Yes,” her aunt said thoughtfully. “You love him, don’t you?”
Phaedra looked away.
“I’ve experienced something quite similar to you recently, I believe. I might love someone, but I don’t want to admit it out loud for then it becomes real, and when that happens... the possibility of being hurt also becomes real.”
“Deciding to trust someone with your future is a fearful thing, aunt.”
“I know,” she said. “So is not trusting someone, especially if that someone is yourself.”
Phaedra felt as though a cold bucket of water had been splashed over her head.
“I was the same with Rowley. For years I denied the truth about him and our marriage because voicing it meant I had to admit a painful truth—I hadn’t walked away from him because I hadn’t trusted myself to be strong. Be brave, Phaedra. You are a Sharp, after all.”
Phaedra was a Sharp, yes.
But brave?
She had thought so once. She had thought it brave to walk away from society’s expectations and live life single and on her own terms.
But no.
That hadn’t been bravery. It has just been another form of cowardice. An escape.
Her aunt was right, Phaedra was paralyzed. She couldn’t move toward the man she loved, and neither could she speak the words she longed to speak. She could only stand frozen as he walked away from her each time.
A voice that could scare an alley cat? She hung her head. No. Shewasthe alley cat. And she was scared. Beaten and bruised. Stuck in a dark passage with nary a spark of light in sight.
*
Deerhurst felt sickto his stomach as he entered White’s two hours later. He’d caught up with Brayton and Howard after leaving the Sharp residence, wanting one last thing from that bastard before Brayton sent him off.
Phaedra had pulled a pistol on Howard. How deuced ironic that he was the one with holes through his heart.
How foolish of him to imagine she’d chase him down to declare her affection and allow them to be together. She should have accepted Huntly’s direction. But if he was unhappy now, he didn’t want to imagine how miserable he’d be if he forced her into a union she didn’t want.
Yet he could not convince himself that he meant nothing to her. He just couldn’t.
