“Well,” she began cautiously, her voice measured. “Perhaps you could provide me with an explanation as to why we departed so early and quickly.”
He closed his eyes briefly in exasperation. “I already told you, I had no intention of staying late,” he replied.
“Was it because I danced with Alfred?” she asked, apprehensive about his reply.
Wilhelm leaned across the bench until his face nearly touched hers. Even in the extreme darkness, she could see that his eyes burned fiercely with a green fire that made her stomach clench.
“Partially,” he admitted in a low growl.
Genevieve furrowed her brow, and her fingers nervously pulled at the hem of her dress.
“That is ridiculous, Wilhelm,” she said. “We shared a rather unpleasant dance, nothing more.”
Wilhelm tilted his head sharply and pressed his lips together into a thin line. He let out a sharp breath, the sound more similar to a scoff than a laugh.
“Just a dance?” he asked angrily as he again leaned close to her. She could see his incredulity in the depths of his green eyes. “Hetouchedyou, Genevieve.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her expression turned grim as she stared back at him. “You knowverywell that I didnotdance with him out of affection,” she said firmly. “I only danced with him to maintain appearances, to bepolite.”
Wilhelm’s breath was warm against her cheek. “He touched you,” he whispered, his voice a possessive growl. “Let me make this perfectly clear—I will not permitanyman to touch you, Genevieve. No man but me.”
Genevieve’s heart pounded in her chest, and her stomach flipped. The possessive nature of his words, spoken with such power and an undercurrent of danger, sent a shudder of fear and excitement through her that made her senses reel.
She straightened and told herself not to lose her composure.
“You cannot tell me who I can or cannot dance with, Wilhelm,” she said staunchly, though her tenacity wavered beneath the force of his unyielding gaze.
Wilhelm’s lips curled into a predatory smile. “I can, and I will,” he asserted. “You are mine, Genevieve, and I will not share what is mine.”
A shiver coursed through her.
She opened her mouth to challenge his possessiveness when a sudden clap of thunder boomed through the night and drowned out her protest.
The carriage lurched violently, and the horses whinnied in fear as a torrential downpour began, the raindrops pounding against the roof like a thousand fists.
Genevieve bolted upright, her eyes wide with alarm as the storm raged around them.
The tempestuous symphony of thunder and lightning ripped off her veil of composure and awakened the dormant terror that had haunted her dreams for years. Her chest tightened, as though an invisible hand had squeezed all the air out of her lungs.
“Genevieve?” Wilhelm grabbed her shoulders and looked at her worriedly. “What is the matter?”
Her mind spun wildly, and she could not banish the images that now assailed her.
The storm had transported her back in time.
She heard her mother’s screams and the sickening thud of her father’s head hitting the roof. She saw her sisters lying motionless on the muddy ground. The rain soaked her to the bone and drowned out everything but the horror of it all?—
“Darling, breathe.” Wilhelm’s pleas reached her consciousness, but they were muffled and distant, as though she had been plunged into deep water.
Panic clawed at her throat, and her vision blurred as tears streamed down her face. She gasped for air as her body trembled uncontrollably, and the past drowned out the present.
Wilhelm cupped her face in his strong hands and spoke to her through her terror. “Genevieve,” he commanded, his voice a firm anchor in the storm, “look at me.”
His emerald-green eyes possessed a depth of concern that pierced through her panic. She met his gaze, her own wide and frantic, as tears blurred her vision.
“Breathe with me,” he instructed, his voice a steady rhythm against the cacophony of the storm. “In and out… In and out…”
Her ragged breaths gradually synchronized with his as her body responded to the calming cadence of his voice. The panic slowly subsided, replaced by a trembling defenselessness that left her exposed and raw.
