Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“After everything that has unfolded, are we truly back to this place?” Algernon asked.
His tone was testy. His mood was even worse. Partly because of what he saw before him, but mostly because Beatrice, Henry had told him yesterday evening, had agreed to marry him.
Algernon knew he should be happy. It was precisely what he had wanted to unfold, but the moment Henry told him the news, the pain in his chest dropped heavily to his stomach, and he nearly vomited.
Now, after all but having to force her downstairs to have dinner with him, Beatrice sat at her usual place near his right hand, staring far too intently down at her untouched plate. She would not speak to him. Would not even look at him.
If she were still eating, he might not have cared so much, but after some convincing, he had pulled the truth from Mira and discovered she had refused food or drink for now nearly three days.
No matter how much she wanted space from him—or even how much he needed space from her—starvation was not something he could abide.
“Pick. Up. Your. Fork,” he commanded, his deep voice enunciating each word.
Beatrice kept her eyes on her plate, but she reached out in front of her.
For a moment, a minute amount of tension seemed ready to leave Algernon’s body, but as her dainty fingers slipped around the stem of her wineglass instead of her fork, he suddenly felt ready to turn over the entire blasted table.
He watched, his rage making his body vibrate as she brought the glass to her lips and drained the entirety of its contents.
She let out a satisfied ‘ah’ after she took the last sip, and finally, as she sat the glass back down, she turned her gaze to him. It was cold. Distant. As if she had never known him. Never trusted him.
Hurt sliced through his chest as she gave him that look, so much that he banged his fists atop the table.
“Go on, then!” she yelled with a quickness that startled him.
“Go on and what?” he bit back.
“Go on and lose your temper,” she retorted, her tone taunting as she picked up the wine carafe and poured herself another glass of wine. “Raise your voice and bark your commands as you do when things threaten to go anyway but the way you like them. Go on!”
She raised her glass to her lips again, but in a second, Algernon was out of his chair and had his fingers wrapped around the goblet.
“Do not,” he warned, meeting her glare with one of his own.
“Let go of my glass,” she demanded.
“No,” he all but snarled, trying to tug it out of her grasp. “I know you have not eaten or drank much of anything in the last few days, and if you drink that now, you will make yourself sick! You can hate my commands all you want, but I will not allow you to injure yourself!”
He pulled the glass away with a sharp yank, breaking the fine stemware where the goblet met the stem.
The dark red wine sloshed over his hands, and with a growl, he threw it against the wall.
The sound of glass shattering mixed with the dragging sound of Beatrice’s chair being forced back, and then she hurled the broken stem in her hand toward the same place that he’d sent the goblet.
“Look what you have done!” she shouted at him.
Algernon opened his mouth, ready to hurl a retort back, but it was as if Beatrice’s full rage had been let loose by his denial of her second glass.
“What more do you want from me?!” she half-shouted, half-screamed, her beautiful face contorting with a mixture of pain and anger.
“I have done everything you have asked of me! You wanted me to wear your clothes, I wore your clothes! You wanted me to marry your brother, I am marrying your brother! You wanted me to learn your lessons, I have learned your confounding lessons, so please, for once, allow me to make a decision that is fully my own!”
Algernon did not move. His heart thrashed wildly in his chest as he took in the rage and sadness in Beatrice’s expression, hating himself for not only what he had done but how he had allowed himself to feel.
“You are right,” he begrudged.
Beatrice’s expression turned wary, but she did not speak.
“I have controlled your every movement since I brought you to this house, and that makes me no better than any other man at that horrid auction I took you from,” he confessed.
Something shifted in Beatrice’s eyes. Pity, perhaps, or empathy.
“You are not—”
“Do not,” he interrupted her. “Do not try to save me from the truth as that is what it is.”
He took a step back from her. Then another. Then he sat back down in his chair. He picked up his full, untouched wine glass and sat it by her plate. Beatrice eyed the glass, eyed him, then after a long moment of tense silence, she took her seat again.
Algernon nearly groaned with relief when instead of reaching for the wine, she grabbed a stem of asparagus off of her plate with her fingers and took a bite.
“I suspect you will never forgive me,” he gritted out.
Beatrice threw a quick glance at him and did not answer, instead taking another bite of the asparagus.
“I worded your options wrong in the beginning of all this,” Algernon went on.
He hadn’t. At that time, he had fully meant that he would give Beatrice her freedom if Henry did not want to marry her. Now, though, he understood what little choice he’d given to her, and he wanted to make it right.
“Henry may have chosen you,” he went on when Beatrice still did not say anything, “but you must also choose Henry. If you truly do not wish to marry him, just say so. I will grant you the money and the house I spoke of.”
Beatrice let out a bitter laugh as she picked up his wine glass and took a long sip.
Algernon hated seeing her do so. One stem of asparagus did not a meal make, but he kept his temper—and words—in check this time.
“Those are my only choices though, yes?” she asked, not looking at him. “Either marry your brother or become a spinster?”
“You seemed fond of both possibilities at the beginning of this,” he replied.
“Yes, well, that was before I realized I wanted something else,” she murmured, bringing her glass back to her lips for another long sip of wine.
“And what is it that you want?” he asked quietly.
Beatrice took her time with her wine. She held up her glass, swirled it as she swallowed. Then she took another drink, this time draining the glass. She sat it down with a thud, and her cobalt eyes, blurry and full of pain, turned to him.
“I want to know your truth,” she said calmly.
Algernon slowly closed his eyes and shook his head, his heart heavy.
“I already told you my truth,” he rasped.
“Then, why?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Why are these my only two options. If you feel for me what I feel for you, why is that not a choice?”
“Because my brother needs someone like you,” Algernon replied defeatedly, his throat aching from the scream building up inside him.
“Someone who will love him for who he is and make him want to be better. More responsible. I can already hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes. You have made him understand something in only a few weeks, something I have been trying to make him understand for the better part of a year. You can protect him.”
Beatrice’s eyes shone with unshed tears as she stared at him.
“And you do not need me, correct?” she asked then drew in a sharp breath.
I need you more than I have ever needed anyone else.
Algernon cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, trying to drive the overwhelming thought away.
“Correct.” He meant to say the word clearly, but all he could manage was a harsh whisper.
Then he cleared his throat again as he rubbed at his aching jaw. He’d kept it clenched so much as of late, trying to keep the things he wanted to say from escaping.
“I do not need you,” he confirmed, finally able to use his voice again.
Beatrice sniffled, and though it hurt him to see her fall apart, he did not look away. He forced himself to keep looking, to keep bearing witness to the pain he had caused.
“You are a coward,” Beatrice said softly, matter-of-factly, as she stood up.
“I know,” he whispered, but he knew by the way she looked away from him and dabbed her eyes that she did not hear him.
“I do not want your money,” she said after taking another moment to compose herself. “I will marry your brother. But not because you command me to do it or for some plan. I will do it because I have grown to care for him as a great friend, and like you, I want to protect him.”
Algernon bit his lower lip hard as he struggled to keep his emotions inside.
“I am relieved to hear it,” he forced out.
“However, I cannot continue staying here until that happens. I will seek arrangements elsewhere until Henry and I are wed. I understand that as his brother, you will be at the ceremony, but I am warning you now. Do not touch me that day. Do not even speak to me. Then I never want to see you again.”
Algernon’s lungs threatened to burst with the sobs welling up inside, but he swallowed them down.
“I understand,” he answered quietly.
Beatrice left the dining room a moment later, the echoing sounds of her footsteps reminding him that she was leaving his life entirely.
He sat in his seat for another minute, his pain clawing its way up his throat until he could not hold them back anymore.
A tortured, animalistic sound erupted from his open mouth as he then grabbed the edges of the long, antique dining room table, and flipped it over.
China shattered, silver clinked against the marble floor, candles rolled out of their holders and caught the lace tablecloth on fire.
Yet he did nothing. He did not call for help, did not try to put the fire out.
He just sat down hard beside it, his heart and lungs burning as tears welled in his eyes, and he waited for the flames to suffocate themselves.