Chapter 20
Every day at the cottage grew worse instead of better.
Hermia could not understand why. She felt like she was holding onto sand, desperately trying to keep it in her palms. And all the while, it was slipping through her fingers.
Crispin was slipping through her fingers.
After their marriage and the coach ride to the cottage, she had begun to feel so close to him, as if their friendship was truly growing along with her love for him.
She knew it was so.
It had become unarguable to her. But now she wondered what the blazes was happening. For each day, she felt him retreating a little bit more from her until he was staying up late, reading alone by the fire, preferring not to have company.
And it had all started after the kiss with the cake. He had changed. Completely.
It was hollow and lonely.
Worse, it felt like he was rattling apart.
That was the only way she could describe it. And it was hellish watching someone come apart, unable to help them. For he would not let her. Despite her desires, he did not wish to discuss the feelings that seemed to be building a wall between them brick by brick.
She’d assured him that she would be there for him, just as he had been there for her. She thought it had been the right thing to say, but now she wondered because it was as if he’d allowed himself to be vulnerable with her and regretted it beyond all things.
So, when she came down into the foyer and spotted him pulling on his gloves, his riding coat at the ready, she was not surprised, even if her stomach sank.
There was an air of finality to him. He was not going out to ride one of the cottage horses for a jaunt. From the taut nature of his broad shoulders, the ramrod straight nature of his long back, a back she had studied until she felt she knew every vertebrae intimately, his body spoke of an ending.
“You’re going,” she whispered and immediately hated the plaintive note to her voice.
He swung his gaze up to her. “You’re awake,” he said.
He did not appear pleased.
She took a step forward, so brittle now herself, waiting for him to proclaim his intention, and she feared she might shatter apart too.
And where would that leave them? Two people who had come undone instead of twining together.
“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?” she ventured.
“Of course not,” he returned, tugging on his gloves. But his manner was aloof, as if he had indeed hoped to slip out into the fog blanketing the fields, never to be seen again. “I simply thought I would have another moment to prepare myself.”
“Leaving?” she challenged.
“Yes. But Hermia,” he pointed out, turning to her with eyes that bespoke torment, “this was always going to happen.”
She raised her chin. “Of course.”
He was right. This was what they had agreed to. By rights, he’d stayed with her far longer than either of them had likely imagined.
“I thought… You might stay a little longer,” she admitted.
His gaze darted to the door as if he could not wait to go. “It is best I leave. I always wanted to make certain that we kept a certain distance and—”
“Now you are worried?” she cut in.
“Yes,” he replied honestly. “Now I am worried. I don’t like how I’ve felt the last days, and I need to go away to sort it out. Being close to you is doing—”
“What?” she bit out, curling her hands into fists. She shouldn’t be angry. After all, he was in pain. But he was cutting her out like a surgeon with a knife. And that did anger her. “What is it doing to you?”
He looked away, drove a gloved hand through his hair, and then met her eyes. His face was ragged with his pain. “I don’t know, Hermia, but I’m coming apart and I can’t bear it. You have to understand. I saw things as a child. I saw my mother and father treat each other like the very devil, tearing at each other like vultures at meat. It did things to me. My brother’s death… And the aftermath. I don’t think I ever recovered. I don’t think I ever will.”
His words cracked through the small hall, more brutal than a whip, crushing her soul. Not just for herself, but for him. For he was condemning them to failure. He had already decided. What a fool she was!
Of course he had. He had decided the day they met, and she thought she had understood what he had meant. She’d been mistaken. For she could not have anticipated how he would awaken her heart or how she would long to see his wounds healed.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her throat tightening. “But surely you’re not going to deny yourself our friendship, or my affection, because of—”
“I will protect you and myself at any cost,” he ground out before he paused, raised his chin, and added, “And our children too.”
“Will you protect them from love?” she asked suddenly, horror at the implication of his words stealing through her.
A muscle tightened in his jaw. “I will protect them from whatever harms them,” he replied tightly. “Now, this marriage was arranged based on the fact that I would leave you to yourself, and you would leave me to do as I pleased. Have you changed in that?” he asked, his voice growing wary, softer.
She swallowed. “Of course not, only…”
“What?” he asked as if he was terrified of her reply, as if he was willing her to answer as he wished.
“I won’t lie to you. I care deeply for you.” Her heart pounded in her chest, and she readied herself to bare her soul. “I…”
His eyes flared and he ground out, “Please don’t say it.”
“You don’t want me to say it?” she gasped.
“No,” he stated, his tone hard and unforgiving.
As his answer washed over her, she realized that she’d been clinging to a secret desire for days now. Perchance since the theater. And that secret desire was going to break her.
But first, she would not let him escape without her speaking her truth.
“I need you to understand something,” she began, squaring her own petite shoulders. “You thought you were picking a family that was different than all the rest, with our scandal and our notoriety, but you fail to understand what makes us truly different.”
“And that is?” he asked, clearly not wishing to hear the answer, clearly wishing he could escape.
“It is the way we love each other,” she professed. “And so I’m going to tell you that I love you. I’ve loved you for days now. And it is brutal seeing you do this to yourself and all because—”
“Because?” he demanded, his eyes glinting.
“Because you do not think that you are worthy of love,” she said honestly. “Because of your brother.”
As soon as she spoke, she knew that she had crossed some unseen line for him. A line she could not return from. And her breath died in her throat as did her hopes.
“Hermia, that’s enough,” he said quietly. “I’m glad you and your family are different than the rest and that your love has not harmed each other. But that is not what I’ve seen.” He closed his eyes and shrugged, the pained expression on his face deep and rooted in the past. “And you’re correct. Perhaps I don’t feel worthy and that won’t change. So please don’t wait for me to change.”
Crispin drew in a long breath and faced her fully. Then he stated with shocking conviction, “I don’t know how, but I want you to be happy. It’s what I’ve always wanted. And so I will leave you here now.”
Tears stung her eyes. “My brother was right.”
“Right?” he echoed.
She swallowed, her body beginning to shake with grief. “What if everything that I thought I wanted wasn’t what I wanted?”
“Then perhaps this will end in tragedy,” he said quietly. And then a dry, dark laugh bit out of his mouth. “No matter what I do, I fail people. I let them down. I’m sorry, Hermia.”
And with that, he turned and left her, slipping out into the grey morning light, as quiet as a sunrise but colder than anything she had ever known.
The abrupt departure shook her.
She wanted to go to the door, throw herself into the open frame, call out his name, and then chase after him and beg him to stay. Until they could sort this out. Until he could see that he was worthy of love. Until he could see that he should let himself be loved, forgive himself, cast aside the past, and live only in the present. That he should not worry about the future and whatever arguments might come or not come.
She was tempted to sink to the floor and wail out her grief for a love that was never ever going to be hers. For a love that had never been hers to begin with.
She’d done exactly what he’d asked her not to do.
But he was so afraid of a future that had not even happened! He was cutting out the happiness he had.
The pain of it sent a sob through her body.
He wasn’t used to happiness, and he did not know what to do with it. That in itself filled her with sorrow.
Slowly, feeling like an old woman, she crossed to the stairs and sat down upon them.
Her brother truly had been right. As she sat in the cottage, alone with her thoughts and her feelings, she realized that in getting everything she thought she wanted, she had lost. Because in the end, the only thing that she truly wanted was Crispin.