Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Father, you should follow Championess Quick’s suit.
She is right. This is a matter between Eoin and me.
” On the surface, Hannah’s voice sounded crisp, but Eoin didn’t like the brittleness that he detected.
Perhaps he did mean something to her, but now…
now he doubted everything. He’d been a fool to think that someone had wanted him simply for himself, not because of the happenstance of his birth.
Even in Hannah’s eyes, he’d always been his grandfather’s heir.
“Hannah, as your father—”
“You have taught me how to defend and think for myself, Papa. This is the part where you let me make mistakes and clean them up myself.” Hannah pushed her father toward the exit.
“But—”
Before Mr. Wick could finish his protestations, Sophia popped into the room, followed by an older version of Hannah.
Mrs. Wick looked precisely like her daughter and her niece Charlotte except that silver mixed with her red hair and she also moved in a quieter, more contained manner.
There was no marching, no bold jerks, and no shoulders thrust forward as if in preparation to charge the enemy.
“I am sorry,” Sophia burst out as she gasped for air. “We tried to stop Uncle. We’ve been chasing him all the way from London. I’d hoped that he would calm down after I revealed your location and plans, but as you see, the information only escalated matters.”
Hannah’s mother sailed over to her husband like she was crossing a ballroom. She lifted her hand as if executing a move in a country dance. In one quick, elegant action, she snared her husband’s ear. Then she swept back toward the staircase.
“Owwww!” Mr. Wick roared, but he did nothing else to stop his wife. For a pirate, he had a very low pain tolerance.
Mrs. Wick paused at the threshold. “I do apologize for any interruption. Please continue your conversation in peace.”
She shoved her husband toward the exit with a lot more force than Eoin’s mother had used with Lizzie.
Mr. Wick’s shoulder cracked against the stone, but he did not cry out this time.
Instead, he obediently left. His wife followed.
Sophia only lingered long enough to mouth “I’m sorry” and “good luck” to her cousin.
Sophia tugged the door behind her, yet neither Eoin nor Hannah spoke. He listened as the footsteps grew fainter and fainter. Dread filled him, and part of him wanted to bolt. But he’d never fled in his entire life. No matter what, he’d endured.
Hannah finally broke the awful quiet. “I am sorry. I truly am. From the beginning, I did intend to help you locate your sister and mother. That wasn’t a lie nor are my feelings toward you.”
Hannah looked earnest standing there, her hands clenched and tears glistening in her eyes.
She’d always showed her emotion readily.
Hell, she’d won Eoin over with her boldness on the night that they’d met.
The instant she’d run her eyes unabashedly over his body, he’d fallen for her.
She hadn’t hid her appreciation for him…
or, at least, her appreciation for his physical form.
It had felt good, so good to be wanted for exactly who he was.
But it had been a lie. Perhaps not then, on that road.
But later, when Hannah had discovered his identity.
How could she have still desired him? She’d even planned to betray him or, at least, his family.
She wouldn’t have known then that he held little affection for his aunts and uncles.
Eoin glanced away from Hannah. He normally read people so clearly but not her, apparently. He’d never sensed her lies, not even when she admitted to knowing rumors about his family that she’d never shared with him prior. Their trust had never been mutual.
“I’ll leave if you want.” Hannah’s voice sounded small, and it ripped at him. He didn’t want her feeling diminished. He loved her brashness and confidence. Yet still he could not look at her.
“Don’t go. Not yet.” He barely recognized his own voice. It sounded as shredded and mangled as his insides. “I need a moment to compose myself.”
“I do not blame you for being angry. You do not need to hold back for my sake.” The softness of her tone caused another deluge of pain.
“I’m not angry,” he said. And he wasn’t.
His grandfather had destroyed her family and the lives of countless other tenants.
He wanted to be a different duke—a better one, who bore his responsibilities to society, not to well-heeled London Society but the one that included everyone, no matter their wealth or circumstance of birth.
But even if he understood her motivations, he still felt not just hurt but rejected.
He stared at the bare stone walls, tracing the mortar joints and cracks with his eyes, just as he had when his grandfather and tutors listed all his faults.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he finally asked. “I know why you said nothing in the beginning, but why not when we”—Kissed. Embraced. Shared secrets—“grew closer. Did you think I would want to hide my family’s crimes?”
“Because I was a coward.” Hannah spoke bluntly, her voice harsh in condemnation of herself. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but I was also afraid of losing you.”
Her words should have mollified him or at least soothed his agony. And they did… but not enough. Hannah had lied before, and Eoin had trouble believing that anyone wanted him for himself.
“I was my grandfather’s puppet”—Eoin still couldn’t turn in Hannah’s direction—“and this was the attic where he stored me. When he died, I was left empty. Then I met you, and I started to believe I wasn’t just a shell.
You didn’t tell me what to do or how to think, and you chose to be by my side simply because you enjoyed my company.
That gave me confidence to trust my own inner thoughts and desires.
I even started to act upon them. And now I learn that our entire relationship was predicated on a lie.
You didn’t break my trust just in you but in myself. ”
Hannah made a guttural sound that echoed Eoin’s own pain. He yearned to take her into his arms, to comfort both of them. But he couldn’t reach out. Not yet at least.
Resolutely, he walked over to one of the deeply recessed windows.
He leaned against the stone sill, feeling the coolness of the rock even as the summer heat bore through the glass.
“I understand why you made the decisions that you did. I realize that my family was ultimately at fault. But even if I comprehend why, I cannot stop my emotional response. I have spent too many years suppressing my feelings, and they will no longer be suffocated under logic, I am afraid.”
“I—I don’t want you to do that either. I want you to be free of all the unnatural restraints that your grandfather foisted upon you.” Hannah’s voice sounded teary, and Eoin scraped his fingers against the sandstone. But he kept his gaze on the lands that were now his burden.
“I may very well work through this, Hannah.” Eoin felt something wet strike his cheeks, but he did not reach up to wipe the tears away.
It would hurt Hannah more deeply if she realized he was crying.
“I know you say that your affections for me are real, but I must relearn how to believe your claims.”
“Do you wish for me to leave now that you have said your piece?” Hannah was back to being unusually meek.
“It may be for the best. I need quietude, Hannah, to make sense of all this.”
“Do you wish for me to depart altogether or just to leave this chamber? If I promise to stay out of your way, should I continue to help investigate?” Hannah asked. “It is the least I can do.”
“You may help look for clues with the others,” Eoin allowed. “I am not banishing you from an entire fortress—just one particular tower. There’s nothing in here of import anyway. The family never uses this drafty place.”
Eoin heard Hannah’s footsteps cross the room. The wooden door squeaked open, but it did not shut immediately.
“You are wrong about one thing, Eoin. There is something very valuable in this turret, and that is you.”
Then Hannah was gone, and Eoin was alone. Again. Except for one very overprotective gosling.
He buried his head in his hands and stood frozen, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.
He’d cried every night in this room after his grandfather had ripped him from his family.
And then one evening the tears hadn’t come, and he’d felt…
nothing. He’d become as barren as this empty chamber until he’d met an irrepressible redhead on a moonlit country road.
But now… now he was sore afraid he would be hollow again.