Chapter Thirty-Two - The Dead Return
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Dead Return
ROSAMUND DID NOT know where to begin.
She had just got him back and what she told him might mean that she would lose him again.
She had betrayed him more than once now, was there any way that he could forgive her?
His grey eyes bored into her, and as much as she wanted to look away, she held that gaze.
She deserved his judgement, to see his pain, to watch as his face contorted into one of disappointment and anguish.
This was her doing. She had done this. She would not look away from it. From him.
This was the price that she paid to get what she wanted.
However, the longer they sat in the silence, the harder it was to begin.
In the spare time she had before the trial she had imagined how she might tell him.
In these daydreams they had made it back to Blackthorn Hall.
She had gently helped him out of his clothes, healed his wounds, and waited until he was sunk in a bath before broaching the subject.
Just a little longer, let me enjoy this a little longer before you hate me forever.
“Let’s talk about it when we get home,” she said, turning to look out the window.
Out the corner of her eye she saw him reach up and rub at his face, before running a hand through his tangled dark hair.
“No, Rosamund,” he said in a low voice, “we will discuss this now.”
She could feel herself bristling at his tone and tried to force herself to calm down. She had no right to be angry with him, no right to meet his anger. This was her fault. And yet, her blood ran hot.
“You are tired,” desperately trying to keep her on anger from bubbling over, “you have been through a lot.”
“I have. Because of you.”
Her chest tightened. He had not yelled, he had not shouted, but she had felt the full force of his words as they landed on her. And she had no argument. Even as her own anger coursed through her, she knew it was not aimed at him, but herself.
“You have put everything at risk,” he said, the frustration in his tone building, “everyone at risk.”
“All of it would have been lost if we had lost you,” she said through gritted teeth as she clasped her hands together, her nails digging into the back of her hand, “The Veil needs you. You are what holds it together.”
“The Veil is more than one man; it would have held.”
“Bastian would have consumed it without you to defend it.”
He let out a bitter laugh, “And yet, that was not enough to keep you from stealing from me. From going behind my back. From betraying my trust.”
Her anger retreated as her feet found less sure footing in the conversation.
It should have been enough. He warned me.
“No,” she said quietly.
The sound he let out was half sigh, half strangled as he turned away from her to look out the window.
“What you did today, the secret you revealed, I understood that. It’s a heavy price to pay and one that they will now all exploit as they exploit my other resources, but I understood.
You had to give them a reason to keep me alive.
Even if they stripped everything else away from me, they would not kill me after learning that.
It was smart. Though had you asked it was not a price I would have paid. My life isn’t worth that secret.”
“It is to me,” she said desperately, leaning forward in her seat and reaching a hand out to him.
He did not recoil, but slowly moved his hand away from hers. Her chest grew tighter.
“It is to a lot of people,” she said more firmly as she sat back in her chair, “I didn’t make my decision alone. I didn’t do any of this alone. There is a whole host of people that would rather see the secret of the gems known than lose you.”
She watched him the closely, the conflict that crossed his face as he listened to her. He looked confused as he turned back to her.
“I told you, over and over that my brothers were not to be trusted.”
“I know.”
“Did you even think what your actions would result in if you were caught? Did you think of any of the consequences? How much danger your put yourself in. And for what?!”
“For my brothers!” she snapped, unable to contain it any longer and hating herself for it, for the look of pain that crossed his face.
She could not stop though, not now.
“The last of my family that your family hasn’t murdered.
I spent so long just trying to survive this place that I got lost in it, wrapped up in the glitter and glamour of it,” in you, “I forgot about what truly mattered. Until Lord Darnwell approached me. They were wasting away in there whilst I was dressed in fine clothes, dancing, laughing.”
His chest rising and falling rapidly, his own anger surging within him. It made her angrier. Why could he not understand? She knew what she had done was wrong, but why could he not understand why she had done it?
She let it all flow, “I couldn’t watch them hang. I couldn’t see their heads shoved on a spike outside your brother’s house. I couldn’t stand by as you were forced to kill another member of my family!”
“Then you should have trusted me!”
Her anger came to a stuttering stop at his words. She felt winded, her chest fully constrained as his words hit her. It wasn’t just the words. The hurt was plain for her to see, and she could feel her heart shatter inside her. Of everything she had done to him, this is what had broken him.
He had thought she trusted him.
As he trusted her.
She saw it now. Saw how her actions had truly hurt him. The night she had taken the plans from his room was the same night that he had opened to her. Had allowed her to touch him. She had repaid that vulnerability with betrayal.
A painful realisation began to dawn.
He thinks that I was only pretending.
Another treacherous thought posited, wasn’t I?
It may have started that way, but even then, she had known that there were feelings there.
Even if she was not ready to acknowledge them, they had been real, they had been there.
It had not been all pretend, but would he believe that now?
After everything that she had done? Would he believe that she was able to love him and betray him?
“Dorian,” she said softly, once again reaching a hand out to him, “that night-.”
He flinched and pulled his hand away, there was another crack in her heart, “why do you think I had the plans in the first place?”
“Wh-what?”
He looked down at the hand that he had pulled away from her, “I had my own plans to remove them from the Onyx Tower. I approached Lord Darnwell.”
“The servants, his daughter…they weren’t lying?”
He shook his head, “They could not trust me either. I don’t blame them. But I never thought they would-…” he ran a hand over his face again, “they were supposed to stage a break in. I never thought that they would come to you. That they would involve you in this.”
“You…you were going to get them out?” she said softly as she sat back in her chair, “wh-why?”
He met her eye, “Spy or not, I would not let them hold them over you as leverage any longer. If you were to marry me, it would be because it was your choice, not theirs, and…”
She could tell he wanted to look away, but she leaned forward in her chair, holding his gaze.
She moved slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal, not wishing to scare it.
She made no attempt to reach for his hand this time, only wishing to close this distance between them. He did not move back from her.
“I knew how much they meant to you. What happened with your cousin,” he cleared his throat, not quite hiding the tremor in his throat, “I will never forget the look on your face that day, and I never wanted to see it again. I never wanted to be the cause of it again.”
He was going to save them. For her.
Dorian had wanted to give her the choice to marry him.
No doubt he had suspected she would have run as far as she could when given the chance.
Still he would have done it, even though it would have meant losing her.
Would have meant letting her go. If he had done it, if Darnwell had trusted him, would she have ran?
Back then she had been surviving. She had not known him.
She had not seen the man beneath the monster.
But he had seen her.
He had been willing to risk everything for her even then, and she had hated him.
Why?
Even if he had done it for the reasons she suspected, what now?
After everything she had done, after breaking his trust and putting everything he had built in danger, would he still feel the same?
Surely, he would despise her. This woman who had taken his trust and used it against him.
Who had made him bare his soul to her and had used it to her own gain. How could he ever care for her now?
And yet, the shattered pieces of her heart were hopeful as she moved closer to him. He did not flinch, nor did he move away, though he turned to look out the window as the gates of Blackthorn Hall swung open.
With a growing dread she remembered what would lie beyond the doors of the manor. A final betrayal. Would it break him? Knowing what she had done whilst they had fought for his life in the hall of judgement.
I will not lose him.
With a panic rising in her she reached out and took his hand before he could draw it back, holding it firmly. He turned to look down at their hands as the carriage rolled to a stop in front of the house.
“Dorian, I know that you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to understand that there is nothing I won’t do for the people that I…love,” she stumbled over the word as tears threatened to fall.
He frowned at her, his eyes searching her face, looking for the truth in her words “what do you mean?”
“I would risk everything and anything to protect this place. My home. Our people. My family.”
The doors opened and the people began to spill out. Dorian tried to look round but Rosamund reached up and pulled his face back to her, “And you. I would risk it all, for you. I did risk it all for you. And…them.”