Page 80 of Fragile Oath

She took a deep breath. “I know that. And I want to give it to you. I’m trying to figure that out.”

It wasn’t an answer to the questions that had been plaguing me every night, and it wasn’t a solution to the distance that had crept between us, but it could be a start, if I let it be.

I held her gaze for several heartbeats. She was still poised, still Galina, but there were hints of vulnerability in her pale-blue eyes, in the defensive way she held herself and the hand that fiddled nervously with Malishka’s fur.

“All right. Then I can be patient.” For what, I wasn’t sure, but it felt better than the alternative.

Better than losing her for good.

Relief flitted over her features before she turned back to her parchment. We didn’t talk any more, but for the first time since before she left, the silence felt easy again.

And that scared me nearly as much as my impending murder charge.

ChapterThirty-Five

GALINA

I awoke feeling morehopeful than I had in a long time. Davin hadn’t made any declarations last night, but he had said he would be patient. That was enough for me to decide what I was going to do next. No matter how long it took, I would stay in Lochlann until Davin understood that I wanted this. Wanted him.

I had been putting off this conversation for too long, sitting back and waiting for my uncle’s reaction instead of being honest with him. Storms, I had been doing that with everything lately, so used to having my decisions made for me that I had stopped even trying to make them.

But it was time to move past that.

Still, my knees trembled as I walked the hallway to my uncle’s rooms. Ewan escorted me to the door, but only Malishka and I went inside. I wasn’t afraid of him. Not really. He had never hurt me.

Besides, something in his demeanor these past few days made me think he already knew what I was coming to say.

“Galina,” he greeted, stepping back to allow me into the room.

“Uncle.”

It wasn’t until the door was closed and we were seated in the wingback chairs by the hearth that he spoke again.

“Have you come to tell me when you’ll be finished with this charade so we can go home?” he asked in our dialect.

“You know that I haven’t,” I said in the same tongue.

Uncle Mikhail didn’t argue, only looked me over shrewdly, then down at Malishka before nodding in confirmation. “And if he doesn’t agree to marry you in earnest?”

He had never asked me if the engagement was a ruse, and I had never offered up that information, but he was a shrewd man. I swallowed, meeting his gaze fully before responding.

“This is still my home now,” I said, folding my hands in my lap. “I can’t go back.”

Guilt churned in my stomach, though I was careful to keep my posture confident and my expression neutral. I was directly defying my duke — the leader of my clan and the head of my family.

And I wasn’t going to take it back.

Several stilted seconds ticked by, the hands of the clock punctuating the sound of my thrumming pulse and the crackling of the fireplace.

Finally, Uncle Mikhail sighed, some of the stiffness in his shoulders giving way as he sat forward. “Was it so bad for you, in Ram?”

There was genuine curiosity in his gaze, along with something that looked a little like disbelief. I shook my head once.

“Not until Alexei.”

His nostrils flared and his dark eyes narrowed. “Why did you not come to me?”

“Would it have changed anything?” I asked, keeping my tone even. “Would you have believed me?”

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