Page 44 of An Honorable Deception
Had she told him that? She’d told Marigold—but surely Marigold hadn’t shared the conversation with her brother. Perhaps he’d overheard something, though. She’d no doubt reiterated her defensive position at some point in the past year, and she knew now he was a professional when it came to eavesdropping.
“But it’syou.” He wasn’t like the other men, men she didn’t know, men she couldn’t trust. Sheknewhis secrets. They were honorable. “You’re ... safe.”
He scoffed a laugh. “Right. Don’t have to worry about falling in love withme, do you? Your heart is safe.”
She frowned so intently it made her head hurt. “Exactly.” But why did he make it sound like such a horrible thing?
When he faced her again, his face had drained of all its fury, all his concern, all his everything. It was a blank mask. Hard, forbidding. “I deserve better than that.”
Better than her heart? Better thanher.
Shame swallowed her where the straw hadn’t. Alethia. How had she forgotten Alethia? It was true that he’d only met their new friend a bit over a week ago, but she’d never seen that look in his eyes when he looked at anyone else. He’d already set his mind that direction. His heart.
And then Lavinia had thrown herself at him. She mustseem an utter wretch. As if she’d deliberately tried to test him or to hurt him. How else would he see it? He knew she knew how he felt about Alethia; she’d said so last night.
Her nose ached with building pressure, and she knew that any moment she was going to burst into humiliated sobs, but he was blocking the only exit from the stall, so what could she do but keep standing here? “I’m sorry.” Even she could barely hear the strangled whisper. “Forgive me.”
His jaw ticked. He regarded her for another moment, then spun and stepped out of the stall. “We’ll have to leave here at one to make the afternoon train to London. Be ready.”
“We’re still going?”
He moved back into the neighboring stall and reached for his pitchfork again. “We have a job to do. As for this...” He glanced her way over the half wall, his eyes still dark and storming. “Pretend it never happened. We both know you can do that.”
She deserved that parting jab. She deserved the disdain in his eyes. She deserved the lashing of the rain as she fled the stables, grateful that the growing storm would cover the sound of the cry she couldn’t hold back another second.
She’d left the magazine wherever she’d dropped it when she fell, but that was for the best, no doubt. It would have gotten soaked as she stood there, halfway between stables and house, without a clue as to where she meant to go.
Not inside, where someone might notice that it was tears tracking her cheeks, not rain. Not out here, where Yates would see her the moment he finished his chores. Not the gymnasium, where for all she knew he meant to return to work off his anger with her.
That left one outbuilding. She ran through the mud toward the theater. The doors weren’t locked, but it was dark inside,with that musty smell of an English building left too long without anything to chase away the damp.
It smelled like the unused rooms at the Abbey, where she’d sneak off as a child to play.
She pulled the door closed behind her and let the darkness settle again. Enough light filtered through the windows of the small lobby to reveal the rows of seats before the stage, and she moved to one, lowered the wooden seat, and sat on it.
The tears didn’t slow, much as she tried to muffle them so she didn’t have to hear her own sobs echoing back at her in the theater.
She was so pathetic. Had she really thought she could kiss him and make the last six years magically disappear? And the ones before it, too, when she’d ignored his affections? Did she think her heart, weak and broken and bruised, was good enough for him, when his was so big, so strong, so open?
So perfect for someone else. Someone who needed that bigness, that strength, that openness. Someone who could accept it without making him remember how she’d first rejected him. Someone who deserved him, who could make him happy in return.
She drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to anchor them there, her heels on the edge of the seat. She didn’t want to step aside so he and Alethia could fall in love. She didn’t want to watch the way they looked at each other. She didn’t want to go back to her own empty house and know that silent rooms were all she’d ever have in life.
She was only twenty-three. Healthy now. Years stretched out ahead of her. She just didn’t know what they could possibly offer. Yates didn’t want her. And when Marigold learned what she’d done, she’d likely ban her from the Tower forever.
Her eyes squeezed shut, she tried to laugh away the sobs.Marigold had been right. And she’d been wrong too. Lavinia had indeed repeated the same mistakes she’d made before—but she’d be the one paying the price with a broken heart this time. Not Yates.
Fitting.
She sat there until the tears finally slowed, until her breathing was back to normal. There’d be no hope for her eyes, which felt puffy and were doubtlessly red. But she hadn’t any more time to waste on self-pity. She unfurled and let herself back out of the theater.
The rain had relented from its downpour, but it was still a steady shower that soaked her through anew as she trudged to the house. She went to the back door, which stuck like it always did, but she managed to wrestle it open.
Once inside, she paused, listening. There were voices in the kitchen, so she wouldn’t go that way. She slipped off her muddy shoes and tiptoed toward the servants’ stairs. No one stopped her or even spotted her before she reached her room. Good.
She bathed, dressed in dry clothes, and pinned up her hair for the first time in days. The mirror she avoided, though. She didn’t want to see how bad she looked.
Now what? She ought to talk to Marigold about costuming, but the thought of facing her friend made her chest go tight. Marigold would see through her in a heartbeat. She’d know that she’d done the very thing she’d told her not to do. And she’d already made her opinion on the matter clear.
