Page 100 of By the Sword
He looked away. ‘I don’t know what to say to her.’
‘Well, sorry might be a good start.’
He cast Giles a sharp glance. ‘Sorry? The word is barely adequate to compensate for what she has endured for me. The best thing for both of us would be for me to walk away from this house and never return.’
Giles set his glass down on the table.
‘You’re running away again,’ he snapped. ‘You ran away from Mary Woolnough and now you’re running away from Kate. You are entirely undeserving of the love of either of them.’
‘Since when have you started lecturing me on how to treat women?’ Jonathan sprang to his feet.
‘Since I met Kate Ashley,’ Giles retorted, his voice rising. ‘Jonathan, that woman has lied for you, risked her honour and nearly died for you and now you are leaving her without so muchas a word? How much more do you intend to hurt her? Good God, man, there are times I don’t understand you.’
‘Sweet Jesu, Giles.’ Jonathan swore, running his fingers through his hair as he paced the floor of the library. ‘What can I offer her? I have nothing–nothing at all. No home, no future, no money.’
When Giles spoke again it was in a low, controlled voice. ‘Have you asked her what she thinks?’
Jonathan whirled around to face his friend. ‘I know what she thinks. I saw it in her eyes. You’re right. I’ve hurt her, Giles, and I will go on hurting her.’
‘All right, end it then.’ Giles said picking up his cards. ‘But do her the courtesy of telling her to her face. She deserves that at least.’
Jonathan returned to his seat and they resumed their game in relative silence, disturbed only by the driving rain on the windowpanes. As the afternoon wore on, the warmth of the room and the wine took their toll on Giles and he slumbered, snoring sonorously, in his chair.
Jonathan pushed aside his chair and stood up. He crossed to the window and looked out at the moat. He opened his jacket and drew out the gold ring emblazoned with a leopard. He had found it on the floor of the barn the morning after the encounter with Prescott. The leopard’s head glinted in the light and he closed his fingers over it again.
He had given it to Kate and it had betrayed her–HE had betrayed her.
He opened the window and, heedless of the sudden rush of cold air, he hurled the ring into the moat. It hit with a small plop, barely disturbing the surface of the water, and sank.
He watched the faint ripples dissipate and leaned on the window sill, his head lowered. He had behaved despicably. Giles was right. He had to speak to Kate, tell her to her face that forher sake alone, their relationship had ended on that night in the barn.
***
He found Kate in her bedchamber, huddled in a chair beside the fire, her feet drawn up underneath her, her arms around her knees. She wore only her nightgown with a woollen shawl draped over her shoulders, and her undressed hair hung limply around her face.
‘Kate?’
She turned her face to look at him and his heart jolted. Her eyes were sunken and smudged with grey, and beneath the livid bruising he saw only utter weariness and indifference. He had done this to her. It didn’t matter that it was not his hand that had struck the blow.
He knelt by her chair and took her battered face in his hands.
He forced a smile. ‘We make a fine pair,’ he said in a light tone.
She turned her face away from his hands. ‘Don’t, Jonathan.’
He dropped his hands. ‘Kate…’ he began but could go no further. He did not know what to say, how to assuage the hurt in those lovely grey eyes.
‘I don’t know how to make amends, Kate. Somehow simply apologising does not seem enough.’
She leaned her head back against the chair, her eyes brimming with unshed tears.
‘It’s not that, Jonathan,’ she said in a voice that trembled. ‘It’s not what happened in Long Barn. It is the utter futility of clinging to hope where there is none. You’ll be gone tomorrow or the next day or next week–it doesn’t matter. I’ll be left with nothing but memories. We were both fools to think that we could even dream. Our dreams ended last night.’
He sat back on his heels as if she had struck him. It was as if she had read his mind. He had come to say the same words to her and now all he wanted to do was to take her in his arms and tell her she was being a fool.
Her hands gripped the arms of her chair, the knuckles white and she had turned her face away from him.
‘You’re wrong, Kate. Nothing ended that night except a tortured and unhappy life,’ he said.
