Page 99 of The Tempting of Thomas Carrick
Lucilla stalked back, trying desperately to harness her temper, her fury—and her fear. The words that fell from her lips came from she knew not where, yet still they came, tumbling free. She had no idea if they were what she should say—if they were the wisest response she might make. So much hung on this, yet she couldn’t seem to think; she’d so rarely felt uncertainty, much less real fear.
She’d doneeverythingshe could to make him see, given him all she could—everything, every last piece of her that she had to give—and she’d succeeded in doing what she was supposed to do, yet still…he was refusing. Her, the position of her consort. All.
Her lungs had locked; she could barely draw breath. Her mind seemed on the brink of true turmoil. Yet she had to speak—had to try to reach him and make him rethink.
Make him change his mind.
“If I have it right”—she kept her eyes on the floor, heard her rioting emotions still straining her voice—“despite understanding—as inside you truly do—that remaining here, by my side, is the right path for you, because that isn’t a path you have fashioned for yourself but one offered you by another—by me, by Fate, by the Lady—you refuse to take it.”
Swinging to face him, she met his amber eyes; they were agate hard and unyielding. “Do I have that correct? That it’s yourpridethat rules you in this—evenin this?”
His face hardened; his expression closed. She saw a muscle in his jaw tighten.
An instant passed, then he stated, “You can analyze all you like. I am not going to change my mind. Allow me to repeat—being your consort is not a position I wish to fill.”
Something inside her fractured; emotion geysered. Inside, she trembled with the force of it, yet she stood rock-steady. She breathed in, deeply, then raised her head and, still holding his gaze, replied, “You can fight Fate all you want, but it will not end well.” She’d let all the considerable power at her command infuse those words. She continued with the same deadly calm. “Allow me to make something perfectly clear. Thereisn’tanyone else for meor for you—and there never will be. If you turn your back on me, on us, on all we might be, there will be no other chance—not with anyone else, not in any other place.”
His features impassive, he held her gaze for a long moment, then, with apparently dismissive nonchalance, quirked a brow. “Is that a curse?”
Her control very nearly ruptured; curling her fingers into fists at her sides, she fought to hold her fury back. Eventually, in a voice every bit as cold as his, she replied, “By asking that, you show how limited your understanding, how little you’ve thought this through. Fate is not something anyone can run from—no matter your desires, no matter how immutable your determination, you will not escape.”
She paused, then remembering that, regardless of his pigheadedness, hewasstill her consort, made one last bid to sway him. “I cannot stop you—your life is yours to live. Yet it’s one thing to condemn yourself to lifelong misery, but in this, you condemn me, too.”
His gaze had been stony, but at her last words, the amber of his eyes fractionally softened. She saw, dared to hope—but then he looked past her, at the bed. When he returned his gaze to her eyes, everything about him was granite again; although he hadn’t moved, she could see he’d stepped even further back—putting even more distance between them.
He was leaving her.
Panic clutched her chest. What else could she say? He was locked against her—against her and everyone else and everything else in the Vale; she could all but feel him holding her and them back, pushing them all away. Rejecting and refusing to hear. To believe—to even consider.
She had no idea where such a ruthless, almost violent, and comprehensively adamant rejection sprang from. She had no notion of what might be behind it, what gave it such power—yet the force of it had hardened his heart as well as his face, and had set an impenetrable shield behind his eyes.
There was nothing more she could do.
The realization closed like an icy vise about her heart.
In brutal reality, free will trumped even Fate.
It trumped even the Lady.
The bottom fell out of her world.
When he spoke, his tone was distant, as if he was already viewing their association as something in his past. “Our time together hasn’t been what I thought it was. I was honest about how I saw my future—you knew what I thought—yet against my wishes, you sought to change my path. You and your Lady failed, and you will have to live with that.” He tipped his head a fraction—a travesty of a bow. “And now, I’ll bid you goodbye. I’ll be leaving at first light.”
She said nothing; there was nothing she could say.
She watched the only man for her turn away, open the door, and leave her room.
He pulled the door closed behind him.
She stared at the panels. She had to let him go. Even through the turmoil raging inside her, she knew that. Understood that.
Even accepted that.
Regardless, she still felt as if her heart had been ripped from her chest, sliced, and stamped on.
And that, she was quite sure, she would never forget.
CHAPTER 15
