Page 107 of Their Master

She found none.

How could she ever explain her life to him? The time to do that would have been before she’d betrayed him, when she could have put her trust in him and confessed.

“Your sister has told me a great deal about the way Marie and Blois raised you,” he said. “I know the pressure they put on you and I know the misapprehension you labored under, specifically about Sandrine.”

“Why didn’t youtellme about Sandrine, Smith?” she couldn’t help demanding.

“That wasn’t my secret to tell, not when it would have put her life—or even just her happiness—in danger. But supposing Ihadgone against the promise I made to Sandrine. Suppose Ihadbroken my word and told you about her. Are you telling me that you wouldn’t have gone to your parents? Even if only to confront them on the issue?”

Moira opened her mouth to hotly deny it but stopped, because that isexactlywhat she would have done. Especially as she never would have believed her parents were capable of murder without seeing it with her own eyes.

It pained her to admit it, but she probably wouldn’t have believed all Sandrine’s story without some proof.

And all because she’d been so desperate to finally mean something to her parents. To do something that made them proud. That would make them love her.

“I don’t know what I would have done,” she lied, simply unable to admit the humiliating truth.

Rather than answer her, he went to his desk, took a fat bundle of paper from one of the drawers, and handed it to her without a word.

Moira recognized the top document as a copy of the contract she’d signed. She had an identical copy up in her chambers. Beneath it were several others, one of which seemed to be a deed for a house.

She looked up at him. “What is all this?”

“It is the deed to the house mentioned in your contract. It is only a few streets from here, on an excellent square with a delightful, fenced park. I will arrange for it to be made habitable and engage servants—”

Moira stood abruptly, the papers sliding from her lap onto the floor. “You are ending the contract?” Her brain scrambled for whatever she could find—any weapon, any tool. “Doesn’t that make you in breach?”

For a moment he looked genuinely amused. “No, because there is a clause that reserved my right to do so without giving a reason. I marked it on that copy, but it is identical to the one you read that day—the one you signed.”

Moira flinched at his not-so-subtle rebuke, not that she didn’t deserve it.

“And what about me? Have I no right to know your reason?” Her entire body shook with anger—and fear. “I’m sorry,” she said before he could answer “Of course I know your reason—I betrayed you.”

He didn’t speak.

She gave a laugh that sounded more like a sob. “You can’t forgive me, can you?”

Something that looked like hesitation flickered across his face.

Moira struck as fast as an adder. “I—I made such a terrible mistake, I know that now, Smith. But I deeply regret what I did. And I’m having a child—ourchild—and—”

“No.”

Moira’s voice rose. “Do you really hate me that much?”

“I don’t hate you, but I no longer wish to be your lover. And I don’t want you in my house.” He spoke quietly, but the words were like a thunderclap in her ears.

Hot tears slid down her cheeks. “Please tell me one thing?”

He nodded.

“Could you have loved me if all this hadn’t happened?”

“We’ll never know, will we?”

Moira flinched back from his quiet words, which were both more and less than what she deserved.

"I want to stay.”

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