Page 14 of When Hearts Are Wylde
His gaze locked on hers, sharp and unyielding, and he closed the distance in three long strides. “What in God’s name are you about, Hermione? That man?” His voice was low but seething, each syllable edged with incredulity and disdain. “Why would you tolerate his presence—let alone entertain his suit?”
The raw anger in his tone sent heat rushing to her cheeks, but it was not shame—it was fury. “Why?” she repeated, her voice rising. “You dare to ask me that? You, who could have had me—who knew I would have married you, scandal be damned—if only you’d had the courage to ask. And instead, you remained damnably silent.”
He flinched, just slightly, but his mouth tightened. “I didn’t refuse you so you could take the first bad offer that came your way. Are you trying to punish me or are you trying to force me to save you from yourself?”
Her laugh was bitter and short. “You think I don’t know he’s a bad offer? That I don’t see precisely what he is? But you left me no choice. Your cowardice made me the mark of a blackmailer. Do you understand that? Everything I’m enduring—every vilewhisper—is because of you. Because you decided you weren’t brave enough to fight for me. I don’t to punish you, Leo. You are determined to do so yourself to a far greater degree than I ever could… and I’ve long since given up on the notion of you ever rescuing me from anything.”
“Then why, damn it! Is it the blackmailer?”
Hermione’s heart stuttered in her chest. She couldn’t tell him. If she told him he would tell Phinneas and then her betrothal to Baxter would be forbidden. She needed time to figure out the situation herself before they rushed in headlong. “I don’t owe you answers. Not when you lied to me about the letters. I know you didn’t burn them!”
“I’ve lied about many things,” he said. Then Hartley’s eyes darkened, the muscle in his jaw flexing. “You deserve better than Joseph Baxter.”
“And yet you made certain I would only ever have worse,” she shot back. “You made it clear enough that you wanted no part of my future. You don’t get to have an opinion about it now. You forfeited that right the moment you pushed me away.”
He took a half-step toward her, the tension in his frame palpable. “Hermione?—”
“No.” Her voice was steady, her hands fisted at her sides. “I will not give you the satisfaction of believing you still have any power over me. Not my choices. Not my life. Not anymore.”
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The air between them seemed to crackle with everything unsaid—things that might once have been tender, now warped into weapons.
Hartley’s expression shifted, something like regret flickering there before he turned sharply on his heel and strode away down the corridor. Hermione stood rooted to the spot, her breath unsteady, before forcing herself to move. She would not let him see her tremble, would not let him know just what it was that seeing him did to her.
She turned back toward the retiring room, but before she could reach it, another shadow detached itself from the wall. Baxter.
His hand shot out, clamping around her arm and twisting hard enough to make her gasp. His grip was bruising, his fingers digging into tender flesh. She had no doubt that it would leave marks. “You will never speak to that reprobate again,” he hissed, his face close enough that she could smell the cloying scent of wine on his breath. “If you do, I’ll be forced to teach you a lesson. No wife of mine will ever court such scandal and ruin.”
Hermione stared at him, her pulse thundering in her ears. The pressure of his grip sent pain up into her shoulder, and she knew—knew—that this was not an idle threat. In that moment she saw her future: silenced, watched, every movement questioned. A life measured out in his permissions, his tempers, his punishments. Her fear was a cold weight in her stomach, but beneath it was dread—and worse, resignation. She had walked into this snare with her eyes open and no illusions about what sort of man Baxter was. She simply hadn’t anticipated that she would see the violence in him so early on.
Baxter’s fingers finally released her, leaving a lingering ache and the certainty of a bruise. His expression smoothed into something almost jovial, as though nothing untoward had happened at all. “Good girl,” he said with a smile that turned her stomach. “Now, go and cool yourself. We wouldn’t want anyone thinking you’re unwell.”
He turned back toward their box, on loan from her brother, leaving her standing there with her arm throbbing and her heart hammering. She drew in a slow breath, forcing her expression into composure before following.
Hartley walked home through the damp night air, his strides long and furious, boots striking the pavement with a force that jarred his teeth. The anger in him was not for Hermione—it was for himself. Because she was right. Every word. He had no say in her future. He had forfeited that privilege the day he’d let her walk away.
No. That wasn’t true. He hadn’t let her walk away. He’d practically shown her to the door and pushed her through it, letting it slam closed behind her. Because he was afraid. Afraid of loving her. Afraid of losing himself in it. Afraid that if she knew the truth, she’d despise him for it.
He had told himself it was because he wasn’t worthy of her. It was easier than admitting the truth—that he could not bear for her to see what he truly was. That if she looked too closely, she would see the rot beneath the surface, the stain that would never wash clean. If she were to look at him in that way, it would break him more completely than anything else had.
Once, long before Hermione, he had believed himself in love. She had been young, lovely, charming—and he’d been a foolish boy fancying himself a man fully grown. Before he could propose to her, she’d become betrothed to his father. The woman he’d courted, the woman whom he’d built all his future fantasies around was not to be his bride, but his stepmother. The betrayal had cut deep, unyielding in its brutality. It was then that he’d begun using brandy to numb himself to it all. And it was brandy that had led to ruin.
She, despite their new level of kinship, had not wished to end their romantic liaisons. Far from it. She had expected it to continue. Had maneuvered people and events so that it might.All the sidelong glances and casual touches that were anything but had been his own kind of hell. For months he’d endured it with stoicism and restraint—abstaining from all that she offered. And then one drunken, desperate night, he’d faltered.
He could still see it as if it were yesterday—his father’s face when he walked in on them. The way the older man’s color drained to a ghastly white, his hand clutching the doorframe as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. The shouting had been vicious, each accusation flung with the weight of a stone and the sharpness of an arrow, lodging deep. Worthless. The devil’s own son. Destined to bring shame and ruin to anyone foolish enough to have a care for him. And then, before the night was out, his father’s heart had failed him. Standing at the foot of the old man’s bed, staring at his shroud draped form, the shame of it had been like a scourge. Guilt, remorse, self loathing, regret… all of it had mixed within him like a poison.
From that moment on, he had known—believed with every fiber of his being—that he did not deserve happiness. That his father’s words had been not simply been a condemnation, but a revelation. That he was, in fact, dangerous to anyone he might love and who might have the great misfortune to love him. And so he had done his utmost to prove his father right. If he was to be damned, he would be damned completely… and he would be damned alone.
But Hermione had undone him. She had made him believe, for one reckless moment, that he might be something better. That he might be the man she saw when she looked at him—someone worth fighting for. And then the fear had set in. The terror that if she knew all of it, she would see him for what he truly was and turn away in disgust. So he had turned away first.
Now she was in Baxter’s hands. He had seen the way that man looked at her—proprietary, cold, with the air of a man who believed a woman was something to be owned. And she wasright. He had all but handed her over to him. His cowardice had made her vulnerable, and the blackmailer—whomever they were—had taken aim at the easiest target, the one who had the most to lose.
He went straight to his study and poured brandy, the first glass going down too fast to taste. The second followed almost as quickly. By the third, the bitter heat in his chest had nothing to do with the liquor. When the glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor, the sound broke something in him.
The rage came hard and sudden. He tore books from the shelves, their spines snapping as they hit the floor. He swept crystal decanters from their perch, the contents soaking into the carpets. A chair went crashing into the hearth; the poker clattered to the floor. He ripped at papers until they came apart in his hands, scattering in white drifts over the chaos.
When at last the violence ebbed, he stood in the wreckage, breathing hard, the air thick with the mingled scents of brandy and smoke. He pressed his hands to the edge of the desk, bowing his head as his muscles trembled—taut with fury. Fury with himself, his father, his feckless and faithless stepmother, and even with Hermione who’d had the gall to make him want more than merely pleasure. She’d made him crave happiness and that most dreaded thing of all… hope.
Forcing himself to stand upright, to survey the damage he’d wrought, it was a perfect metaphor for the impact he had on the lives of all those who dared care for him.
