Page 22 of When Hearts Are Wylde
Chapter Eleven
Harltey’s final letter—unsent
Hermione,
You will never read this. God help me if you did.
I tell myself I don’t love you. That I’m incapable of it. That the part of me capable of such things rotted away long ago, leaving behind nothing but cynicism and appetite. And then you look at me — really look at me — and I remember what it feels like to be alive.
You make me feel again, Hermione. That should be a blessing, yet it’s a curse, because I can’t have you. I can’t claim you without destroying you. And still, I want to.
If I were another man — better, braver, cleaner — I would take you away from all of this. I would marry you tomorrow. I would spend the rest of my life proving that you were worth every change you have wrought in me.
But I am not that man. I can never be that man. That honorable soul was murdered years ago by my own hand—through my own misdeeds. And so I will stand by and watch another take what was always meant to be mine.
Know this—I will never be far. Should you need me, should someone have the audacity to harm you, scandal and ruin will not stop me.
Leo
The house was silent as she crept in, the kind of silence that made every step feel louder than it was. Hermione eased the door shut behind her, her gloved fingers lingering on the latch until it clicked softly into place. He hadn’t entertained guests that night. In fact, he had been doing so less and less of late, but she assumed that was only out of ennui and not any sort of melancholy over their parting.
The hood of her cloak was still drawn low as she made her way down the hall. Though she hardly needed the concealment here — all the servants would be in bed at this hour. And no doubt they were all quite used to women coming and going at all hours. Still, the air in the dimly lit study seemed to crackle with tension—anticipation. As if it, too, recognized the impropriety of her being there.
The fire was banked low, the glow flickering over the dark leather of the armchair flanking it, over the polished gleam of the desk, over him. Hartley stood by the hearth, the light sketching his features in sharp planes and deep shadows. For one dizzying moment, she thought he might vanish if she blinked — a figure conjured by her own desperate longing. Longing so intense and so painful that she nearly pitched forward, and would have had it not been for her death grip on the doorframe.
He turned at the faint creaking of the door, and the weight of his gaze struck her like a physical thing. She saw the moment recognition settled, saw his shoulders tense as though bracing for the impact of her presence.
“No. Whatever it is, no. You cannot be here, Hermione. I haven’t the strength—” he began, but she lifted her hand, unwilling to waste a single second on formalities or on letting him build the walls he was so skilled at hiding behind.
“I had to see you… to explain,” she said, stepping toward him. Her heart pounded, but her voice stayed steady. “Everyone was asleep. I came through the mews, unseen.”
His expression was unreadable in the shifting firelight, but his voice carried both warning and something she could not quite name. “Hermione, if someone were to see?—”
“No one did.” She cut him off, firmer now, though she knew he could hear the faint tremor beneath her words. “There are things, Leo, that must be said… revealed.”
Each step closed the space between them, until she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, could hear the faint hitch in his breath. She had imagined this conversation countless times, but never like this — never with the truth so raw and bitter on her tongue.
“I am not punishing myself for our affair. I am not so wracked with guilt and remorse that I would marry a boorish brute in penance. Though it took a great deal of reflection to ferret that out… And so I will tell you the true reason for my marriage to Baxter.”
“Are you with child?” He whispered the question like it was a death sentence.
“Would it matter?” She asked.
He didn’t say anything, just remained stonily silent, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
Finally, unable to tolerate the silence any longer, Hermione answered him. “No. I am not marrying Baxter to give your hypothetical child a name… I have only agreed to marry Baxter because the blackmailer demands it,” she said, forcing the words out before courage could desert her.
Something changed in his eyes, a flicker of disbelief and fury. “What about the money? Surely they must know that you getting married would eliminate any need you had to keep the scandal quiet!”
Hermione shook her head. She’d been thinking of it all night long. From the moment Phinneas had told her that they hadn’t demanded money from Felicity Wylde either.“They’venever asked for money. Not from me and not from my brother’s betrothed either, apparently. And they didn’t just demand that I marry. They demanded I marryhim.This isn’t about greed, it’s about something much darker and much more complicated… this person means to see me destroyed either by scandal or by the vile man they’ve forced me to attach myself to. This is the work of someone who wishes to see me punished, though for what I cannot imagine.”
“And if you refuse him?
She laughed bitterly.“We both know that is impossible. If I dared, the letters I wrote to you would be shared with the masses… and our letters were deeply personal and intimate in ways that could never be construed as innocent. We courted scandal and ruin more than one another, I think. And scandal and ruin have won.”
“Erotic and explicit as our letters were, I wrote nothing simply for the sake of being scandalous. Every word, whether profane or profound, was written because it was true,” he corrected her. “For what it’s worth, this is my fault. It is my doing. Had I not kept the letters?—“
“Why did you?” She asked. Instantly she regretted it. The words had come out with far greater vulnerability than she wished to reveal to him.
