Page 28 of The Duke's All That
The change in her was instantaneous. Clamping her hand over her mouth, eyes wide, she turned away from Iain and went to just below where the parrot perched. “I’m sorry, darling,” she cooed. “Please come back down. Come along, love. There’s a good boy.”
But the parrot merely swayed from side to side, eyeing Seraphina, letting loose random screeches that echoed through the brush.
Iain watched this whole thing with a kind of numbness, his mind still trying to understand the accusations she had thrown at his head. Revenge himself on her father? Dupe her? She could not be serious. When had he ever given her cause to think he could be capable of such a thing? No doubt this was some redirection on her part, a way to make herself feel better about leaving him.
But baffling slices of the last week came back to him now, random comments and reactions and looks connecting like pieces of a puzzle. She truly believed he left her allthose years ago. With every fiber of her being, she believed it. Which, if it was true, meant she had not left him. At least not willingly.
Dear God.
In two strides he was behind her. Spinning her about, he barely registered her gasp of surprise before he spoke.
“Did your father tell you I received money from him to leave you?” he demanded.
The shock and worry in her eyes melted away, replaced with pain. Ah, yes, she believed it, down to her bones.
“That fucking bastard,” he spat before, taking a deep breath to calm himself, he looked Seraphina in the eye. “I dinnae take money from your father,” he said, slow and distinct lest she mishear him.
“You lie,” she replied, her voice a hiss of sound.
“I swear, it’s the truth.”
She pressed her lips tight, her chin jutting mutinously. It was all too obvious she didn’t believe a word he said.
Letting out a harsh breath, he bent his head until their eyes were level. “Your father never offered me money. But even if he had, I wouldnae have taken it. I swear it.”
Something in his voice must have finally broken through her anger. Her eyes clouded, a frown marring her brow. And then she said the thing that nearly broke him.
“Then why did you leave me?”
“I dinnae leave you lass,” he managed. “I was toldyouleftme.”
I was told you left me.It frightened her how deeply she wished to believe him.
For so many years she had thought this man, a person she had befriended, had fallen in love with, had trusted with herentire self, had betrayed her for money. And it had destroyed her. Now here he was, proclaiming with an earnestness that she felt down to the depths of her soul, that he had not, in fact, done as she’d been told, that he had been made to believe she had been the one to leave. A kind of relief and joy blossomed in her breast, that the person she had trusted most in this world had not let greed turn him from her.
But had she learned nothing over the years? Was she really so desperate to turn her back on the caution she had so carefully cultivated, to leave herself raw to more pain and betrayal?
Apparently so, for she had the sudden aching desire to close the small distance between them and bury herself in his embrace. How wonderful it would be to let down her guard for once, to lean on someone. To feel that same safety and security she’d felt in his arms so long ago.
“Seraphina,” he said then, the one word almost pleading as it escaped his lips, drawing her further into the pull of him.
Blessedly they were interrupted just then by a man on horseback passing them on the road. Had she truly been so focused on Iain and her wildly inappropriate desire for his arms about her that she had been completely oblivious to the rider’s approach? She quickly extracted herself from Iain’s loose grip and stepped back, the better to put some much-needed distance between them.
“I don’t believe you,” she said when they were alone again. “I saw the evidence with my own eyes in the bank drafts made out to you, heard the proof in a witness who saw the whole transaction.”
He narrowed his eyes, his hands closing into white-knuckled fists at his sides. “All provided by your father, I’d wager.”
She stared mutely at him. What else could she do? It was true.
His gaze scoured her face, as if seeing her for the first time. “Do you wish to know what your father told me, Seraphina?” he asked hoarsely.
She shook her head, for some reason frightened of what he might say. But he plowed on regardless.
“Your father told me that he had finally given you your dearest wish, that he had offered to send you away to travel the world. And that you had taken him up on the offer.”
She gaped at him. “That makes no sense. Why would I do that? I loved you, was willing to leave everything behind, even my sisters, for you.”
But she knew the answer to that question the moment it passed her lips. She saw, with a clarity that stole her breath, that same vulnerability that had been in his eyes when they’d parted all those years ago, the same sense of unworthiness she had been unable to erase. It was faint, and quickly covered up. But to Seraphina it was as good as a shout, telling her the truth of what had happened: her father had used their weaknesses against each other to separate them.
