Page 62 of Gambling with the Earl
She blanched at his words and her eyes flared with understanding. “That’swhy you went to Shoreston? I heard of your visit. No one dared to open the door to you.”
“Because of who I am?” Shame crawled up his insides as he remembered that dreadful night at the grubby alehouse.
“They don’t know you.” Her face crumpled with grief. “They only know your uncle, and your family’s reputation.”
“And they could not see past that.” He paused to take a deep, ragged breath. “Nor could you. Not even after yesterday and all that passed between us.”
His knees felt weak, as if his legs might give way at any moment. He had dared to believe that what he and Kitty had was real, something solid to be built upon.
“I was wrong.” She ventured closer towards him. “Believe me, I know that now.”
“But it is too late.”
“It isn’t.” She put her hands to her heart. “Please don’t say that.”
He looked at her as if for the first time. “You aren’t even a serving girl. You are from a titled family, descended from the Duke of Answick.”
She stood her ground. “I have worked hard every day since my mother passed away. See?” She showed him her reddened hands.
He took hold of her fingers, holding her flesh against his for one last time. “One truth, amidst so many lies.”
“I wanted only to provide a better future for my sister,” she whispered.
Her defence was reaching him, slowly. He could well understand that urge to protect a younger sibling.
“I would have given your sister anything you wanted,” he said, honestly.
“I couldn’t be sure.”
Something snapped inside him. Kitty’s protective instincts for her family were admirable, and he could not begrudge them. But nor could he hope for a life with her, when she lived her life for another. Not when the bond of trust between them, so newly formed, was irreparably shattered.
Without trust, their relationship had no foundation.
“Do you always put her first?”
She nodded, slightly but emphatically.
He released her hand. “Take the jewels,” he said. “They are rightfully yours. They always were.”
Her eyes dropped to the floor and then shot back up towards him. Would she fight for him? Would she push through his defences once again, like she had so many times before?
Yet, for all the time he’d known her, she’d wanted only to get her hands on the jewels, for her sister.
He turned away, unable to look at her.
“Guy?”
He stood with his back to her, gazing out unseeingly at the sunrise.
“Low tide is upon us,” he stated. “You can cross safely back to the mainland. Take a horse if you wish. Take anything. But please, don’t ever return.”
Chapter Seventeen
“I’ve brought yousome chicken broth.”
Rosalind’s pretty face peeked around the edge of the door. Kitty sat up in bed, allowing the blankets to fall away from her as she blinked her way to wakefulness.
“How long have I slept?” Her whole body felt heavy and leaden.
