Page 150 of You Only Love Twice
You know this was a taunt. You know he killed Isabella to test your resolve.
And the horrible truth kept circulating through him. He'd never loved her.
But she'd loved him.
He'd heard it in her voice right before she shot herself.
Malloryn flinched. Adele was saying something, but he hadn't heard a damned word of it—
"Would you give us a moment?" he asked Harriet, his voice sounding a million miles away.
Harriet bobbed into a curtsy and then practically fled the room.
Blankets rustled. "Are you quite done terrorizing my sister?"
"Terrorizing her?"
"You frighten her," Adele shot back. "Which you would notice if you ever noticed anyone beneath you."
His eyes thinned to narrow slits. "I notice everything."
"Then what did I just say?"
Touché.
He merely stared at her, and she flushed again, though this time it was in anger.
"You notice everythingimportant," she said, a hint of bitterness creeping through her voice as she tossed her covers back and slipped to the edge of the bed.
That wasn't what he'd meant at all.
She tried to stand and he limped to her side in an instant, prepared to catch her if she fell. Instinct. Etiquette.
And more than a little guilt, though he couldn't admit such a thing toher.
Adele froze, the rose-colored drape of her silk robe mercifully hiding her form from his gaze. "It would take more than a little bloodletting to take the wind from my sails, Your Grace."
Malloryn backed away, hands clasped behind his back. "It would probably take the entire bloody airship armada to do so."
"That almost sounded like flattery."
"It wasn't."
Her smile died. "Of course not."
They stared at each other again.
For the first time in years, he didn't know what to say. "Adele?"
"Yes."
She'd been busy tying her robe, but at his silence, she looked up.
"Thank you." He forced the words out.
There. He'd said it.
"It's not as though you were dying." She flung his own words back at him, seemingly just as discomfited as he was.
