Page 96 of While Angels Slept
“Do not weep,” he told her softly, gruffly. “I was not trying to hurt you but… Cantia, why did you do it? I told you not to go there for a reason. I did not want you exposed to her disease.”
Cantia only wept louder and turned away from him. “I do not want to talk to you right now,” she sobbed. “Go away and leave me alone. You are hateful and mean.”
He was starting to fold and trying not to. He began to make his way in her direction. “I am not leaving,” he told her firmly but quietly. “I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, but you know what you did was wrong.”
She put an arm on the back of the chair and lay her forehead upon it, sobbing. “You are nasty and terrible,” she wept. “Go away.”
“I am not going away.”
“I am not going to talk to you.”
“Then we shall make an odd stand-off.”
She could hear him moving around behind her as he pulled up a chair and plopped down on it. She knew he wasn’t about to leave but that had been her plan. He was calming down and that was all she wanted. To further speed that process, she stood up from the chair and rubbed at her belly, which always made Tevin want to rub it, too, because when she did it was usually when the baby was kicking and he didn’t want to miss it. But he stayed on his chair, watching her, his hands clasped on his lap. Wiping at her eyes, she still made sure to sniffle and hiccup appropriately as she went to the lancet window and allowed the breeze to cool her warm cheeks.
Several minutes passed. Fifteen minutes passed and still, she said nothing. Tevin just watched her. Approaching the half-hour mark, he finally broke their stalemate.
“Are you ever going to speak to me?” he asked.
Cantia wasn’t ready to fold. She wanted him to feel very bad about yelling at her so she turned away from the window and went to thesolar door.
“I do not feel very well,” she announced. “I am going to lie down for a while.”
He was on his feet, moving towards her. “What is wrong?”
She opened the door. “I am exhausted from all of your yelling.” She finally turned to him, tears gone and a spark of anger in her eye. “You could have simply asked me, quite calmly, what I had been doing rather than yelling at me and calling me foolish. You did not have to react that way.”
His expression tightened up and he struggled not to feel remorse. “I am not going to apologize for becoming angry. I had every right.”
She turned her nose up at him and went to the spiral stairs, carefully mounting them and disappearing to the upper floors as he stood there and watched. That lasted all of a few seconds before he hissed a curse and followed.
“Cantia,” he followed her up the stairs. “Please wait.”
She ignored him. “I want to lie down,” she said again as she cleared the third floor landing and moved up to the fourth floor. “You have given me an aching head.”
Tevin felt like the meanest man in the entire world as he followed her up to their chamber. He was a slave to her and he knew it, but he didn’t care. Still, he didn’t want to back down completely. He had a point to make.
When they reached the door to their chamber, he reached out to grasp her. She didn’t resist but she was stiff in his arms as he pulled her against him and gazed down into her beautiful face. His expression was a mix between disapproval and repentance.
“I am sorry if I was harsh,” he said softly. “But I asked you to stay away from her for your own good. Do you not understand that?”
She was having a difficult time resisting him. “I understand.”
“I told you to stay away because I love you. I would be shattered if anything happened to you.”
“I know.”
“Will you at least forgive me for being hurtful?”
She thought a moment on the request, or at least she pretended to. But she eventually folded just like he did and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him. He swallowed her up in his big arms, thankful she wasn’t holding a grudge. Then he kissed her on the forehead, on the cheek, and looked her in the eye.
“But from now on,” he rumbled gently but sternly, “please stay away from her. It would destroy me if you contracted whatever disease she has. Agreed?”
Cantia regarded him, thinking on her conversation with Louisa. She remembered that the woman told her that Tevin had always been kind to her in spite of their circumstances and as she looked at him, she began to feel pangs of sympathy for him. He was such a wonderful man, sweet and wise and powerful, and her heart ached for him.Arabel was not his child. God, if she could only tell him. She wondered if she even should, if it would even matter after all this time. But she could not, in good conscience, withhold what Louisa had told her about Arabel. Tevin would never forgive her if he found out she knew and hadn’t told him.
With a sigh, she laid her head against his chest and snuggled against him.
“Have you spoken with her at all?” she asked softly.
