Page 40 of The Widow's Scandalous Gentleman
“Thalia—”
She raised a hand. “You must go.”
The words sat heavy between them. He stared at her, not in disbelief, but in quiet understanding—knowing, perhaps, that this was not refusal. Not rejection. But sacrifice, made in equal measure.
“You are not mine to command,” she said, more gently. “But I cannot be the reason your name falters. The Retreat may weather this storm. I will weather mine. But your loyalty is not a noose I mean to tighten.”
He stepped toward her, expression raw. “And if I choose the gallows?”
She smiled, though her eyes shone. “Then I would thank you, love you for it, and still unfasten the rope.”
He shook his head, low and bitter. “You ask me to walk away from the only thing that has felt real in years.”
“I ask you,” she said, voice trembling now, “not to destroy yourself in the name of saving me.”
His breath caught as if he might speak, but no words came. The fire crackled behind them, a soft and steady heartbeat.
Then she lifted her hand—slow, deliberate—and smoothed the fabric of his shirt, fingertips brushing over his chest, where his heart beat with an ache that matched her own.
“I will not forget,” she said, barely more than a breath. “Not this—not us. Not the man who stayed when he might have fled, and gave me more than I ever had the courage to ask.”
He caught her hand in his with a sudden, desperate tenderness and pressed it to his lips, eyes closed. “Nor shall I.”
Time hesitated. So did she.
Then she stepped back. Her hand slipped from his.
And she turned.
“I don’t want to leave—” his voice cracked, sharp with feeling. “I won’t.”
She stopped mid-step.
Silence swelled, taut as a drawn bow.
“I have followed every call of honour I was taught,” he went on, stepping toward her. “But what I feel for you—what I’ve come to understand here—it eclipses all of it. This place, these people... you. You are what is true.”
She turned slowly. Her eyes shimmered, but her voice was steady. “And that truth is precisely why you must go.”
He flinched. “So you will cast me off for my own good?”
“No,” she said, her breath catching. “I am setting you free, because I love you too well to see you ruined for choosing me.”
Jasper’s jaw clenched. “I am not afraid of ruin.”
“But I am,” she said fiercely. “Not for myself—never that. But for you. You’ve a name that holds weight in this world. I won’t see it spent on my reckoning.”
He looked away, hands curling into fists at his sides. “You would rather lose me than let me share the burden?”
“I would rather lose you,” she said, “than let you fall for trying to lift what was never yours to carry.”
A beat passed.
Then, with no further word, she turned again.
And this time, she walked away.
The door closed behind her—gently, irrevocably; its latch catching with a sound more final than thunder.
