“No, he should have.” Perhaps not at first, given how sensitive a subject it was, but sometime. Certainly sometime before he took her in his arms and kissed her senseless. A thud came from within the drawing room, all the inspiration she needed to pull her arm free. “Excuse me.”
She took a few steps, but Winter shadowed her. “Gwyneth, he—you have a right to be upset. But know that regardless of what Alain says in his anger, your situation now is nothing like Peggy’s was. Thaddeus has never looked at any woman the way he does at you.”
Maybe that was true, but who was to say it was not because she was more broken, more in need, more in distress than any other damsel he had yet come across? Because she provided more opportunity for him to play hero, as Captain Arnaud had called it?
She needed to get away, to be alone, to close out this whole family and all their noble, terrible truths. And so she headed for the stairs, the one place Winter still moved slowly, and ran up them two at a time. Gaining her room, she slammed the door. And for the first time since her arrival, she turned the key in the lock.
Twenty-One
Thad bit back a choice word when his elbow connected with the table’s edge on his way to the floor, and he gave Arnaud a foot in the gut to push him away. “Blast it, Alain, that hurt.”
“That hurt?” He scrambled back to his feet, leaving Thad little choice but to jump back to his. “Try being whipped until your back is raw.”
Thad rolled his shoulders forward, his arms raised. “I told you not to go. Why could you not have listened?”
“You think I have not asked myself that a million times?” He took a swing that Thad ducked. Then he charged him and knocked Thad onto the chair.
He used the momentum to roll Arnaud over him and onto the floor with a thud. “It would all be so different.”
“I know!” Fury drenched the words, fury obviously aimed at himself. Not that that stopped him from hooking a foot under the chair and tipping it backward, Thad along with it. “I know. But someone had to go, and you refused.”
The impact was negligible, just enough to make him want to let loose a few strong words. Words that would be aimed more at the past than the jab of pain. “You are right. It should have been me who went.”
Arnaud spat out something in French and lobbed a pillow at Thad’s head. “Of all the idiotic things to say! Why? Why should it have been you? Because you could have evaded the pirates? Outsmarted them?”
“Because I had nothing to lose! No one was depending on me.” He grabbed the pillow and whipped it at Arnaud’s face before pushing up to his feet.
Arnaud sent the cushion flying toward the ottoman. “Are you daft? You have an entire nation depending on you. You are the one who knows every blasted man, woman, and child from Florida to Canada. You are the one Tallmadge trusts implicitly, who everyone trusts implicitly.”
“What then, Alain?” Thad spread his arms wide, making himself a target if that was what his friend needed. “What should I have done? Should I have kept my distance and left Peggy and your babe with no help?”
Arnaud spun away and kicked another stray pillow. “Don’t be a fool.”
“What then? What should I have done?”
“I don’t know! Perhaps exactly what you did!” Somehow he made it sound like an accusation, even pivoting around with a pointed finger. “Yes, you should have taken care of them. You should have raised Jacques as your own. Perhaps you even should have married her. But if so, then you should have loved her, Thad! She deserved to be loved.”
He might as well have hurled grapeshot at him. Thad took a step back, his arms falling limp at his sides. “How?” His voice came out like a rusty hinge. “How could I love her when she was still yours? When you were every other word that fell from her lips?”
Arnaud’s finger shook.
Edging closer, Thad reached out and gripped his friend’s shoulder. “We did what we felt was best. But her heart was yours, was always yours.”
There had never been room for him. He had known that the day he proposed. And she had apologized for it the day she died. As if it had been something she could help, as if he had not understood. As if he blamed her for it, and for not holding on long enough to give him the family she thought she owed him.
Arnaud drew in a shuddering breath. “Do I apologize for that?”
“No.” Thad swallowed. “Just do not begrudge me my chance now. Please.”
Arnaud knocked his arm away. “Again with the idiocy. Why do you think I am trying to keep you from making an utter mess with Miss Fairchild?”
“I am not making a mess of anything!” He shoved Arnaud two steps backward. “We were getting along quite well before you came in and exploded like an overcharged cannon.”
“Fire and brimstone, Thad, if it were anyone else you would be the first to point it out.” He indicated the door. “That girl is not ready for you.”