I nodded solemnly, wishing I had not been the one to see this look of betrayal on Henry’s face.
“Are you sure? I mean, are you completely certain—?”
“Yes.” What she had said to me the other day, after catching me 258
speaking with her father, had confirmed it. “I am completely certain.” It came out as a whisper, but it fell on the space between us with a finality that felt like a death knell.
Henry raked both hands through his hair, turned from me, and walked four steps away.
“Now you understand,” I said, my voice breaking along with my heart. “You understand why I had to tell you—everyone—that I had no intention of marrying. She would have separated all of us. She would have sent you away—”
He turned back and walked toward me with long strides, catching me by the hands, saying, “It doesn’t matter, Kate. It makes no difference. I can give up Blackmoore.”
I was shaking my head, tears streaming down my cheeks and running off my chin.
“Stop. Stop shaking your head. I can, Kate. I can give it up. I will. For you.”
“No. I won’t allow you to do that.” He was speaking rashly. He hadn’t thought it through. He hadn’t had countless nights to lie awake thinking about exactly what he would be giving up for me. But I had. And I knew better. “You can’t give up Blackmoore for me, Henry. Don’t you see what it would cost you? What it would do to us?”
“It’s just a house! How could you think a pile of stones could compare to you?”
“It’s more than a pile of stones! This is your home. I have seen it in your eyes. This is everything to you. Your future. Your living. The life you have planned for. I have seen how you light up here! I have seen how happy you are here—how fulfilled. How it is where you are meant to be.”
He grabbed my hands, holding them in both of his own. He held them tightly, as if trying to keep me from flying away. “No. You have done that to me. Not Blackmoore.”
A sob shook my voice. “It is too much to give up. Don’t you see that?
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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n Don’t you see that if I rob you of everything you care about, everything you have ever wanted in life, that you will someday hate me for it?”
“I could never hate you.” The words came out soft and hoarse, a whispered declaration.
I pulled my hands from his grip and folded my arms across my chest, trying to hold my breaking heart together. “You could. You don’t know.
But I do.” My voice quivered. “I know what it is to be despised, Henry. I know what it is to be unwanted and unloved and—”
Henry’s hands slipped around my face. I caught my breath, biting back my words. He stepped close to me and cradled my face. His hands were gentle, as if I were just as wild and fragile as our dark bird. He bent his head and looked into my eyes, and he was so near to me that I could see his grey eyes, shining even in this dark room. He drew in a breath and he lowered his head and then he kissed me, slowly and gently. His fingers reached into my hair, and his lips tasted of salt and desire. He kissed me until my knees trembled and fire melted through me and I felt thoroughly, achingly wanted.
When at last he lifted his lips from mine, his breath was ragged. He leaned his head close to mine and whispered, “Now you also know what it is to be wanted and loved.”
It was too sweet. It was too great a temptation. My heart pounded with wanting what he was offering me.
“I know that you haven’t known this kind of love before,” he said, his arms slipping around me, pulling me close, cradling me as if he meant to keep me near his heart always. “But I promise you that I can love you forever, no matter what happens to us in this life. I can, and I will.”
My resolve had crumbled in the heat of his kiss. I wanted to lean against him and let him continue to make me feel this way. But it was not right, and I knew in my bones that giving in to this temptation would haunt me with questions for the rest of my life. I ignored the yearnings of my heart and pulled away from his embrace. The chill of standing alone and apart from him invaded every bit of me, and I shivered as I 260
stood there and tried to hold myself together. But I could not hold myself together in the same ways that I could before Henry kissed me. Cages had been opened within me, and what poured out of them was just as much anger as fear. I backed away from him as the anger and the hurt I had been hiding for a year and a half unfurled within me. And then I unleashed it.
“Love is not enough!” I cried. “Love turns. Love dies. I have seen the other side of love! I have seen the loathing and the contempt and the resentment. I will not see that from you! I will not live to see a day when you look at me the way my father looks at my mother.”
“We are not like them!”
“How do you know?” I drew in a jagged breath. “How do you know what the future will hold? How it will change us? How do you know that you will not wake up one day and hate me for robbing you of your birth-right, your future, the life you always meant to live?”
“I know,” he said, his voice low and fierce and unwavering. “I know my heart. It has always been yours, Kate. Always. ”
His voice broke, and I saw in the gleam of moonlight a tear on his cheek. It wrenched at my heart.
“I never meant to hurt you.” I choked on my words. “I never meant to hurt you with the bargain. I never thought it could hurt you.”
He rubbed a hand over his face, took a deep breath and then another.
He looked so lost and so desperate that I knew I was close to winning this battle. So I delivered another blow.
“How would we even live, Henry?” I asked, my voice dull with hope-lessness. “You would be giving up your living if you gave up Blackmoore.
What would you do?”
“I am not averse to work! I am quite brilliant, you know. Or maybe you don’t know, since I don’t like to boast, but I am.” I heard the hope in his voice, and I saw the flash of his smile, and it all felt much too cruel.
“I’m not afraid of hard work. Just—”
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J u l i a n n e D o n a l D s o n I held up a hand, warding off his words, choking back the sobs. “No.
No, Henry. No and no and no.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Tears streamed down my cheeks but I did not waver. And finally, all the hope left his face, and in its place was bleak despair. “You will not change your mind.”
“No. Never.” And even though I trembled in every part of me, my voice was strong with resolve. “I made this decision a year and a half ago, and I have made it again tonight. And I would make this exact same decision again and again and again as long as our circumstances are the same.
I will not change my mind, Henry.”
He looked away. I saw him press the heels of his hands to his eyes.
I walked to the window and looked out at the moonlit sea. And after another long stretch of time, I heard him move behind me. I glanced to my left and saw him standing before the open bird cage. He was so still.
“The bird . . .” He looked at me, a question in his face.
“It died.” The words were too blunt, too harsh. Henry flinched and looked back at the cage. When he lifted his eyes to me again there was a new expression in them—a kind of horror that chilled me.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Henry. It’s not a foretelling of my future.
I know that’s what you’re thinking. But it’s just a bird. I will be safe. I will go to my aunt in London, and we’ll travel to India together, and I will be safe. I promise.”
“Miss Worthington?”
It was Alice, at the door, holding a lantern. Then I knew it was time.
It was time to be done with torturing ourselves like this. “I have to go,” I whispered.
“Wait.” Henry grabbed my wrist as I walked past him and pulled me into his arms. “Wait,” he whispered, bending his head to speak softly in my ear. “I still have one last question.”
My heart could not tolerate one last question. My heart was hammer-ing at me, insisting that I was making the greatest mistake of my life. But 262