Unraveled (Turner, #3)

“Time? You think time will change what I want? Maybe,” she said, “I want a man who takes what should be an unbearable weakness and forges it into strength. Maybe I want a man who will be loyal to me with his dying breath.”


“And maybe, when you’ve had a little time to think it through, you’ll want a man who can sleep through the nights, and who doesn’t flinch at the thought of hiring servants. Maybe you’ll want a man who can stand to have his face touched in affection. Someone who can make you a part of his life instead of shunting you off to one side. What you feel now…it’ll fade, Miranda, and when it does, you’ll not want to be stuck with me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I love you.”

“I know.” He turned away so she wouldn’t see his face. “I know. But—I have always been wedded to Lady Justice. And if you think that I will be loyal to you above the demands of my work, you are mistaken.” His own voice was breaking. He took a deep breath. “With me, you would always be second. You deserve to be first with whomever you find.” Smite hated him already. “I will never come to get you. I will not be waiting for your return. If you come back to me, I will turn from you. This is over.”

“So I was right,” she said. “You were rationing me. Allowing yourself only a small space of time with me, before returning to your solitary existence.”

He gave a nod. “Precisely.”

“In a few years, will you forget me altogether, or will you take out the memory of me on occasion, for your few minutes of sentimentality?” There was a hint of belligerence in her tone; she looked up at him with one eyebrow raised.

He’d hold the memories dear and deep, no matter how bittersweet they became. His free hand lifted to her cheek. A wisp of her hair was falling out of her chignon. He reached to tuck it back behind her ear, but when he did, he noticed that the hairpin that had held it in place was loose. Instead of pushing it back, he found himself pulling the metal from her hair. The piece pressed hard into his palm.

“You’d best be leaving,” he said. “You’ll want time to make sure you’re settled on the train.”

Her eyes widened, but she turned away from him and swept to where Dryfuss awaited. He followed her; he was helpless not to. And he handed her into the cart. But she didn’t let go of his fingers when she’d found her seat. “If this were a play,” she said, “this is the point where you’d realize that you can’t possibly allow me to leave.” Her eyes were suspiciously shiny; her voice quivered. Her fingers lingered on his.

But even the sight of her obvious distress could not break him. “No,” he said quietly, disentangling himself from her. “This is the point where I wish you Godspeed.”

He gave Dryfuss a nod, and the man shook the reins.

After she left, he stood as still as he dared, listening to the sound of the cart recede into the distance. Listening, past all hope of hearing her. He wasn’t even conscious of breathing, and yet his lungs ached fiercely.

He had been wrong. It would have been easier if it had slain him. But he was still standing. Still cogent. And that meant he was all too aware of how badly it hurt. He clutched her hairpin until the metal cut into the palm of his hand, unable to let even that much go.





Chapter Twenty




SMITE ARRIVED AT THE hotel where his brother was staying just as the clock struck one. He found Ash pacing before the mantel, shaking his head.

“You’re late,” Ash said, turning around as he entered the room.

“My apologies. The delay was…” He stopped, catching himself on the lie. Those last minutes with Miranda hadn’t been unavoidable. They’d merely been vital.

“You’re so rarely late.” Ash dropped the watch he’d been holding into his waistcoat pocket. “I was beginning to worry. And wonder that I’d done something wrong. Again.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Smite said. “Not everything I do is about you, you realize. You can’t fix everything.”

Ash’s forehead crunched, developing parallel sets of grim lines.

“In any event,” Smite added, “nothing needs to be fixed.”

Ash grimaced.

They had had some variant of this conversation a hundred times over the last decades. Ash apologized, and tried to ply Smite with things to salve his conscience; Smite refused, and tried to convince Ash he truly preferred not to be cosseted. Somehow, Smite’s insistence that nothing was amiss had turned into a cycle of accusation and recrimination.

Smite was too bone-deep tired to try to fend off such well-meaning attacks. He sat down wearily.

“Let me explain,” he said. “I don’t need anything from you. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, or that I wish you ill. It doesn’t mean that I’m rejecting your offers. It simply means that I don’t need or want anything.”

Ash didn’t respond to this. He simply wandered over to the fireplace and looked up at the ceiling, as if wondering what he had ever done wrong.