He stilled. “No.”
“And so it goes,” she said bitterly, the reality of the situation filling the small space of the carriage, threatening to suffocate her. “My father and my husband conspiring to manage both my sisters and me. Nothing changes. That’s the choice, is it? My sisters’ reputations or my friend’s? One, or t’other?”
“At first, it was a choice,” he conceded. “But now . . . I would not allow your sisters to be ruined, Penelope.”
She raised a brow. “Forgive me if I do not believe you, my lord, considering how much you have threatened those same reputations since our meeting.”
“No more threats. I want them happy. I want you happy.”
He could make her happy. The thought whispered through her, and she did not doubt it. Not at all. This was a man who had singular focus, and if he set his mind to giving her a lifetime of happiness, he would succeed. But that was not in the cards. “You want your revenge more.”
“I want both. I want everything.”
She turned away from him, speaking to the street beyond the carriage window, suddenly irritated. “Oh, Michael, whoever told you that you could have everything?”
They rode in silence for an age before the coach stopped, and Michael descended, turning back to help her from the conveyance. As he stood there in the dim shadows of the coach, one hand extended, she was reminded of that night at Falconwell, when he’d offered her his hand and his name and his adventure, and she’d taken it, thinking he was still the boy she’d once known.
He was not. He was nothing of that boy . . . now entirely a man with two sides—kind protector and vicious redeemer. He was her husband.
And, God help her, she loved him.
All those years she’d waited for this moment, for this revelation, sure that it would change her life and cause flowers to bloom and birds to sing with its euphoria.
But this love was not euphoric. It was painful.
It was not enough.
She lowered herself from the carriage without his aid, avoiding his strong, gloved hand as she climbed the steps and entered the town house foyer, empty of servants. He followed her, but she did not hesitate, instead heading straight for the stairs and beginning her climb.
“Penelope,” he called from the foot of the stairs, and she closed her eyes against her name, against the way its sound on his lips made her ache.
She did not stop.
He followed, slowly and methodically, up the stairs and down the long, dark hallway to her bedchamber. She had left the door open, knowing that he would find entry even if she locked herself inside. He closed the door behind him as she moved to her dressing table and removed her gloves, draping them carefully over a chair.
“Penelope,” he repeated, with a firmness that demanded obedience.
Well, she was through obeying.
“Please, look at me.”
She did not waver. Did not reply.
“Penelope . . .” He trailed off, and from the corner of her eye, she saw him rake his fingers through his hair, leaving a path of glorious imperfection there—so handsome, so uncharacteristic. “For a decade, I have lived this life. Revenge. Retribution. This is what has fed me—nourished me.”
She did not turn back. Could not. Did not want him to see how he moved her. How much she wanted to scream and rail and tell him that there was more to life . . . more to him . . . than this wicked goal.
He would not hear her.
“You’re wrong,” she said, moving to the washbasin at the window. “It has poisoned you, instead.”
“Perhaps it has.”
She poured cool, clear water into the bowl and submerged her hands, watching them pale and waver against the porcelain, the water distorting their truth. When she spoke, it was to those foreign limbs. “You know it will not work, don’t you?” When he did not reply, she continued. “You know that once you’ve meted out your precious revenge, there will be something else. Falconwell, Langford, Tommy . . . then what? What comes next?”
“Then life. Finally,” he said, simply. “Life out from beneath the specter of that man and the past he gave me. Life without retribution.” He paused. “Life with you.”
He was close when he said it, closer than she expected, and she lifted her hands from the water and turned around even as the words stung—even as they made her ache. They were words she had desperately wanted to hear . . . since the beginning of their marriage . . . perhaps since before that. Perhaps since she began writing him letters, knowing he’d never receive them. But no matter how much she wanted to hear those words, she found she could not believe him.