After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(90)

The last time they’d spoken, they’d been in the same bed. They hadn’t had so much as a sheet between them. They’d been bare and naked and… And, oh, God, how had she forgotten?

He’d healed her and hurt her, all in the same moment. She could feel that hurt inside her like bruises in her chest, aching every time she drew breath.

Maybe he was remembering the same thing, because he didn’t approach her. He just stopped next to the mantel, watching her with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Hullo, Cam,” he finally said. “How are you?”

“Is that a polite ‘how are you,’ or a legitimate inquiry into my feelings?” She felt as if she were made of ice. “It’s lovely that you remembered that I have them. A bit tardy, but lovely.”

“Ah,” he said in an annoyingly steady tone of voice. “You’re a little angry. It’s simply smashing that you can express your feelings aloud, clearly, in words face-to-face. I find that communication works best when we use words to say precisely what we mean, instead of leaving in the middle of the night with nothing to say where you’d gone except a note that might not be found for hours.”

“I also believe in communication.” She took a step toward him. “For instance, here are some words you might have said yesterday: ‘My uncle won’t grant us an annulment, so let’s have sexual intercourse out of desperation.’”

“It wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t like that.”

“You’re right.” Her hands went to her hips. “I’m sure you could have chosen other words in the moment. I would have accepted any words from you, in fact, except using no words at all.”

“This is not all my fault. You didn’t seem to be in a terrible hurry to stop and talk in the moment.”

“No,” Camilla said. “I admit as much. I was stupid with hope. I thought you had actually chosen to love me of your own free will. Don’t worry; I blame myself for not asking as much as I blame you for not telling.”

She could see the moment he understood how she must have felt.

His mouth slowly opened. The annoyance dropped from his stance. He took a step toward her. “Oh, Cam.”

She hated that they were friends. She hated that she loved him. She hated that he could say those two words, just like that, and all she wanted was to sit next to him and weep on his shoulder.

He reached a hand out tentatively in her direction, but when she didn’t lean toward him in response, he let it drop. “I’m so sorry. At the time I was thinking that if I didn’t tell you, it wouldn’t hurt you. You’ve been through so much. It was just one more thing for me to bear.”

She shook her head. “I never want to be that one more thing for you to endure. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”

She hated most of all that the feelings she had been trying to ignore—the anger, the hope, the heartbreak, the joy turned to ash—bubbled over in that moment, stinging her eyes. She’d been holding the pieces of herself together through the night, through her journey, through a bath and her sister and a solicitor.

Her life had changed irrevocably, and there wasn’t a person in it who she knew well enough to share her vulnerability. No one but Adrian.

She hated that she cried so easily. She hated that her eyes stung now. “I’m sorry I left the way I did, with only a note. I just thought that if I waited for you to wake up, I would never be able to leave you.”

He took another step toward her, then another, and then she was in his arms, her head pressed against his chest, his arms around her.

His hand stroked her hair. He leaned down and whispered in her ear.

“Cam. I’m sorry.”

She hated that he absorbed her tears. That he was the wall she could lean against, that he didn’t think her weak or stupid. She hated that he understood every bitter tear that she shed.

“What were you thinking?” she sobbed.

“Not very much,” he admitted. “I was hurt. I felt betrayed by my uncle. I…” His voice trailed off. “You know I’ve…wanted you for a while now. I wasn’t thinking of you as one more burden. After the conversation with my uncle, I thought of you as something close to salvation, and I didn’t want to delay any longer.”

She couldn’t keep the affection out of her voice. “We are rather lucky that out of all the millions of people in England, chance forced the two of us together.”

He continued to pet her hair. “You’re the best wife I’ve ever married at gunpoint.”

“Shut up,” Camilla said through her tears. “We cannot hold ourselves out as married. You know that.”

“So…your sister thinks she can still do something about that annulment? After last night?”

Camilla nodded. “I haven’t told her about last night. And you did say that the doctors can’t really tell if I’m a virgin.”

He just pulled her closer. “Do you want this? Do you really want this?”

He should have asked her that last night. Camilla wrinkled her nose. “You have undoubtedly put my hair in disarray. It was curled before.”

“It looks pretty to me.”

“I need to blow my nose.”

He handed her a handkerchief.