Page 13 of Immortal Rose

“But it makes perfect sense,” he pressed with an earnest look. “Marrying into my family will help smooth over the scandal once you’re found innocent. I can protect you. I can make this right.”

“I told you, I will never marry,” I said softly. “Not ever, Oliver.”

He gave an incredulous laugh. “Must you be so bloody stubborn all the time?”

Somehow, I’d known we’d been headed to this point, with or without Fairgate’s dark intervention. I’d catch him looking at me sometimes, from across Creed Garden as I worked at the flower stall, or walking through Royal Park, discussing perfumes he might suggest to his father. He’d helped me so many times, and I’d been foolish, and desperate, and selfish enough to accept it.

But I wasn’t selfish enough to do this to him.

“And regardless of my own feelings,” I told him, “you know it wouldn’t be as simple as you’ve described. That’s not the way of the world. And your mother would never speak to you again. As tantalizing as that prospect may sound, I know it would pain your heart as the years went on.”

He didn’t laugh. God knew Catherine Radcliffe had done everything in her power to foist her family onto the ladder of high society, rising a rung with each donation to the arts, every son she married to lesser nobility, and each lady patroness she added to her vast collection of friends.

But this . . . It was a dream to imagine our marriage would do anything but ruin the Radcliffes. The Patricians would shun them the moment I became part of their family—if Mr. and Mrs. Radcliffe didn’t disown Oliver first. Their position in society was too fragile. They were still seen in older circles as upstarts, as graceless tradespeople. Worse, his mother’s ancestors were Gallian. Their name simply wasn’t old or powerful enough to withstand the scandal of bringing fairy blood, never mind a criminal, into their lineage.

“If you mean to frighten me away because you fear the consequences I might face in making you my wife, I assure you, it won’t work,” Oliver insisted. “We were always a match, weren’t we? We . . . we fit well together.”

It was strange to know that a heart, already shattered, could be ground down further. Utterly pulverized to dust.

“Ollie . . .” I began again, feeling suddenly weary.

“I respect you and I care about you,” he pressed on. “And I thought . . . well, I thought you cared for me as well?”

“I . . .” What was it I felt? Examining my own heart on the matter had always felt like a temptation into pain. “Of course I care for you. You are my only friend in the world.”

He drew in a breath, as though absorbing a glancing blow. His mouth twisted in a wry, tense smile. “Yes. Friends. Of course. Marriages have been built on less, you know.”

“Your life would be ruined,” I told him.

“I wouldn’t care,” Oliver vowed. “You’re being purposefully difficult. Let me set things to right. I can handle whatever sour words society spins about us, and in time, they will move on, as they always do. Let me help you.”

His hands covered mine on the bars as he stepped closer. I barely felt the scabs on my knuckles open, horrified by the blood and grime that now coated his fine leather gloves. He would carry that small piece of me away from here, at least.

“Please,” he whispered, lowering his head toward mine. “Let me do this. Let me do something.”

The allure of allowing someone else, for once, to handle everything was stunning. And if not for myself . . . could I agree for him? The thought left me dazed and more confused than I’d ever felt.

I was cold, so very cold, and here he was, the nearness of him its own warmth. He was different, wasn’t he? There was a sweetness to him. If nothing else in the world felt certain, I knew he would always see to the care and keeping of my heart.

Could I give him this? A moment of pride, of accomplishment? Of showing that I believed him—believed in him—when no one else did?

No.

Even now, memory seeped up from the shadows at our feet, threatening to drown us. And with the next breath, the dream was at its end. I stepped back. His face fell, and it would have been less painful to take a blade to the heart.

At the end of the hall, the iron door scraped open. Branson’s essence swamped the air.

“Leave,” I grated out, retreating into the shadows of the cell. “Forget about me.”

“Don’t you dare send me away,” Oliver said, his voice swelling with fierce emotion. “I will get you out of here, I swear it.”

He watched me, his breath uneven, his paling skin coated in the thin sheen of perspiration. He’d overdone it, exhausting himself. It only seemed to prove that he would never survive me.

“Time’s up,” came Branson’s growl. “Be a good lad and shuffle off.”

“Viola,” Oliver said quietly, “think about it.”

I refused to look at him as he departed. The rough wall scraped through my dress and corset as I slid down it, my knees suddenly too hollow to support my weight.