Page 177 of Immortal Rose

“She took matters into her own hands,” I said. “But she had no fairy plants to use. She would never seek to harm an innocent. So to poison him, she poisoned herself. In her need to end his life, she destroyed her own. She lived only months longer than he did, and if her aim was to protect me—well . . .” I closed my eyes against the sting of tears. “She may have killed the monster, but she left me alone in the world that had created him.”

I could tell I had shocked him; his unguarded expression told me as much.

“I love her, but I hate her for it, too. Because she did it for me and then left me to live with the guilt of it,” I said. “I would have taken years more of that agony and suffering if it meant she could have lived. I needed her alive and with me.”

“Viola—” he began roughly.

“Don’t expect the rest of us to stand idly by as you destroy yourself trying to destroy Glenmoor,” I said. “You accused me of not asking for help, but you’re guiltier of that by far. We need you alive. I need you—” I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to smother my feelings. “Until all of this is over, until all of this between us is at an end, I need you.”

It felt as though I had cut myself open, exposing my heart to the chill of the night air. Telling him this, letting him see me—see my pain and fear and vulnerability—was agonizing. Almost unbearable. My body tensed as if to flee.

And then he spoke.

“It will never be over between us,” he said, his voice low. “Can you not feel it? The way my soul beckons to yours?”

My heart stilled in my chest. I pulled my hands from my face slowly.

“You should hate me,” he said, bracing his head in his hands. “I have craved the blade of that hatred like nothing else because I know I deserve it. Because I know it would be the only thing powerful enough to cut this tether that draws me to you like a starving man to the manna of heaven.” He made a noise of frustration at the back of his throat. “It is—it is maddening. The harder either of us pulls back, the tighter that knot between us grows. Tell me you feel it, too—that sense of inevitability, even as it’s what neither of us wanted.”

“I do,” I whispered.

He looked up then, his eyes haunted. “I can neither apologize enough for what you’ve suffered at my hands nor pretend I regret that it has led us here. I am not a good man or even a kind one, but I am yours all the same.”

Hugh clenched his eyes shut.

“I would kill anyone who caused you half the harm I have,” he rasped out. “I would carve the heart from my chest if you asked it of me, because I’m certain it was always meant to be yours. I swore to you that I would let you go, and I will. I will, damn it. If losing you is my punishment for all of this, I will suffer it—but in the meantime, I cannot risk you. I would not survive it.”

“Hugh . . .” I began, shocked.

“I found you in the dark,” he continued. “You know it as I do. And if it is my final act in this world, I will do everything in my power to ensure you’re never made to return to it. But you cannot ask me to turn back now. The course has been set.”

You cannot survive in the shadows of someone’s heart, Mama had told me once. There must be light if anything is to grow.

He was pulling away out of pain and fear. He deserved more than that, and for all society would have me believe, that I was born a shameful mistake, so did I.

“You’ve decided, have you?” I asked with barely suppressed anger. “Of course you can turn back. Of course you can stop this or allow the rest of us to truly help you finish it. You are a man who is capable of nearly anything. But you’ve allowed your pride to dig you into a trap that is so deep you can no longer escape it.”

The first hint of Foxcourt House’s garden reached us then, and within only a few moments, the coach had come to a stop. I seized the handle of my door before he could, already opening it and stepping out into the night.

I kept my voice low as I whirled back to face him. He was pale and grave in the darkness of the compartment, but his eyes burned for me.

“I see you,” I told him. “I see you, and I will not abandon you to the dark.”

With that, I shut the door and passed through the garden gate, to the sleeping house.

Chapter Thirty-Five

I spent most of the day pacing by the window of the morning room, waiting for any sign of the nectar’s arrival. Hugh had made himself scarce for the whole day, likely—and correctly—assuming I might try to talk him out of whatever bloodied plans he’d come up with.

Whether Greystone was determined to make us wait or the nectar truly had to travel some great distance across Albion, I was out of patience by the time Felicity summoned me upstairs to dress for the Midsummer Ball. But my bleak mood burned away at the first sight of glimmering silk and taffeta.

Rarely in my life had I felt as overcome as I did when Felicity unveiled the gown she had feverishly labored over for the past day and a half.

“I . . .” I began. I sat heavily on the edge of the bed, my eyes wide. “You . . .”

The gown was a magnificent meeting of Felicity’s romantic imagination and her growing skill with a needle.

“You like it, then?” Felicity asked hopefully. “Mrs. Silver and I had it out over whether to add the rosettes along the neckline, but I needed something to anchor the layer of gauze.” Felicity stopped, peering at me. “Are you quite all right?”