Page 66 of A Knight for Gwenllian

Seeing that a retreat was impossible, he stormed back to the other end of the garden as if he could not bear being in her presence. Gwenllian ran after him, desperation churning in her stomach.

“Wait, please. We need to talk.”

“Talk?” He spat the word, then turned to face her. “Why? Should you even be here? I’m sure Hugh is waiting for you in bed, ready for more.”

Gwenllian recoiled, not knowing how to handle this Alexander. The cold, distant man who had told her they should never see one another again had cut her deep, this hot, scathing one was flaying her alive.

“You weren’t supposed to see us like this,” she whispered. “Why did you come back so early?”

She knew this was the wrong question as soon as the words left her mouth. She had made it sound as if she had hoped her betrayal would not be discovered. Horrified, she shook her head.

“I-I mean⁠—”

“I know what you mean, thank you. And indeed, I imagine that you would have preferred for me not to know that you’d gone to fuck my brother as soon as my back was turned.”

“That’s not what happened!”

“Of course, it’s not. Forgive me for having thought as much after seeing you naked in bed with him in the early hours of the morning. I’m sure there is another explanation for this perfectly normal state of affairs. Perhaps you counted the number of doors wrong again and thought you were fucking me? We do look alike.”

Now he was mocking her. “No, it’s not⁠—”

“I’ll tell you why I came back, shall I?” Alexander answered, taking slow, deliberate steps toward her. He had never looked more menacing. “You might as well know just how much of a fool I am. I came back, at breakneck speed, I might add, because I wanted to ask you to marry me. I thought that, even if I had been stripped of my home, I could find the courage to tell you what I had come to feel for you and what I wanted us to do.”

Gwenllian’s heart almost exploded in her chest. This was the last thing she had expected him to say. The most wonderful. The most terrible. Because it explained how deeply the supposed betrayal would have hurt him.

“You…want to m-marry me?”

“Wanted to marry you. Needless to say, I will not make an offer now.”

No. Had she ruined everything by wanting to ensure the future she’d hoped to have with him? And, apparently, she had been right to hope. Alexander was saying that he had developed feelings for her, feelings that had prompted him to make her an offer of marriage. It was too good to be true.

Except that she might have compromised everything.

“Please, Alexander.” She was frantic with the need to get through to him. “I swear nothing happened between Hugh and me last night, at least not what you think.”

“And I’m supposed to believe you after what I saw?”

Gwenllian made a helpless gesture. No, he could not be expected to believe her after what he’d seen. But he could at least listen to the full story before he made a decision.

“Yesterday afternoon, I overheard your conversation with your brother,” she started hurriedly, taking Alexander’s hands in hers. To her relief, he didn’t snatch them away, even if he glared at her. “I should perhaps say that I spied on your conversation, really. Forgive me, it was not well done of me, but I needed to know that everything would be all right.”

Fortunately, he didn’t appear bothered by her indiscretion. “In other words, you heard his desire to spend the night with you. Is that why you decided to go to his bed? Because you were interested in him also, and you were glad to hear that he would not send you away if you joined him in bed? Was he to be your next adventure?”

Oh, no. Gwenllian was horrified. Alexander thought that she had jumped at the chance to bed a man she had wanted all along. Why was it so hard to make him see what had really happened? Her plan, which had appeared so brilliant the night before, started to look like the stupidest thing she had ever done.

“I decided to go to him for you!” she cried out, desperate to make him understand. “I could not stand to see you lose Audley just because you wanted to protect me. It was not⁠—”

“Jesus, Gwenllian!” Alexander let go of her hands as if her skin had burned him. And the heat of his fury, in turn, scorched her to her soul. “How could you suppose that I would just accept your sacrifice? You are telling me that you sold your body to buy me a shelter, and you thought that I would be grateful for it? Well, I’m not. I am horrified. Do you know what burden you have placed on my shoulders? I cannot bear the idea that, because of me, you were⁠—”

“No. I wasn’t. Hugh and I never slept together, I swear. He never touched me,” she cut in. “This is what I’m telling you. Please. You really need to hear what I have to say, what really happened.”

There was a tense silence. Then, to her relief, Alexander collapsed onto the stone bench behind him, as if he had suddenly been sapped of all his strength. That he dared to sit while she still stood showed her how affected he was.

“Let’s hear this.”

He sounded like a man steeling himself for the declaration announcing that he was about to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

Speaking in hurried, confused sentences, Gwenllian explained what she had done to convince Hugh that Alexander had agreed to the condition he’d been given. She kept to herself the most damning details, like the fact that he had torn her shift or mocked his brother’s supposed lack of vigor.