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By her expression, she was becoming a little more lucid when she realized that he wasn’t a dream. Sitting up, she jerked her leg back, away from his touch.
“Go away,” she hissed. “Regresa a tus putas. No quiero verte de nuevo.”
She was quickly growing furious and cagey, but he remained calm. “I dunna know what ye just said, but I can guess,” he said. “Esme, ye must let me explain.”
He tried to touch her knee again, but she batted his hand away. “I told you to go back to your women because I do not want to see you again,” she said. She sounded raspy and weak. “I want you to leave me alone. I was stupid to have gone to the Ludus Caledonia for your help.”
“Why?”
“Because you are not who I thought you were. You are… are not an honorable man!”
He could see her lower lip trembling as she spoke, and he remembered what Lilia had said to him.
The lass feels something for ye.
Truth be told, he felt something for her, too.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Shifting, he sank onto his buttocks, watching her recoil from him. He could see the anguish in her eyes, anguish he had put there when she discovered the unsavory truth about some of his activities. Titus knew he would only have one chance to change her mind about him.
He never wanted anything more in his life.
“Will ye at least give me a moment of yer time tae explain?” he asked. “All I ask is one moment. If ye still want me tae go after that, I’ll go. Please?”
She turned away from him, looking back to the wall. She sniffled, then she coughed, and the tears began to come.
“You need not explain,” she said hoarsely. “You do not owe me anything, Titus. I am only a woman who came to you for help, and how you have lived your life is none of my affair, so you owe me nothing. But I cannot be a party to what you do. I will find my own way home to Navarre, without your help, so you can return to The Cal and resume your life. I am sorry to have troubled you.”
He watched her as she spoke, sensing that perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. Her nose was stuffy and she had a cough.
“Ye dinna trouble me,” he said. “It was no trouble at all. But I made a promise tae ye and I intend tae keep it.”
“What promise?”
“Tae help ye earn money.”
She closed her eyes, covering her mouth when she coughed. “You need not concern yourself,” she said. “I will make it on my own.”
She was being stubborn. He understood stubborn people because he was one of them. Under normal circumstances and with anyone else, he would have walked away. In fact, he wouldn’t have even made the effort to go after her. But this was the woman who had forced him away from his selfishness. In just a few days, she had done more for him, and showed him more, than anyone had done for him in his lifetime. He wasn’t so arrogant and stuck in his ways that he didn’t see that.
She was the key to a door on the future he could have never imagined.
He couldn’t walk away.
“I know ye can make it on yer own,” he said quietly. “There is no doubt in my mind that ye can do anything ye set out tae do. I’ve never met anyone like ye, Esme. Ye have a strength in ye that is beyond anything I’ve ever seen in a woman. I knew the moment ye came tae me that I was unworthy of ye.”
She kept her face turned to the wall, but he could see a single tear trickling down her cheek. It tugged at his heart, strangling him, because he wanted very much to comfort her. But he couldn’t.
They had to get a few things straight first.
“I’m sorry I’m not who ye thought I was,” he said. “But I’ve lived my life with no regrets. I’ve worked hard tae achieve a great deal in the face of adversity. Ye must remember that I’m a man who belonged tae no one, a duke’s bastard who was used as a pawn and then tossed aside when I no longer served a purpose. I have no one to answer tae other than myself. Do ye understand that?”
Another tear trickled from her eye but she didn’t reply. He continued.
“The Ludus Caledonia saved my life,” he said. “I willna apologize for the life I’ve lived there, but I will explain it tae ye so ye understand. Every coin I earn is in defiance of a father who never gave me anything. Every cheer from the crowd is praise telling me that I mean something, tae someone, and every woman I take tae my bed has been the assurance I’ve needed tae believe that I’m worthy. Mayhap that is wrong of me, or dishonorable, but it’s the truth. I’ve done what I needed tae do for myself. I’m the most selfish bastard ye’ll ever meet and I’m not ashamed of it.”
By this time, Esme’s eyes were open and she was looking at him. “I suppose if you are going to be something, then you might as well be proud of whatever it is you are,” she said. “As I said, you needn’t explain anything to me. I simply do not want to be a part of it.”
