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Briggs knew that he was about to cross a line. And he thought to himself for a long moment about whether or not he wished to turn back. He did not.
‘Perhaps, it is simply that you are taking your feelings about what you would like to do with your ward and placing them on my shoulders.’
Hugh took a step forward. ‘You bastard. You would question my honour.’
‘I know what it looks like when a man burns with jealousy, Kendal. I’m not blind.’
‘And I know what it looks like when a man is gazing at a woman in a way that suggests he has taken her to bed.’
‘Are you accusing me of being bedded by my husband?’ Beatrice asked. ‘As if you have a say in that. As if it is yours to know? Because that is too far, Hugh. Even for you, it is too far. You may not control my life. You do not get a say in what I can endure.’
‘Having a child could kill you.’
‘Yes. But being married to Briggs and not having him would have killed me as well. Oh, I might’ve still drawn breath, but my broken heart would have hurt every time it beat.’
Hugh took a step back, a muscle jumping in his jaw. But he was only shocked enough to be set back for a moment. ‘He is not a knight of the round table, Beatrice. He is a dragon. And you will end up burned.’
‘Perhaps I like dragons. And fire in equal measure. You think me weak,’ she said. ‘And if you insist on inserting yourself into my life, then you will discover things that you may not wish to know. Not the least of which because you do not wish to know such things about your sister, but because you do not wish to find out you are wrong, and I think perhaps that is the thing that will burn the most. Do you think I fear the things that he wants? I run towards them. There are many things you don’t know about me.’
‘And you know exactly why his first wife died?’
Briggs took a step forward. ‘That is too far.’
‘If you laid a hand on my sister in the way you handle your whores then you have gone too far.’
‘You would rather I stay married to a man who must seek out pleasure at a brothel, rather than giving myself to him? Even if it is what I want?’
‘You cannot...’
‘I cannot understand? I was bled. My skin was cut open, my... The process of saving my life was nothing but pain. Pain and isolation. What I wish to do with that life should be up to me. The cost that it took to get me here... You do not get to say how I will live. It is not your decision to make. And you will not speak so to my husband.’
‘If you put my sister’s life at risk, I can no longer call you a friend.’
‘If you care so little for her happiness then perhaps I can no longer call you one either.’
And that was not even considering the fact that he had brought Serena into it. Her death. And his every feeling of guilt on the subject. ‘Come, Beatrice. I think it is time we went home.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
But not before she put her hand on his face and kissed him boldly on the mouth. ‘I should like to go home.’
She walked past Kendal without giving him a glance, and back into the ballroom.
Kendal stopped him with a hand on his chest. ‘This is a betrayal.’
‘It does not surprise me,’ Briggs said, his chest feeling cut open. ‘But in the end of all things, you find me as repellent as all others I have once called friends and family. But she does not.’
‘For now.’
‘For now,’ Briggs said.
‘And if she has a child, and she dies...’
The words stabbed straight through his chest. A knife to his heart. It was a deep fear, one that left him gasping for breath.
But he had seen her. What she wanted. What she was capable of.
What she craved.
