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She threw her hands up in the air. “And so what then? You would willingly marry into a family that does not respect you? Though seeing how your own cousin treats you, I can see how you’re used to such things.”
“Margery, you go too far,” he growled.
“I don’t go far enough,” she declared. Suddenly her expression shifted; she appeared infinitely sad as she approached him, her mournful eyes focused on his face.
In that moment, with her beautiful, soulful eyes on him, Daniel felt more exposed than he ever had in his life. He tensed, fighting the urge to run and never look back.
“I can see you think you deserve people treating you in such a way,” she said, her eyes scouring his face with such intensity he was hard-pressed not to cover his scars with his hand. “But you deserve so much more than to marry someone who merely tolerates you. You deserve—”
“Love?” he burst out, desperate to cut her off, instilling as much coldness into his voice as he could dredge up. “I assure you, being that vulnerable has only brought me pain. And besides, hasn’t it occurred to you that, if I give up on my plans to find a woman to marry in a little over a sennight, you will not get your money?”
As he’d expected, the mention of her required fee completely distracted her from the subject of his marrying for love. But as much as he’d wanted to redirect the conversation, he didn’t expect such a reaction from her. She appeared for a horrifying moment as if she might collapse on the spot.
He reached out for her arm when she swayed. “Margery. Are you well? Margery!”
She started, looking up at him with eyes that had gone glassy with—what? Fear?
It was quickly doused. Or, if not doused, covered up so he could no longer see it. “I’m fine,” she said through stiff lips.
“Fine,” he muttered. Taking her arm, he guided her to the closest chair, the one at her desk. She sat heavily.
Then, though it physically pained him to do it, he sank to the floor before her, the better to look at her face. Her eyes were dull, her skin pale, the angry flush having fled her cheeks. “Margery, what is it?”
“Nothing at all,” she managed. But she would not look him in the eye.
He blew out a frustrated breath. Taking up one of her hands in both of his, he was shocked at how cold it was. “What do you need the money for?”
“I hardly think that is any of your business,” she replied. But her words lacked heat. Instead there was a kind of weary defeat in them.
“No, you’re right in that,” he said gently. “It is no business of mine. But I would help if I could.” When she merely pressed her lips tighter together, he continued. “Margery, are you in some kind of trouble?”
That flash of fear again, there and gone so quickly he would have missed it had he not been watching her so intently.
“Margery,” he tried again, squeezing her fingers, “I’ll help you if I can. What is it?”
So many things went to battle on her beautiful face, thoughts and emotions all warring with one another, one indiscernible from the next. Finally she dragged in a shaky breath and looked at him. And the hopelessness in her gaze nearly undid him. “Tell me,” she said, her voice so low he almost couldn’t hear her, “what would you do if the memory of someone you loved was threatened?”
He had expected all manner of things, from in-laws extorting her to mismanagement of funds to even gambling debt. But that question, spoken with such heartbreak, told of something so much deeper and more troubling.
“Whose memory is being threatened?” he asked.
She pressed her lips tight, as if she regretted saying as much. But when she pulled her hand from his grasp and started a frantic twisting of her wedding band, he knew.
“Aaron.”
She blanched. It was all the proof he needed that he was right.
But why would she need one hundred pounds, an incredible sum of money, to protect her husband’s memory? And why not ask her family for the funds? Why hire herself out in secret, unless—
“You don’t want your family to know what your husband did.”
The fury in her eyes was swift and all-encompassing. “Aaron didn’t do anything wrong. He was a good man. A brave man. He would have never—”
Again she cut herself off. But he had heard enough. One word stood out from them all:brave. A horrible premonition was rising up in him.
Before he could fully grasp it, however, she reached for something on the desk, held it in her lap. He glanced down to see what her fingers cradled so tenderly—
And froze. Staring back at him was that boy that had haunted his nightmares, both waking and sleeping, for the past four years.
