Nightingale by Cathy Maxwell Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t. He’d proven himself to be a monster.
    She slid off the desk and stood over him, her bare toes inches from his knee. He waited for her to leave. She took a step away, then knelt down beside him.
    Dane turned away. Didn’t she understand what he’d been about to do? What he had done?
    Her arms came around his shoulders.
    He stiffened, but she did not let go. Instead, she rested her head against his. Her hair provided a shelter for both of them. She didn’t speak, but hugged him, and he was reminded of a Spanish painting he’d once seen of the Virgin offering solace to a sinner.
    Then he felt her tears against his neck—and it was his undoing.
    He was a man, one who had faced countless dangers, one who had done what he must to survive . . . and Jemma? She was his one vulnerability.
    If she had made a different choice years ago, would he still be this same man? Or another? Perhaps he would have been one who didn’t have to be so hard? One who didn’t use his pride as a shield to keep himself from feeling or thinking too deeply?
    And it was this man, the one he might have been, who let down his guard. Who, in a voice Dane barely recognized as his own, ground out the question that had driven him for years: “Why, Jemma? Why did you choose another over me?”

Chapter 8
    J emma tightened her arms around Dane. She didn’t want to answer this question.
    For a second, she let herself drink in the scent of him. She pressed her lips to the crook of his neck, feeling his warmth. Her fingers were sensitive to the texture of his skin . . . and she wished she could stop time, to spend eternity right here in this moment and avoid the dangers of going forward.
    He waited, as still as stone. Even his heart seemed to have stopped beating . . . and Jemma knew she could not evade the truth.
    She sat cross-legged on the floor, bringing him to sit opposite her. Their knees practically touched, and she placed her hands on his thighs, feeling the strength there. Their nakedness underscored the need for unvarnished honesty.
    Dane did not look at her. The candles in another wall sconce burned themselves out, and Jemma feared it was a sign. The lines on his face were hard, bleak with raw emotion.
    She’d done this to him. She’d broken him.
    The realization of what she had once so carelessly tossed aside overwhelmed her. His love had been true. Now, with the experience of life’s hard lessons in greed, lust, selfishness, and desire, she understood exactly how rare and fine his love had been. This awareness made her confession all the more difficult. “I married him because I was too young to know any better.”
    The words sounded trite, even to her own ears.
    She wasn’t surprised when he pulled back. “No one forced you?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe her.
    Jemma frowned. “There was pressure from my family . . . and from Alfred,” she admitted, referring to her husband by his Christian name. “At the time, he was wealthy—or so we thought—and I would be a Lady. Lady Mosby.” The title mocked her.
    â€œBut you could have said no?” he questioned.
    â€œI could have,” she answered.
    He reacted as if she had struck him. She understood. Even though he had spent years blaming her, a part of him, the part that had believed in their love, had rationalized that she’d had no choice. He pushed her hands off his thighs.
    His reaction tempted Jemma to throw her arms back around him and swear that her parents had forced her to abandon him. She hated to destroy those last, remaining delusions between them. But she couldn’t. She’d already hurt him too deeply.
    â€œI was very, very young, Dane,” she stressed. “Alfred was worldly and promised a life in London. Remember, my family could not afford a season . . . there were the many advantages to Alfred over you. Especially to a