But the kiss wasn’t returned, and after a shocked pause, Robert pulled back and Ian let his hands fall.
Robert pressed his knuckles to his mouth. “I can’t,” he said, voice muffled. “You know I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to her, or to you.”
Ian’s chest ached. Despair settled over him, dark as a shroud.
He didn’t know exactly why he’d kissed Robert. Maybe to prove to him that this really was the end. Or maybe he’d wanted to prove it to himself.
Some part of him had suspected Robert wouldn’t kiss him back. Because Robert was kind, and he was loyal, and he was everything, everything Ian had ever wanted but didn’t know how to ask for. He was everything he couldn’t bring himself to ask for.
“I didna think so,” he said, so coldly that he nearly hated himself. So coldly that he wondered what was wrong with him, that inside he could be churning like a storm and outside was nothing but crisp, clear skies. “Go marry the girl, Robert. Stop wasting my time.”
And just like that day so many years before, he turned and walked away. It was easy, he thought, to walk away from the people you loved. It was easy.
You just didn’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Georgina had taken away his bottle of whisky.
Robert squinted up at her. It was dark. The only light in the room came from the dying fire. But he wasn’t sure if it was night. The curtains were drawn tight.
There were many things he wasn’t sure about. Like what day it was. Or when he’d last eaten. Or taken a bath.
He sniffed and smelled stale sweat. Cringing, he laid his head down on the table, letting the cool wood relieve his overheated face. Not long ago, at this very table, he’d become a betrothed man.
He paused. He didn’t think it was that long ago. But his brain was a little fuzzy.
“I’ve never seen you this foxed,” Georgina said. “I’ll be honest, Robert—it’s a bit disheartening.”
“George,” he mumbled. “I won’t be a bachelor much longer. I need to do these things while I have a chance.” He heard his own voice from a distance, slow and slurred. So much for being articulate to the last drop.
“You need to pull yourself together. This is not helping anything. And we have guests.”
“George,” he said suddenly, quietly, desperately. “Where did Ian go?”
His sister paused for the smallest second. “He left his room at the castle. He decided to stay at the cottage north of here. The one that’s about a twenty-minute walk?”
He knew which one she meant. It had been abandoned years ago, and Annabel had stayed in the derelict structure briefly two years ago. But since then it had fallen apart even more. Did it even have glass in the windows?
“That place isn’t fit to live in.”
“That’s what I told him, but he seemed certain of his decision. I doubt he’ll be there much longer, anyway—the repairs on his own cottage are moving along quickly.”
“Yes, I knew that. I think.”
But he’d been trying not to think about it. Every time Robert recalled his argument with Ian, dread made his chest tight and his breathing stagger. Even if he did manage to push Mr. Hale and Alice together, it wouldn’t matter.
Ian wouldn’t be waiting for him at the end.
Robert wondered if he should have seen this. Everything had been fine when they were wrapped up in their own little world, but as soon as the outside world encroached, as soon as an obstacle emerged on their path, Ian balked.
No, he hadn’t just balked. He’d taken a flying leap off the carriage. Run off into the heath somewhere, never to be found again.
It made sense, he supposed. Ian—unyielding, solitary bastard that he was; Ian—who kissed a boy only to forget his name; Ian—whose family had betrayed him, and who, in turn, built up a wall of stone, would go into a relationship expecting the worst.
And when their carriage slammed into the obstacle, Ian would escape, bruised perhaps, but whole.
He didn’t seem to realize there were other options…like moving whatever blocked the road, or going around it…because these things took patience and trust and love and effort. And no one had ever given him that before. No one had ever shown him how it was done.
Love was a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t a thing to be taken lightly, or toyed with, or revoked at a whim. Its presence was felt, and its dearth. Always, always, the lack of it was missed.
Love made all the difference in the world.
Robert’s share of it had been secure, and Ian’s had not.
So Robert couldn’t even blame him. Not really. None of the things that had happened to Ian were Ian’s fault. If Ian had needed that wall around his heart to survive, who was Robert to try and tear it down?
And Robert was probably an idiot, too. Because it wasn’t as though this particular obstacle was a fallen log—it was more like a jagged boulder, and it was because of Robert that it was there in the first place.
And maybe Ian’s form of brutal honesty was more realistic. It was quite possible that Hale would never find his bollocks and Robert was doomed to fail.
And right now, with the image of Ian walking away from him still fresh in his mind, he could barely bring himself to care. His heart hurt, and his head ached, and he was tired, and what was the point of any of it, if he couldn’t have Ian when it was done?
All the wishing in all the wells of all the world wouldn’t bring Ian back to him. All the falling stars in all the sky wouldn’t be enough.
“’S no good…” he muttered. It’s no good without you.
“I have no idea what you’re mumbling about,” Georgina said.
“Sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too, but this is for your own good. Someday, you’ll thank me.”
That was when he felt the shock of cold water, all over his head. He spluttered, standing up so abruptly that he knocked the chair over. His hair was plastered to his skull and trickles of cool water dripped down his neck and into his shirt.
“Fuck! Georgina! What in the bleeding—”
“Don’t swear at me,” she said calmly. “Are you sober?”
“No!” he exclaimed. “Now I’m just drunk and half drowned.”
“Half drowned? Really?” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve prepared some tea. Drink it.” She pushed a blue-and-white teacup toward him across the surface of the table.
She’d made it strong and sweet, the way he preferred it. Robert sipped at the tea until his head cleared a bit, but it didn’t make him feel better.
His thoughts turned to John and Alice. He wondered if she was disappointed in her cousin. In her former best friend. He wondered if she missed him. He wondered if she would be happy with Hale, or if it would just be one disappointment after another. A lifetime of small hurts.
“I give up, George,” Robert muttered. He’d thought saying the words would be a relief, but he only felt like he might cry. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, and with it, the stinging pressure at the back of his eyes. “I have no business playing with other people’s hearts.”
Georgina sat down across from him. She didn’t pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. “But…you’re in love with someone else, aren’t you?”
His head jerked up. She met his gaze calmly, eyes glittering in the candlelight, and he couldn’t read her expression. Did she know? Did she care? Did she, like Ian’s parents, think he was unnatural? He couldn’t imagine Georgina ever saying such a thing to him, but he supposed there was always a chance—one never truly knew the darkest, most hateful parts of someone’s heart until they were revealed.
But he could glean no clue into her thoughts, so he left it. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t push Hale into something like this, anyway. What kind of marriage would that be? I doubt it would make Alice very happy.”
“You’re always worrying about everyone else,” she said, and she didn’t make it sound like a good thing. “What about you? What about your happiness?”
“My happiness is…out of reach.”
He closed his eyes briefly, saw Ian’s back. A shut door in front of him. He had a feeling that image was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
“I am sure you are right.”