of willing females to help you mend it,’ she said, adding, ‘if your heart suffered so much as a crack.’
Blaize’s expression changed; his eyes narrowed so that she couldn’t read them. ‘You’re right, of course.’ His tone was clipped, neutral. ‘In the scheme of things it hardly rates, at this distance.’
‘Then why are you sniping at me? And why do you want to…wring my neck?’
‘A figure of speech. No man likes to be made a fool of.’
‘I didn’t mean to do that.’
‘You could have told me earlier,’ he said, ‘if you had doubts.’
‘I know. I’ve said I’m sorry.’
She’d said it in a letter too, after she’d fled the scene, knowing that her parents and Elena—and Blaize—would have to deal with the mess she was leaving behind. A letter he had never responded to, not that she’d really expected it. She had asked him to try to forgive her, not expecting that either. But she hadn’t thought he would hold a grudge all this time.
She had never seen Blaize as her enemy, and it hurt that he seemed to bear her active ill will. ‘Do you hate me?’ she asked, her voice low.
‘Hate you?’ The scornful sound he made was clearly an indication that she wasn’t even worthy of that. ‘Of course not.’ But there was no comfort in the denial. ‘Hatred is a waste of energy.’
Implying that he had more important things to spend his on. The small ache in her heart sharpened. Silly, because she’d certainly brought this deliberate indifference on herself.
‘Besides,’ Blaize said, ‘if you’re going to stay, we’re bound to come in contact now and then. It would make life uncomfortable all round if we couldn’t stand the sight of each other.’
‘I never said I couldn’t stand the sight of you!’
A sardonic curve twisted his lips. ‘You just didn’t think you could stand it across the breakfast table for the rest of your life?’
‘You know it was a lot more complicated than that.’
‘I have no idea how complicated it was. Or wasn’t. Your letter didn’t give me much to go on. Dear Blaize, sorry, goodbye.’
‘That’s not fair! And not true!’ She’d spent hours agonising over what to write.
‘Oh, I grant you there were more words, but in essence that’s what they said.’
She’d found it hard to express her emotions, muddled as they were, but she’d become increasingly panicky as the wedding approached. And when she tried to tell her mother about her growing doubts Rhoda Kenyon had brushed them aside, assuring her that she too had suffered bridal jitters but they meant nothing, that she’d never regretted marrying Sorrel’s father. ‘You’ll be all right on the day,’ she’d asserted.
But Sorrel hadn’t been. And at the eleventh hour she had finally found the courage to say so.
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