Something she did not wish to name.
She gulped in air as if she were drowning.
“Sarah, are you all right?” Everly asked.
She nodded, but it was a lie. Was she all right? No. Not even close. But being so near Everly was certainly not helping.
Tugging herself out of his grip, she stumbled back a few steps, nearly losing her balance in the now. “I’ll be fine,” she said with as much calm as she could muster. “I just need a moment, that’s all.”
He started to protest, concern clear in his tone, but she ignored him.
Turning her back to him, she fled. Where she was going, she did not know. Just so long as it was away from him.
10
Solitude, that was what she needed.
That’s what she’d been searching for in the first place when she’d happened upon Everly. What a disaster that had been.
Sarah shivered as she headed toward the gardens and the greenhouse beyond. Aside from the fact that it was too cold to linger outside, the greenhouse was also hers. It was her spot. The place where she did her best thinking. And in the days and weeks following her father’s death—it was where she’d gone to hide her tears to not add to her mother’s grief.
So now, it seemed only fitting that she go there to think. And stew.
And perhaps cry, but just a little.
She bit her lip as she slipped through the doors of her little sanctuary. She wasn’t even entirely certain why she wished to cry, or why Everly’s kindness and his words left her so emotional.
But that was what she needed to figure out. It was this jumble of emotions that she needed to unwind and maybe then she could find some semblance of peace.
Or at least, not fear that she might burst into tears at a moment’s notice.
The quiet and the relative warmth worked a form of magic the moment she stepped inside. She’d only had a chance to take in one long inhale and let it out in a sigh of relief before that blissful silence was broken.
For a moment, she assumed it was just the flurry of gardeners preparing the Christmastide decorations. Tomorrow, the house would be awash with mistletoe and holly. But as she looked up at the sound, she realized her mistake.
The door she’d just walked through flew open, letting in a gusty wind and...Mr. Stallworth.
Her whole body went cold, though she knew it had little to do with the frigid air he’d let in and everything to do with...him. Here. Alone.
“What are you doing?” she asked, pulling up straighter as she braced herself.
Because she knew what he wanted. As he moved toward her, remorse and regret pulled at the corners of his mouth making his normally handsome features, tight and drawn. “I needed to speak with you,” he said. In his hands he held his hat and she watched as he twisted it as he slowly moved toward her, his face tight with emotion. “Sarah…” He breathed her name like it was a prayer.
She shook her head stepping back. She didn’t want his pretty words or his practiced smile. She didn’t want a thing from him ever again. “This is hardly appropriate, Mr. Stallworth—”
“I’ve been waiting all morning to find a moment alone with you,” he said. There was a desperation in his voice, in his gaze...it made her chill turn to ice in her veins. “When I saw you heading in this direction, I knew where you would go.”
His expression turned knowing and she swallowed down a wave of regret. Shame. This was the place she had planned to meet him that night eighteen months ago. She’d told him to meet here so they might have their farewell.
And then Everly had stopped her and—
Thank goodness he had.
The realization hit her with a jolt. Thank goodness he’d put an end to it before she could have been caught. Ruined. Stuck with this man whose love had not lasted two years. If it had existed at all.
What a fool she had been.
When he moved toward her again, she shook herself out of her thoughts of self-loathing and fixed him with a glare. “You should not be here, Mr. Stallworth.”
“But we are in love.” He took another step in her direction, his hands reaching out, palms up, in a pleading gesture.
“You are to be married,” she snapped, a fist clenching at her side.
He finally came to a stop, and he let out an exasperated sigh. “Is that what is worrying you, love?” His smile was sweet, but her stomach turned.
Had his sweet smile always been so...patronizing?
He reached a hand out to tuck a curl behind her ear and she was too stunned to jerk away. Why did he think he had the right to touch her? “What are you doing?”
His gaze was soft, so tender, so...mawkish and sentimental. All the gestures she’d thought she’d understood were cast into a new light. There was nothing genuine here and certainly nothing special.
Her stomach turned as she shuffled back a step until the back of her legs bumped into a planter.
“I do not love her, you know,” he said.
She shook her head. “I do not wish to hear this, Mr. Stallworth. You are engaged to be married. That is all that matters now.”
“Yes, but you must understand. I never stopped loving you. What happened between Miss Rathmore and I was a misunderstanding, nothing more.” His voice lower and his expression grew grim. “Truth be told, the girl trapped me into marriage. You must know that is the only reason I would have gone back on my vow to you.”
Sarah stared at him, unable to respond because her head was whirling and her limbs were shaking. Her heart was racing—but not with excitement, and with nothing close to love. She knew that now.
The way her pulse pounded… This was not love.
This was fear.
And the last time she’d seen Mr. Stallworth at that ill-fated house party… It had been excitement. Girlish, childish, foolish excitement.
But never love.
How did she know…
Her heart raced even faster and her lips parted with a gasp. She knew because this was nothing like what she felt around Everly. This was night and day compared to the way he made her feel alive and seen and valued and understood.
When Stallworth shifted closer it was not the heady rush of connection she felt, it was...nothing.
This was nothing. It had always been nothing. She’d just been too foolish to realize. Caught up in her own fantasy and desire to prove to her family she was grown up enough for love and marriage.
When he took another step closer, she finally lifted her gaze to meet his and the dark greedy desire she saw there made her gasp in horror.
But Mr. Stallworth misunderstood. He misread. Because as she gasped, he smiled, and the smile was cunning and...wrong. That was the only warning she had before he reached for her, pulling her close, and pressing his lips to hers.
Her body froze at the unnatural contact. Everything in her recoiled at the feel of his cold lips on hers, so foreign and so at odds to the beautiful, warm sensations that had flooded her when she’d kissed Everly.
She shoved him back as hard as she could, and he stumbled away from her. “What—? What’s wrong?”
His look of shock might have been comical if she hadn’t been shaking with rage. “How dare you?”
He held up his hands as she stalked toward him. “Sarah, please—”
“How dare you take such a liberty with me?” she continued. “How dare you come back here after all this time—with a fiancée —and expect to pick up with me as though nothing had changed.”