Leave her.
He didn’t trust himself to be with her at the moment.
She left him.
Left him without a damn word.
He took a step backward, turning away from her as he fished into his inner right pocket for the key to her room.
“Talen.”
Her voice stopped him.
Small and pitiful and tinged with fear. It was the fear that stopped him.
Fear of him?
“What in the almighty hell were you thinking?” He turned halfway back toward her, every word punctuated with rage. “Why would you leave like that? To the docks of all places? You damn well disappeared without a bloody word.”
She took a step backward, her hands lifting to him, even though her left hand was awkward with the bandaging on the splint wrapped up and around her palm. “Talen, stop. I cannot stay. But I didn’t…didn’t want to leave. Leave here. Leave you.”
“But. You. Did.”
Her right hand flew high beside her head, her words in a frenzy. “I panicked—I am weak and I panicked. But it was all I could think to do. Run. Terror-stricken. I had to run fast, get out—leave London. Don’t you see? There is no other choice, not now. I have to leave England and the docks were the only place to do that. I had to leave now, tonight. I still do. I have to get back to the docks before the tide. I have to. You have to let me go.”
“You’re not going anywhere near the damn docks.” His words seethed, vicious. He turned away from her, looking out the open door, sucking in a breath. A modicum of control over his voice returned and his head swiveled back to her. “By Zeus’s tooth, why in the hell do you think you need to leave England?”
Her head shook, her eyes wide to him. “You don’t understand what’s coming for me, Talen.”
“Gilroy is dead.” All control lost again, his words shook the air.
“But my father is not.” Her foot stomped into the carpet as she shouted, matching his anger. “My father is very much alive and four years ago he made me choose between a lecherous old marquess and Gilroy, and the only grace of it was that I was able to choose the lessor of the two evils. I won’t get another chance to escape. Not once he has me again. I guarantee you he is coming for me and is about to sell me off again. He wouldn’t have travelled to Whetland Castle to collect me if that wasn’t the case. That’s what Juliet’s note said—he came for me—he couldn’t have come to collect me any quicker.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what he wanted.” He snapped the words, even though the manic fear in her eyes should have curbed his volume. But at least her fear wasn’t at him.
“I do. My father never cared for me one way or another, where I was, what I was doing, save for the time that he wanted to make coin from selling my body off. I was sold like a whore, nothing more.”
He tried to level his voice. “So what were you thinking you would do?”
“Leave. Leave England as soon as I possibly could. Leave before you could stop me. Get on a ship and leave.”
“And then what? What was the plan?”
Her palm flew up. “I don’t know. I was working on that part. It would have depended upon where the ship landed in port. If it was in a big city, I could look for work as a governess. I could take in sewing. I don’t exactly know, but I was working on it. But I needed to disappear first.”
He took a step toward her, yelling, his fist punching into the air at his side. “You were already disappeared, Ness. No one knew you were here. Beyond Verity, Declan and me, you are nothing but a ghost. No—you were nothing but a ghost—no one could find you, not even your father. But now…”
His words cut off, his fist unfurling and curling again and again.
“Now what?” Her hand went flat onto her belly, her face paling.
He expelled a sigh, his fingers running through his hair. “Now everyone knows of you—do you have any idea how many people I had looking for you?”
“You…you sent people to find me?”
“Too many to count. In every street and alley. And one of my men spotted you by the docks. Everyone knows you’re connected to me now.”
She swayed slightly. Her fingers pushed into the dark blue muslin on her gut, looking to hold back a retch, her breath speeding. “So that means my father will find me.”