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“What are you doing?” she asked. “Put me down.”

But he did not respond, instead carrying her all the way to the study and placing her down in an armchair. She looked around the dark room in faint amazement; it was his own personal room, and so he had ensured that it was decorated to his tastes alone, rather than what was considered fashionable.Had she ever seen anything that was truly him, and not the mask he put on for society?

“Stay there,” he instructed, and poured her a whiskey.

He handed it to her, and she smelled it, immediately pulling a face. Her nose wrinkled.

“It helps,” he explained, and she tentatively took a sip.

She coughed immediately, recoiling and putting the glass back down. When Miss Penton had given her brandy, it had been mixed with lemonade and would not have tasted as bad, buthe had given her strong alcohol in a purer form and she was evidently not someone that enjoyed that.

He couldn’t help but laugh as she took another drink, but she gave him a furious glare when he did.

“Do not mock me.”

“I am not.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“Enjoying your company. It is how we were before, is it not?”

“It is clearly not how we are now.” She placed her glass on the table with a click.

“Emma, why were you crying?”

“You already know why, and if you do not then you are a fool.”

“Then a fool I am. I want what is best for you. Please tell me how I can do that.”

“You abandoned me!” she snapped. “I understand that you do not like it here, and that you do not love me, but you brought me here and left without another word.”

“I thought that was what you wanted.”

“Why would I want that? Why would I want to be taken somewhere completely unfamiliar to me and left without a single person that I knew there?”

“Because you cannot– you couldn’t bear the sight of me. You did not look at me all throughout our wedding.”

There was a beat, and Emma’s eyes did not leave his.

“Levi, I spent the entire day wanting you to look at me. I wanted you to tell me that you had changed your mind–”

“And that I did not want the match, is that what you wanted?”

“And that you would reconsider what you wanted from our marriage,” she finished. “I waited and waited for it, but it never came. When you left me alone, that was all of the proof I needed that you did not want to be near me.”

“I only keep my distance for your sake. I wish I could tell you just how much I hate the position I have put you in, but it is impossible to understand.”

“I found it rather easy, actually,” she replied coldly.

His blood ran cold. He had never told her anything about his life, with the exception of a few things about his mother, but Emma was giving him a look of knowing. Somehow, she had learned the truth about him, and he was so ashamed by that that he was the first to look away.

“Who told you?”

“Your mother. She explained everything. She believes that one day you will be a terrible husband, one that I will hate. Tell me, Levi, have you ever considered that this curse of yours might simply be a superstition that you are choosing to believe in?”

He had considered. But he did not allow himself to hope. He saw pieces of his father seep into him more and more as time passed. He could see why his mother had always hated him; it was because she always knew what he would become, and she had to prepare for that.

“I did not choose any of this. The circumstances of my birth were out of my control, and now I have to be this way.”