To hear her defend Regal cut me deeper than any insult or rebuke she could level at me. My fingers tangled in her soft hair and I unwound them carefully. Regal. All the weeks I had gone alone, avoiding her, not speaking to her lest it cause scandal. Leaving her alone, so that Regal could come in my stead. Not courting her, no, but winning her with his practiced charm and studied words. Chopping away at her image of me while I was not there to contradict anything he said. Making himself out to be her ally while I was left voiceless to become the unthinking callow youth, the thoughtless villain. I bit my tongue before I spoke any more ill of him to her. It would only sound like a shallow angry boy striking back at one who sought to deny his will.
“Have you ever spoken of Regal’s visits to Patience or Lacey? What did they say of him?”
She shook her head, and the movement loosed the fragrance of her hair. “He cautioned me not to speak of it. `Women talk’ he said, and I know that is true. I should not even have spoken of it to you. He said that Patience and Lacey would respect me more if it seemed I had reached this decision on my own. He said, also … that you would not let me go … if you thought the decision came from him. That you must believe that I turned away from you on my own.”
“He knows me that well,” I conceded to her.
“I should not have told you,” she murmured. She pushed a little away from me, to look up into my eyes. “I don’t know why I did.”
Her eyes and her hair were the colors of a forest. “Perhaps you did not want me to let you go?” I ventured.