Free The Lie and the Lady by Kate Noble Page B

dazed eyes met his.
    â€œBut”—his voice came out a gravelly rumble—“if you want me to stay, if you want me at all . . . you don’t have to say anything.”
    His thumb brushed over her cheek. His heart beat faster than he knew it could go. And he watched those dark eyes as she debated. As she argued against herself.
    As she . . . remembered the rest of the world. And where she stood in it. Not on a dock in Dover. No, she stood wearing the title of countess, lifting her well out of his reach.
    It happened in a blink. Her face shifted back from flushed and open to icy and shuttered. “You think you can stir my blood and make me forget myself?”
    â€œI think I can stir your blood, that’s for damn certain.” He felt himself getting angry . . . No, it was worse. Not anger—desperation. Because she was slipping away from him.
    â€œThat . . . is nothing,” she said. “Something left over—a residue of when I could trust you. But I will never again put myself in the care of someone who lies to me.”
    â€œLetty, you can trust me—”
    â€œNo, Mr. Turner. I cannot.”
    Something broke over him, made his breath hitch. Because watching her in that moment, he saw the truth. The very truth at the core of his Letty.
    What she said was real.
    She would never let herself be with him. No amount of cajoling, no kisses or touches or heated looks was ever going to change that. And he had been the world’s biggest fool to think that she would.
    â€œExcuse me, milady?” a voice came from behind them, forcing them back outside of themselves.
    A boy stood behind them, and judging by his thick oilskin coat and lack of shivering against the cold, his age belied his experience at sea. “Your trunk’s been loaded, milady. Beg pardon, but Captain says we can’t miss this tide.”
    â€œThank you, I’m coming,” Letty had replied before turning back to face Turner.
    He held his breath.
    â€œGo,” she’d said. “I never want to see you again.”

    TELL ME TO go and I will. He’d spent the past six months ruing those words.
    He’d thought that if he could just explain himself to her, she would understand.
    Because she knew him. She could recognize him at a thousand paces, blindfolded and in the dark. And he could recognize her as well.
    But it hadn’t gone as planned.
    She’d told him she never wanted to see him again.
    And it nearly killed him.
    Did he whine? Did he lock himself up and write bad poetry? Did he get angry and despair, and waste himself and any of his newfound funds in a flaming and embarrassing tantrum of feeling?
    No, he did the exact opposite. He spent one night getting drunk with his friends Rhys and Ned as was proper, and then he went to work.
    He lost himself in finally doing what he had spent so long planning: rebuilding the mill. The best millwrights in the country had rebuilt the structure itself. It had been rebuilt twice actually, having burned originally six years ago, and then three years later a wanderer had camped for a night in the empty building and left a fire burning—that was as best as they could determine, anyway. The first time, the fire burned so hot it smelted the iron works, shafts, and gears. New equipment had to be ordered and installed—and the expansion for the new steam engine equipment . . .
    It had taken all of his energy and determination to bring the mill back from the dead in time for this year’s harvest. That would be the true test—once the next harvest of wheat started being culled next month, he would know whether or not he had wasted the last six years of his life.
    After a while, he began to think that he was glad that Leticia had sent him away. His work was too important. Getting his mill back, his life back on track, was too important. He didn’t need the distraction.
    He didn’t need