CHAPTER 91: CHAPTER NINETY ONE

The room was silent, save for the heavy, ragged breathing of three people whose worlds had just collided. The violence had stopped, but the air was still thick with it.

Rowan sat back on his heels. His hands were shaking. He looked at his sister, really looked at her, as if he were seeing a stranger wearing Ines’s face.

"Why?" he asked.

His voice was low. It wasn’t the roar of the bear anymore. It was a whisper of shock.

"Why would you do such a thing?" he asked again, the question hanging in the air like smoke.

Ines couldn’t look at him. She knelt on the floor, the hard wood digging into her knees. Her nightgown was torn at the strap, and her hair hung in a curtain around her face, hiding her shame. She hung her head low, staring at the pattern on the rug where drops of Carcel’s blood had fallen.

Rowan shifted. He knelt with her, coming down to her level. He reached out and placed his hands on her shoulders.

Ines flinched. His hands were warm, heavy, and terrifying. She looked at his knuckles. They were split and bloody—not his blood, but Carcel’s. The red stain against her pale skin was a stark, brutal reminder of what had just happened.

"I told you," Rowan said, his voice ringing with a deep, crushing disappointment that hurt far more than his anger. "I told you on the balcony. I told you clearly. Carcel has no intention of marrying!"

He shook her, just a little, as if trying to wake her from a dream.

"He cannot love you, Ines. He cannot be a husband. I explained his past. I explained his pain. And you... you decided to throw yourself at him anyway?"

Ines bit her lip so hard she tasted copper. She didn’t answer.

Rowan took a deep breath, trying to regain the composure of a Duke, trying to find the logic in the madness.

"As a lady of the House of Hamilton," he said, his voice trembling, "as the sister to the Duke of Ford... do you understand what this means?"

He looked around the room—the messy bed, the closed door, the late hour.

"If it is found that you spent a night... a night like this... with a man you aren’t married to... it would be a great disgrace!"

He let go of her shoulders and ran his bloody hands through his hair, leaving a streak of red on his forehead. He looked frantic.

"No, no," he corrected himself. "The family’s disgrace is not the problem. I can handle disgrace. I can handle society."

He grabbed her shoulders again, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were wet.

"You, Ines. It is you," he said desperately. "You won’t be able to marry anyone! Your reputation will be ruined. Completely. Irrevocably. No decent man will touch you. You will be an outcast. You will be... ruined."

Ines looked at her brother. She saw his fear. He wasn’t worried about his title. He was worried about her future. He was worried she would be alone.

Tears streamed down her face, hot and fast.

"I don’t care!" she cried.

The words burst out of her.

Rowan blinked, stunned. "You don’t care?"

"No!" she sobbed.

I don’t care about the ton, she thought, her heart screaming the truth her lips couldn’t speak. I don’t care about what they think. I don’t care about being a Duchess or a Countess.

Because if it’s not Carcel, she realized with a sharp, final clarity, I don’t want to marry anyone else. I would rather be ruined with him than respectable with anyone else.

Rowan stared at her. He saw the defiance in her eyes. He saw the absolute, reckless certainty.

He slowly let go of her shoulders. He stood up. He towered over her, a tall, exhausted figure in the dim light.

He looked down at her, analyzing her face, her tears, her torn dress. He looked at the way she kept glancing toward the corner where Carcel lay.

"Are you..." Rowan began, his voice hesitant. "Are you, by any chance, in love with Carcel?"

Ines froze.

Rowan continued, piecing together a narrative that made sense to him. "Is that it? You fell in love with him. And because you knew he wouldn’t marry you... because you knew he wouldn’t court you properly... you met him like this? To have a piece of him?"

It was a romantic, tragic explanation. It was the explanation of a brother who wanted to believe his sister was a victim of her own heart, not a seductress.

Ines looked at the floor.

If she said yes, if she admitted she loved him, Rowan would blame Carcel even more. He would think Carcel had taken advantage of her feelings. He would think Carcel had used her love to get her into bed without promising her a future.

And... she was afraid. She was afraid that if she said the word "love" out loud, here in this room that smelled of violence and sexual indulgence, it would shatter.

"No," she whispered.

Rowan frowned. "No?"

"It’s not like that," she said, shaking her head. "It wasn’t... it wasn’t just love."

Rowan looked baffled. If it wasn’t love, and it wasn’t marriage... then what was it? Was it madness? Was it lust?

"If it’s not that," Rowan asked, his voice rising again, confused and hurt, "then why... why did you do this, Ines?"

He gestured to the room, to the bed, to Carcel.

"Why did you risk everything? Why did you destroy yourself?"

Ines gritted her teeth. She closed her eyes.

The truth. He wanted the truth.

She thought of her manuscript. The culprit of this whole situation. She thought of the stack of papers in her hidden drawer. She thought of the thrill of writing, the joy of creating a world where she was in control. She thought of how desperate she had been to know, to understand, to feel so that she could write it down.

She had started this for a book. She had started this for art.

"For my..." she began.

She opened her eyes. She looked at Rowan.

"For my no..."

Novel. The word was right there. For my novel.

If she said it, he would be more disappointed than he is now. But it was the truth.

"For my no..." she tried again.

A movement from the floor stopped her.

Carcel groaned.

Rowan and Ines both turned.

Carcel was moving. He had been lying still, weak, absorbing the pain, accepting his punishment. But now, he was pushing himself up.

He rolled onto his side, wincing. He placed a hand on the floor and pushed, his arms shaking with the effort. He managed to sit up.

He looked terrible.

His left eye was already swelling shut, turning a dark, angry purple. His lip was split, blood dripping down his chin and staining the white of his unbuttoned shirt. His cheek was bruised. He looked like a man who had been in a war.

But his eyes... his one good eye... was clear. It was focused.

He wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, smearing it across his knuckles.

He looked at Rowan. He looked at Ines, kneeling on the floor in her torn dress.

He saw her fear. He saw her shame. He saw the way she was looking at him, as if he were the only thing in the world that mattered.

He remembered what she had said. "It was me. I asked him."

She had tried to take the blame.

Rowan was waiting for an answer. Ines was trying to explain the unexplainable.

Carcel took a breath. It hurt his ribs, but he didn’t care.

"I will marry Ines," he said.

His voice was rough. It was thick with blood. But it was steady.

The room went silent.

Rowan stared at him. Ines stared at him.

Carcel didn’t look away. He kept his gaze fixed on Rowan.

"I will marry her," he repeated, louder this time.