"What do you know?"
He closed his eyes and tried to arrange his thoughts.
"I know he got too rough with her." Simon shrugged.
"In what way?"
Please let it go, Lily.
"In what way, Simon?" she prodded.
"Intimately," he confessed. "He scared her intimately." He didn't know how else to verbalize it.
"You mean like when they were together?"
"More like when he was inside her." When he
placed his teeth upon her shoulder. When he tore her flesh. When he marked her as his own.
"Oh." Lily looked confused.
"There are times…" Simon started. Then he stopped.
"Times?"
Simon closed his eyes tightly. "Times when a man, men like Daniel and me, feel like we could lose control."
"Do you feel that way with me?"
"I'm sure I will."
"Simon, you would never hurt me." Her hand moved to cup his face. Such tenderness, even when he revealed some of his inner battle. He didn't deserve it.
Simon kissed her palm. "I wouldn't intend to. And neither did Daniel. Once he realized he was capable of it, he took himself away from her."
"Where did he go? To other women?"
"Never."
"I could never bear it if you left me."
"You're stronger than Emma. You would adjust."
Lily shook her head and touched her lips to his. "I'll have to coerce you to stay."
She could try. But even she couldn't stop the cycle of the moon.
Forty-Two
Simon hated lying to her. He simply detested himself for it. She deserved so much more. But he'd decided before their marriage that she would never know about his Lycan side, so certain measures had to be put in place. For her safety. He kept reminding himself that this was for her safety.
"You're leaving me?" she asked, her hands on her hips.
"I'll only be in London for a few days," he said as he avoided looking into her eyes. If he did, he would confess all his sins. He would tell her every untruth. Then he would watch her turn from him in revulsion. He couldn't bear it. He simply could not.
#p#分页标题#e#
"Why can't I go with you?" she asked. Her eyes pleaded with him, demanding that he answer.
"You simply cannot. It's not that kind of journey."
"Then what kind of journey is it?" Lily began to pace from one side of the room to the other.
Simon clenched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He'd been feeling more and more out of control as the days passed. And the night before, he'd nearly taken her too hard when he'd made love to her. She'd cried out when he'd gotten too rough. He couldn't allow himself to hurt her. He surely would if he stayed at Westfield Hall.
"It's the kind you can't go on!" he snapped at her.
Lily's indrawn breath made him cringe.
"Lily," he said softly as he walked to her. Perhaps he should grovel at her feet. He could drop to his hands and knees before her and lay his snout over her slipper. Maybe she would take the hint.
He reached for her.
She raised her hands to fend him off. "Don't touch me, Simon."
He stepped back, surprised by her tone of voice. "This is really bothering you?"
"As though you have to ask," she said before she turned on her heel and left the room, slamming the door behind her so hard that the portrait of an old ancestor in front of a lake shook from its hanger and hit the floor with a bang. His Lily certainly knew how to leave a room.
"Billings!" Simon called. The man appeared in the doorway. "Find Maberley, will you?"
The butler nodded. Since this was the last cycle of the moon before Oliver was to be at Harrow, Simon had, indeed, been fortunate to make arrangements with Lieutenant Schofield. The man's generosity with taking Oliver for a few days so he could become acquainted with young Leo Schofield would not be forgotten.
In the morning, he and Oliver would leave for Surrey. Instead of traveling on to London, as he'd told Lily, Simon planned to return to Westfield land and go deep into the woods to a small crofter's cottage that wasn't used any more. And there he would wait until the moon began to wane. Until he was once again free to love her.
He would wait there alone in sheer misery. He already missed her, and he wasn't even gone yet. It would be torturous to be so close to her, yet so far away.
***
Lily punched her needle through the fabric with much more force than was necessary, she knew. But she had to take out her frustration on something. Simon was out on estate business, and Oliver was in his chamber, sequestered with his Latin text, so the poor fabric she was stitching would have to substitute.