Peregrine was jarred. He had thought that once Sara knew, she would accept. "You make too much of this," he said, anger rising again. "You are condemning me for damaging a railway that might have failed anyhow, for not closing a brothel that would be in business again in days, and for considering actions that I never actually performed."
"I don't think this is something that we will ever agree on," Sara said wearily. "Go ahead and enjoy your revenge. Revel in every wicked moment of it. Kill Weldon with your bare hands."
As she watched him with great haggard eyes, the ticking of the clock could be heard, sharp and insistent as the hoofbeats of hell. Her voice a raw whisper, Sara finished, "But I cannot live with a man who is wantonly injuring innocent people."
Chapter 25
I cannot live with a man who is wantonly injuring innocent people.
Sara's words hung in the air like smoke. At first Peregrine did not comprehend her meaning. Then annihilating rage swept through him. He strode to her chair and grabbed the arms, his fingers digging into the upholstery to prevent him from doing violence to his wife. "How dare you give me an ultimatum! Do you seriously think you can force me to tamely turn away from what I have lived for?"
She stared up at him, her eyes dark pools of pain. "There can be no ultimatum since I have nothing to bargain with." Her quiet words undercut his rage. "I know my love means nothing to you, so I have no power to force you to change. Nor do I have the right to even try. We are what we are, Mikahl. You must crucify Weldon, just as I must leave you."
Her words struck him like a physical blow. He stepped back from the chair, too numb to know what he felt. "This is the first time you have mentioned love. What does the word mean to you? Some kind of superior weapon for controlling me?"
"I never spoke of love because I never thought you wanted to hear of it," she replied, bleak as dust. "I have loved you almost from the day we met, or I never would have done so many things that went against my principles."
"You seemed to enjoy them at the time," he said caustically. "Isn't that why you married me?"
She shook her head. "If you mean lust, no, that isn't why. I married you because I was in love with you. Why else marry a man who I knew would break my heart?"
He stared at her, astonished. "Just how was I supposed to break your heart?''
"By leaving me." Wearily she brushed back her heavy hair. "When we married, I didn't believe it would last long. And I knew that when you left, it would hurt like nothing else I have ever known. But I wanted so much to be with you that I was willing to pay any price in future pain."
He felt as if he had somehow landed in a strange country with no familiar landmarks. "You seriously believed that I married you with the intention of deserting you?"
"Nothing so calculated as that," she said slowly. "I think you married me for a number of small reasons that together tipped the scales. I amused you. You had some regrets over ruining my reputation. You were intrigued by the thought of marrying a duke's daughter, and you desired me. Now I see that I was also a prize that you had won from Charles Weldon. Stealing an enemy's woman is a classic form of revenge."
She leaned back in the chair, her face deeply sad. "But you never spoke of love. Now I understand why—with so much anger and hatred in you, perhaps there is no room for love."
"If I did not speak of love, neither did you," he pointed out, his voice brusque.
"Our backgrounds were so different that I didn't know what words of love would mean to you." A corner of her mouth curved ruefully. "And I suppose pride was part of it. It was bad enough to be sure that I would lose you. I didn't also want to appear pathetic by wearing my heart on my sleeve."
"What the bloody hell made you so sure that I wouldn't stay with you?" he exploded. "You keep coming back to that, and I don't understand why. Yes, my background is different, but I have usually been a man of my word. Did you think that marriage vows mean nothing to me?"
"After a lifetime of wandering, I couldn't imagine you staying in one place. You told me that you had never considered marriage, so I thought that when the impulse waned, it would be just a matter of time before you became restless and left." Sara paused, searching for words. "If I had known you were English, I might have been more optimistic about our marriage, for there is more common ground between us than I thought. In fact, there have been times in the last few weeks when I have believed it was possible..." Her wistful voice traded off.
Peregrine wanted to refute her cool reasoning, to throw it in her face and growl that she was wrong. Yet he could not, for all her reasons had a grain of truth in them. Nonetheless, the conclusion she had drawn was wrong, for his desire to marry her had been much greater than the sum of her reasons.