"Yes." Jealousy warred with affection. Affection won. "She's wonderful."
"The shirt wasn't there. Julia claims to have an unerring eye for wardrobe, and I wanted to believe her. We decided you should be put on guard without going into specifics. I thought it best if you were wary of everyone. We decided that Julia would talk to you because you'd trust her more quickly than you'd trust me. I hadn't done anything to warrant your trust."
"She frightened me pretty successfully," Autumn recalled. "I had nightmares."
"I'm sorry. It seemed the best way at the time. We thought the film had been destroyed, but we didn't want to take any chances."
"She was telling Jacques that night, wasn't she?"
"Yeah." Lucas noted the faint annoyance in her tone. "That way there would have been three of us to look out for you."
"I might have looked out for myself if I'd been told."
"No, I don't think so. Your face is a dead giveaway. That morning at breakfast when you started rambling about a fourth roll and remembered, everything showed in your eyes."
"If I'd been prepared—"
"If you hadn't been a damn fool and had gone with Julia, we could have kept you safe."
"I wanted to think," she began, angry at being kept in the dark.
"It was my fault." Lucas held up a hand to stop her. "The whole thing's been my doing. I should have handled things differently. You'd never have been hurt if I had."
"No, Lucas." Guilt swamped her when she remembered the look on his face after he had dragged her from the lake. "I'd be dead if it weren't for you."
"Good God, Cat, don't look at me like that. I can't cope with it." He turned away. "I'm doing my best to keep my word. I'll get Robert; he'll want to examine you."
"Lucas." She wasn't going to let him walk out that door until he told her everything. "Why did you come here? And don't tell me you came to Virginia to write. I know—I remember your habits."
Lucas turned, but kept his hand on the knob. "I told you before, the other reason no longer exists. Leave it."
He had retreated behind the cool, detached manner he used so well, but Autumn wasn't going to be shoved aside. "This is my aunt's inn, Lucas. Your coming here, however indirectly, started this chain of events. I have a right to know why you came."
For several seconds, he stared at her, then his hands sought his pockets again. "All right," he agreed. "I don't suppose I have any right to pride after this, and you deserve to get in a few licks after the way I've treated you." He came no closer, but his eyes locked hard on hers. "I came here because of you. Because I had to get you back or go crazy."
"Me?" The pain was so sharp, Autumn laughed. She would not cry again. "Oh, Lucas, please, do better." She saw him flinch before he walked again to the window. "You tossed me out, remember? You didn't want me then. You don't want me now."
"Didn't want you!" He whirled, knocking over a vase and sending it crashing. The anger surrounding him was fierce and vivid. "You can't even comprehend how much I wanted you, have wanted you all these years. I thought I'd lose my mind from wanting you."
"No, I won't listen to this." Autumn turned away to lean against the bedpost. "I won't listen."
"You asked for it. Now you'll listen."
"You told me you didn't want me," she flung at him. "I never meant anything to you. You told me it was finished and shrugged your shoulders like it had been nothing all along. Nothing, nothing's ever hurt me like the way you brushed me aside."
"I know what I did." The anger was gone from his voice to be replaced by strain. "I know the things I said to you while you stood there staring at me. I hated myself. I wanted you to scream, to rage, to make it easy for me to push you out. But you just stood there with tears falling down your face. I've never forgotten how you looked."
Autumn pulled herself together and faced him again. "You said you didn't want me. Why would you have said it if it weren't true?"
"Because you terrified me."
He said it so simply, she slumped down on the bed to stare at him. "Terrified you? I terrified you?"
"You don't know what you did to me—all that sweetness, all that generosity. You never asked anything of me, and yet you asked everything." He began to pace again. Autumn watched him in bewilderment. "You were an obsession; that's what I told myself. If I sent you away, hurt you badly enough to make you go, I'd be cured. The more I had of you, the more I needed. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and curse you for not being there. Then I'd curse myself for needing you there. I had to get away from you. I couldn't admit, not even to myself, that I loved you."