“So much terrible information,” he corrected, reaching for her. She jerked away. “I had snippets of terrible information and no real answers about her whereabouts. I thought it would hurt you if I—”

“Told me the truth?” she asked with a humorless laugh. “Or did you think me too stupid to understand it? Or too fragile to bear it? You, who doesn’t even care to know me beyond the bedroom? You, who wants to keep as many barriers between us as possible for my protection?”

He turned his face at her accusation. It hit so hard in his chest because it was true. When she said the words out loud, he heard the cruelty in his actions. Heard the cowardice. He had withheld from her by telling himself he was protecting her.

But he’d really been protecting himself. From letting her in. From admitting how much she mattered. From allowing her to be his partner in every sense of the word and giving himself to her as her partner.

He had clearly been silent for too long because she huffed out a breath. “Well, now I know so there is no use trying to pretend anything any longer. I will take care of this myself.”

He moved toward her. “Thomasina—”

She shook her head. “Don’t. Just don’t. Oh, and you needn’t worry anymore about my feelings, my lord. When I look at you right now, the only one I have is contempt.”

She pivoted and exited the room in only his shirt, slamming the door that connected their chambers and leaving him standing naked, staring at the place where she’d last stood.

His legs shook and he sank into the chair she had abandoned a moment before. He stared at the letter from Reynolds that had started it all.

And then he looked toward Thomasina’s chamber again and knew he was utterly lost.

The rage that bubbled in Thomasina’s chest was an emotion she had rarely allowed herself to feel over the years. It had always been crushed down, first by others who told her it wasn’t right and later by herself because she had believed them. But now it boiled, threatening to overwhelm her.

She loved Jasper, but she’d also trusted him. That was the material fact. She’d had faith in him, and all along he had been lying. Not directly. No, he was too proper to lie to her face. He did it by omission. He did it by using their connection to turn her away from everything that mattered. That stung far more than it should have and inspired the cold words she’d snapped out in their bedroom.

His bedroom.

She shook her head as other, more comfortable emotions joined that anger. Fear.

No, not fear. That wasn’t a strong enough word for what she felt. It was panic. Panic over what could be happening to Anne at this moment. Jasper’s man of affairs had written to him about Ellis. That man seemed like a pure villain, and Anne had run away with him. Rook, the one she’d last been seen with, sounded slightly better, but only because no one knew a damn thing about him.