She shook her head, she didn’t want to hear this, she didn’t care at all about the politics of it, she just wanted him to tell her he was going to fix it. “Allying myself with Lady Marion secures my position. Her family is his family, it was the only way. You remember the alternative right? Sheriff Gisbourne?” He just kept talking, talking at her, not to her. “Do you want to see him in power?”

“William!”

“Do you?”

“No, of course not!”

“We made this choice, Arable. We cannot back down from it now, not when our very lives may hinge on its success. Not when there’s so much at stake. We knew we would have to make sacrifices.”

He had thought it all out, it seemed. He had been practicing his excuses. He knew it was going to come to this.

“We did make a choice,” she kept her voice cold and even, “together. But you made this one on your own. You know it’s wrong. The fact that you didn’t tell me about it is all the proof I need.”

“I didn’t know how!” He slammed into the table as he stood. “I haven’t slept! I haven’t eaten! I didn’t want to hurt you … I haven’t had the time, I’ve been sick. I’ve been sick to my stomach, I thought I would vomit. I’m trying to fix things here, but I can’t do it alone, and I have mutiny in the prisons and Gisbourne breathing down my neck and suddenly I’m in charge of protecting everyone.”

“So of course,” Arable almost lost control of her voice, she had to grind it to a crawl, “of course you would get rid of the one person on your side. That makes a lot of sense.”

William shook his head, brushing her off. As if her concerns were meaningless. It lit her skin on fire. “It’s not like that. I promise you, I’ll find a way—”

“Your promises,” it was probably the only word he shouldn’t be allowed to use, “break to your politics.”

Those words seemed to hurt him.

“You promised to look after me. Did you ever write to your father, to find out if any of my family is alive in France? I’ve been writing all your letters, and I don’t recall that one in my list.”

His hand raised and dropped. “It was too dangerous…”

“So you’ve done nothing, then.”

He took a step forward and whispered her name, and she could feel the warmth of his body, his smell, and part of her could still forget it all and melt into him. When he reached out, she had to choose to stop him. Not just like that. He wanted the side of his hand to brush against her hair, and she found herself pushing him away.