Alethea watched him as he spoke – watched his eyes, his mouth, his hands. Knowing what she knew now, it was impossible not to see his resemblance to his brother. Their noses, especially, were perfectly alike. If only she’d noticed it sooner, perhaps this calamity could have been avoided. Or perhaps she had noticed, and that was precisely why it had happened.
What was it about the men of this family?
“I think,” she began, then paused. How to put it? She bent to set the teacup on the hearth, taking that time to collect herself.
The truth was, Alethea didn’t want to forgive him. The truth was, even knowing what she knew now, she wasn’t sure she would have done anything differently. She could not say, looking at him with his hands in his hair and that self-conscious look on his face, that she wouldn’t have wanted him. Loyalty to the idea of Tristan had stopped her short so many times, but in that dangerous ruin, for once, she hadn’t thought of him.
“I think we were both misled by the island,” she said delicately. “And I think we were on the same page, Guy…Gawain. Neither of us thought we would ever see each other again, after…” She averted her eyes, then. Looked at her hands folded on her lap. A blush had risen high on her cheeks. It felt shameful to admit that she had gone along with everything in such a way, with no intention of anything further. That was certainly not how ladies were supposed to behave.
“To be honest, I don’t really remember…what happened. I know that sounds far-fetched, but I remember the….room, and not much else after that.” Not much. But enough. Enough to know it would have been a betrayal, if there were anything to betray. She looked him in the eye again, offering a wistful half-smile of her own. “But for what it’s worth, I doubt Tristan would be upset about you...and one of his friends. Whatever happened.”
The question, ”what did happen,” hung unspoken in the air between them. She lightly shook her head.
“So really, there isn’t anything to forgive.”
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