continue the argument. Every word, every moment of time she spent in his presence drained her. Sucked the life out of her until her legs were shaking.
Wes opened his door for her and she stepped into his room. Quickly spying the port and glasses on the rectangular table across the wall from the bed, she went over to it, setting the pot in her hand down and pouring herself a glass of the crimson liquid.
She’d poured the second glass full before she realized what she was doing. Damn old habits.
A head shake of admonishment to herself, and she set the decanter down and picked up one of the glasses.
One long sip. Relief.
Another one, and her tongue felt almost normal again.
She shuffled to the side of the table and sat at one of the chairs, warily eyeing Wes. He’d stopped by the door and was watching her movements, not moving further into the room.
She took another sip, attempting to ignore his hawk eyes on her.
Setting the glass on the table, her fingers stayed wrapped around the fine cut crystal, playing with the deep etches of the glass. “I don’t know if glaring at me from afar constitutes a truce, Wes.”
He stepped across the room in three strides and picked up the other glass of port, his eyes not veering from her. “You’re sweaty.”
Her head snapped back. “What?”
His forefinger flipped out from the crystal glass to point at the top of her head. “Or you were sweaty. Your hair is matted along your brow.”
She looked away from him, her fingers going into her hair, breaking up the matted strands as she shook her head, shook the image of the nightmare she’d just had out of her mind. “I was dreaming.”
“A good dream or bad?” He moved to the other chair at the table, pulling it out and turning it in her direction. He sat, pulling his bare right ankle up to rest on his knee.
For his size, he’d always been limber. Not something he’d lost in the last seven years.
He took a sip of port, his dark eyes intent on her.
“Bad.”
“Morton?”
She should nod. It would be easy enough. But she’d never been good at lying to him. Never really even tried.
“No. When I dream of him, I only dream of the good times. Of how he could make me laugh. Of how adored I felt when he was with me. Everything that ever was good in Morty is with me in my dreams. It’s when I’m awake that I miss him.”
Wes’s mouth pulled tight. “I am sorry, Laney. Sorry that he died. Sorry that I didn’t do more.”
“Do more? What do you mean? I was told he was attacked by the docks in London.”
Wes shrugged, taking a long swallow from his glass. “Do more to save him from himself. But he was always uncontrollable.”
“He was. Wild.” All of her fingers wrapped about her glass, twisting it, making the cuts in the glass fray the flickering light from the fireplace. “But I loved the mania in his eyes—like he saw the world a hundred times brighter than the rest of us. Anything could make him happy. Watching a leaf fall from a tree. A single snowflake landing on a window. For as big and complicated as his spirit was, his heart was always gold.”
Wes shrugged, his mouth tight. Discussing how he viewed Morton was apparently not a part of the truce he’d offered her.
She lifted her drink from the table and took another sip, her tongue curdling. Taste had returned to her tongue along with the moisture.
Wes tilted his glass to her. “The port doesn’t meet your impossible expectations?”
She gave him a sideways glance. “I’ve never had a taste for port—not since…”
Her look shifted to the glowing coals in the fireplace across the room.
“Since when?”
A deep breath into her lungs and she looked at him, meeting his gaze. “Since we were engaged. Since too much port on my tongue ruined you. Ruined us.”
His eyebrows casually lifted, his head tilting ever so slightly to the side and sending a rogue strand of dark hair across his brow. “So you do take responsibility for destroying my life.”
Her lips pulled inward, her teeth clamping hard against words forming on her tongue.
He didn’t say another word, instead, his dark eyes—almost black in the low light—pierced her, saying everything.
All air left her lungs. “The truce is up?”
“Aye. I imagine it is.”
With a curt nod, she stood, leaving the glass on the table. With a rigid back she walked