bear the weight of the world on your shoulders, and you do it without a word of complaint.” His eyes glowed as he looked at her.
“I do it because I can,” Caroline replied, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the way he was looking at her.
“Because you think it is your responsibility,” he added, and the glow fell from his face, replaced by something darker, something menacing. “You risk everything in order to help while others inflict pain without thought.” His jaw tensed as his thoughts circled back to the little girl sleeping upstairs. “He needs to pay,” he growled then, and his hand dropped from her chin as he stepped back, releasing his hold on her.
Caroline understood his anger, his rage, and yet, she could not help but mourn the loss of the intimacy she’d felt between them only a moment ago. Now, the distance returned and began to grow, forcing them apart, and she feared the thoughtless rage she’d seen in his eyes before. “What will you do?”
His hands balled into fists once more. “I’ll kill him,” he growled out, then spun on his heel and marched toward the door.
Panic grabbed Caroline, and she flew forward without thought, reaching the door a split second before him. Pushing her back up against it, she blocked his way out. “You cannot!”
He stopped barely an arm’s length in front of her, his gaze narrowed as he stared down into her eyes. “Why would you protect him?”
“I’m not protecting him!” Caroline snapped back. “I’m protecting you, you and Daphne.” She drew in a deep breath, her eyes holding his, willing him to listen, to see reason. “You’re her father now. Do you truly want her to lose yet another? Do you want her to go through that all over again? Are you truly that selfish?”
His jaw tensed, and he glared down at her. “Do you think I cannot best him?”
“That’s not the point,” Caroline argued, drawing on her powers of persuasion. “Say everything goes according to plan. You seek him out and kill him, what then? Even peers can be tried and hanged for murder!”
The savage spark in his eyes dimmed as his mind slowly grasped the straws she was holding out to him. “Then I’ll call him out,” he stated stubbornly, the need for revenge still pulsing violently in his veins. “It is done all the time no matter what the law says.”
“Do you truly think he’ll fight fair if you give him fair warning?” Caroline demanded. “You know what kind of man he is. He would find a way to kill you.”
Pierce scoffed—with everything that had happened between them, she could no longer think of him as Lord Markham.
“And even if you should succeed in killing him,” Caroline argued as she stepped toward him, needing him to consider this from all angles, “there will be consequences for you. It is one thing for a duel to have no repercussions when both participants come out of it alive. But as soon as you kill him, the matter takes on a different severity.” She reached out and grasped his hands, feeling the tension that held him rigid. “You could hang for it. What about Daphne then?” If he didn’t care about himself, she needed to make him think about his daughter.
His teeth ground together. “She’ll be provided for. I’ve made certain of that.”
Caroline looked up into his eyes. “She’ll be heartbroken to lose you. You may not place much value in your own life, but she does.” As do I, she whispered silently. “Can you truly do this to her again?”
His shoulders slumped and, for a moment, he closed his eyes. “What would you have me do? Ignore what happened?” His gaze burned into hers. “I cannot do that! I cannot!” The need to move, to do something hummed in his veins, and she could see that he stood on the brink of madness, consumed by the injustice of what he’d experienced.
“And I would never ask that of you,” Caroline assured him, her hands once more holding him in place as her eyes sought his, afraid he would not hear her otherwise. “What I’m asking is that you find another way.”
“There is none!” he snapped, then jerked his hands free and began stalking around the room like a man possessed.
“There always is a way!” Caroline argued, her voice growing louder in accordance with his frustration. “Do you hear me? There always is.”
He paused and looked at her, and she could see that he was