Page 60 of A Fragile Enchantment

“To me, maybe. You smile like my mother did. Your eyes…” He trailed off, then seemed to think better of finishing the thought. More gently, he continued, “Forget it. My point is, if your family really loves you, they’d want you to be happy. They’d be fools for not recognizing how much you’ve given up for them, or how talented you are. So just… stop it. You don’t need to work yourself to the bone. You don’t need to do things for people before you ever think to do a thing for yourself. Whatever you think you have to prove or earn, it’s all in your head. Your existence aloneisenough. And if you believe you’ve made no difference at all to anyone, you’re even more clueless than I thought.”

But she did not know how to believe that, and she did not know how to stop. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” he said gruffly. “That’s all I have to say.”

They sat in silence for a few moments while her breathing evened out. She felt… awful. Yet somehow cleansed. Kit had not treated her gently, but she did not expect him to. There was something oddly comforting about his bluntness. It forced her to be honest with herself as much as it did with him. She supposed she owed him the same. “Do you want to tell me what happened out there?”

“Not really.”

“It’s only fair,” she said lightly.

“I’ve had a hard time controlling my magic for a few years now,especially when I’m emotional,” he said, only a little begrudgingly. “And especially when I’m drunk. Technically,that’swhy I got sent away.”

She could tell it cost him a lot to tell her; it surprised her he’d told her at all. Something told her he didn’t want sympathy. “I see.”

“Being in this house, what Jack said… It pushed me.” He frowned. “It’s hard to describe. When I lose control, I feel like I’m somewhere else. I go back to where I was four years ago. I don’t want to hurt someone like that again.”

“You didn’t hurt me.” Niamh hesitated. “Kit… What exactlyhappenedfour years ago?”

“You really don’t know.” It was less of a question than it was an expression of disbelief.

She did, and she didn’t. His mother had died, but there was something else. Something that Jack couldn’t tolerate. Something that frightened Sinclair. Something that Kit was deeply ashamed of. She braced herself for all of his walls—all of his thorns—to go up again.

But after a moment, he let out a long sigh and sat on the edge of her bed. The mattress creaked beneath his weight. “What do you know of my mother?”

“Nothing but what you’ve told me.”

“She was complicated.” Bycomplicated,Niamh sensed he meanttroubled. “For most of my life, it was like she lived behind a glass wall. You couldn’t reach her at all. It wasn’t until my father’s health began to decline that she came out from behind it. I hadn’t ever seen her so happy, or so alive.” Bitterness colored his words. “She went to every event of the Season, and soon, the gossip columns fell in love with her. They watched her every move, dissected her every word, commented on every little thing she ate and wore.”

He fell quiet for a few moments, and Niamh thought that he had followed his own vulnerability to its end. But to her astonishment,he drew in a breath and continued. “One night, she left a ball early. It was a dark, rainy night, a lot like this one. Her curricle overturned, just beyond the gates there.”

He jerked his chin out the window. A shiver worked its way through Niamh as she stared at the wrought-iron fence beyond the sheets of rain.

“I was too young to go to the ball, so I was here. When I heard the crash, I thought it was thunder. But when I went to the window, I saw…” He closed his eyes, and frustration mounted in his voice. “I can’t remember exactly what I saw. I can’t even remember what killed her, even now, even though theytoldme a hundred times. If it was the horse that trampled her, or her head striking the cobblestones, or… I just can’t remember.”

“Kit, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

“Her death alone, I could have dealt with. But the aftermath was a mess. The columns were desperate for details. They were like vultures, them and the rest of our court, and I was never able to satisfy their appetite. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened. I couldn’t remember, but no one let me forget, either. It was like this crater smashed open my life, and one day, I couldn’t step around it anymore. I fell into it. And once I fell, I kept falling, and thinking, until I didn’t want to think anymore. I felt like they wanted me to grieve differently. It felt like they were waiting for me to snap entirely. So I gave them what they wanted.”

Niamh wished she could do something, say something, that would make the pain of those memories go away. But sometimes, bloodletting was the only way to drain the poison. She reached out and placed her hand over his wrist. His pulse fluttered against her touch, but he did not flinch away from her.

“It was a bad period of my life,” he said, with a bitter wryness that made her heart ache. “Jack worried a lot, and I resented him for it. Sinclair tried his best to keep me together, but then the columns started speculating that the two of us were involved. I’druined my own reputation enough that not even my title could stop them from saying aloud what everyone already knew. I didn’t care what anyone thought of me, but Sinclair knew what his father would do if enough people talked.”

“They had no right to do that to either of you.” Niamh could not fathom such a violation. She boiled with anger, to know that nothing but idle gossip and small-minded hatred had cost Sinclair so much. “What happened then?”

“Apparently, someone made an insinuation about us at a ball when his father was in earshot. I’d been drinking too much and lost my temper. And then I lost control of my magic. Sinclair tried to rein me in. I almost… He almost…” He scoffed. “The worst part is, I don’t even remember what I did. I had to learn about it from the columns.”

Niamh did not need him to say it. The fear in Sinclair’s eyes today had already told her everything she needed to know. Whether he intended to or not, Kit had lashed out at him enough to leave scars. She imagined only half of them were visible.

Kit shook his head and muttered, “The idiot. He plays at being unreliable, but he’s stupidly loyal.”

“He has forgiven you.” She tightened her grip on his wrist. “He told me that he feels he owes you a lot.”

“No, I owehim.He could have walked away from me a thousand times. He should have, because I was killing him long before that night, and I was too self-involved even to care. After that, Jack put me on the next boat to Helles. He was right to do it.” His expression grew hard. “He was right about me today, too. The worst of both our parents. Doomed to end up either raving mad or dead on the side of the road.”

“Oh, Kit,” she whispered, blinking back a fresh wave of tears. “I know it’s hard.”

It felt so horribly inadequate. And yet, to her shock, Kit leaned forward and rested his head against her shoulder. He leaned heavilyon her, but he did not seem to know what to do with his hands. He folded them loosely in his lap, as though he were afraid to touch her. Tentatively, she wound her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck and cradled him against her. He went rigid, but as he relaxed, breath by breath, he finally dared to drape one arm around her.