He was still off-balance from this unexpected turn in the conversation, and he couldn't think of a proper response to her question. He wasn't even sure he owed her one; a moment ago she had been all sarcasm, and perhaps this was rhetorical. He couldn't tell. He was only half-focused on the conversation now, while the rest of his mind reeled through the same refrain: how did you miss this? How could you be so stupid?

"I've always been more comfortable with strangers," he said — a thin, paltry attempt to the charm he so often affected. He didn't know why he said it, because obviously he didn't expect she'd find it charming. Maybe he'd said that sort of superficial nonsense often enough it had become habit, and now all he was capable of was falling back on habit.

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Lou made this! <3

Her enjoyment at having caught him so off-guard fizzled out as quickly as it came. Regrettably, concern replaced it and she was not interested in his feelings. She needed not to care at all, but she couldn't separate the man she wanted and the man she very much wanted to slap in her mind. They both looked like her Emrys and she wasn't sure which facet made him more difficult to bear. She found herself back at the sofa, she needed to step away for a moment, even if it was just a few feet before she motioned to the opposite end of the furniture piece. "Sit down. Please." It came out sharper than she intended on the heels of his flippant statement, her eyes betraying the hurt his shallow statement caused before she could lock it away behind something easier for her to stomach. "Be that as it may, I am not a stranger and you and I have been comfortable enough that I need you to give very real thought to what I've said."

She gave him a moment to consider - more accurately, she gave herself a moment. "Emrys," she'd used his name like a litany in the past two days, unable to understand how it could feel so right on her tongue but seem to have so little effect on him. "You cannot ask me to continue and not have considered this. Were there even a whisper of this, I will lose everything. Everything to your nothing." This went deeper than his ridiculous conclusions about marriage. Even without a poorly chosen courtship or his others, how could he be so uncaring about what became of her? "You cannot lecture me on my supposed future happiness when you seem happy to disregard that I am frightened now. You are safe, but I am terrified."

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The following 1 user Likes Angelica Selwyn's post:1 user Likes Angelica Selwyn's post
   Melody Crouch

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MJ made this miracle!

Emrys felt physically ill at her description of her current emotional state. This had never been what he wanted. "Of course I won't ask you to continue," he agreed weakly. Much as it would pain him to lose her, everything she'd said just now was correct. The risk was unacceptable, and he still didn't know how it had taken this for him to see it.

Emrys took a seat, though not where she had indicated nor where he'd been sitting before. This was not a concession so much as a retreat; when he lowered himself into the chair they had most of the room between them. He pressed the fingertips of one hand to his brow, as though pressure could jostle his brain into some more productive thought patterns. "This isn't what I wanted," he murmured, words directed towards his palm rather than to her. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."

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Lou made this! <3

Her frustrated groan was aimed at her own idiocy as much as his. Perhaps this is what the muggles meant about 'tilting at windmills' as she wasn't certain either of them was entirely sure of the terrain any longer. She felt the fracture in her heart grow as she saw him shrink in on himself. This was was worse than his anger or repeated denial (at least for this second). Her pain was her own. When the dust settled and he'd recovered from his shock and still chose to spite her and play happy family, the pain of losing him would be her company. He would move on, he'd done the bulk of that already, but he had the nerve to look hurt. He looked lost and she couldn't save them both. But even as she thought it, she knew which of them she would try and spare; she had known for months.

He had drawn a firm line in the space between them, but she found herself crossing the space anyhow. What else was there to lose if he pulled away from her again? She knelt next to him, the indignity of kneeling like this irrelevant if she could find anything to ease this for them. She resisted the urge to take his free hand, but her head went to rest on his knee. The minimal contact was something to anchor her as she tried to measure her breathing. "I didn't think this could happen. Not like this." She pressed a kiss to his knee, the gesture feeling insignificant but somehow necessary. "I was so sure I would be what you wanted. I am so sorry, my love. I am so truly sorry."

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MJ made this miracle!

He didn't know how to handle her touch. It was inherently comforting, but there was a warning bell somewhere in the back of his mind that said perhaps it shouldn't be. They weren't on solid ground yet, so it wasn't as though she was offering him a lifeline. And the words that accompanied the gesture didn't make sense, at least not immediately. She didn't think what could happen? Happen like what? Emrys had been dizzied by the risk itself, once she'd brought it to his attention. She didn't mean to say that she thought she was in a delicate situation, did she? If that were the case surely she wouldn't have waited until now to bring it up, when they'd been arguing about his imminent engagement for essentially an entire day. He couldn't entirely discount the possibility, though. The way she'd phrased it might have been leading, as well: Not like this. I was so sure I would be what you wanted.

She'd come here last night intending to convince him, not to trap him.

Except he wasn't the only one trapped, as the content of their past two conversations showed. He didn't think he was capable of offering her what she wanted, but if what she was implying was true then it wasn't as though she had many other options. She was trapped, too.

Emrys grimaced. He met her eyes, though he didn't know what she would see in his. Fear, most likely. How could he not be afraid, when things had spun so entirely out of his control? "Are you sure?"

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Lou made this! <3

She met his eyes from her place at his knee, turning her face to rest her cheek against him with a sigh. Words usually saved her, but she only seemed to lose ground when she opened her mouth tonight. She wondered if she looked as lost as he did, she certainly agreed with the unsettling mix of things she saw in his eyes.

What more could she say to make him understand her? To believe her when she said the future she wanted was for them both? His question was a loaded one and she could feel the edge of the cliff inching closer. She'd run out of tactics and arguments and had little energy for hope, but she couldn't deny the little spark of something in her when he didn't shove her away. He hadn't told her to leave.

"Yes, I was sure I would be your choice. I am still sure I can be what you say you want and what I know I want." She kept her voice even, stating the truth as simply and honestly as she could. She needed him to hear what she said, not what he thought he would hear. She moved her hand deliberately, doing her best not to startle him when he looked as near to unraveling as she felt. Placing one hand on his thigh, she gave him the option of taking her hand, if he wished, but she wouldn't force it. His presence was a comfort to her, the scent of his many colognes, the rich tobacco scent, and the fabric of his clothing - so many pieces of him were her sanctuary. "I am sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I walk away from you, I will regret it for the rest of my life."

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MJ made this miracle!

After asking his question he realized it had two interpretations: are you sure you're pregnant and are you sure this is the solution you want. She'd only addressed the second, which wasn't what he'd been after at all. No matter how many times she said she was comfortable throwing her life away to be with him, and that that would make her happy, he still couldn't believe it.

He moved his free hand to the arm of the chair, farther away from the one she'd placed on his thigh. If she continued on this way eventually he was going to run out of places to retreat to in this chair, but he didn't have the heart to push her away. Emrys took a breath.

"I need time to think." He wanted to meet her eyes as he said it, but he didn't. Instead he found himself looking just slightly above her head. What a coward he was.

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Lou made this! <3

Her grip on his thigh tightened, what other reflexive gesture could capture the war inside? She wanted to hex this idiocy out of him; to be reassured he was here with her; and, shamefully, she wanted his strength to weather this storm. She needed him to be everything he seemed determined to refuse her now. She took back her hand, trying to fight the despair that came to her with distance. It was what he wanted, what his actions told her even if he was too fearful to say the words.

She sat back on her heels, turning her face from him to gather herself. He wouldn't meet her eyes, but she refused to search for his gaze when she was losing her battle with another rush of tears. How did she still have the energy for emotion when he seemed determined to strip her of everything else? She managed to dampen a snort to an almost appropriate huff of contempt. "Time to find the words you need to drive me away, you mean." There was no question in her words, she knew he wouldn't offer her the words she needed now, but he was twice the fool if he thought them so easily dissolved.

There was another matter still looming, something that would make their lives more complicated than it already was. "Should I bother to inform you if I am --- if," She couldn't say it aloud, couldn't give words to something she desperately wanted if only circumstances were different. 

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WC: 251

  

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MJ made this miracle!

"Time to think," he responded, irritated. He understood that she was disappointed in the way the conversation had progressed, but so was he. Or maybe disappointed was the wrong word, but certainly shocked. He hadn't thought this possibility through, and he couldn't think while she was here with her hand on his thigh.

At her unfinished question he nodded wearily. "Of course. If," he said, using the same one-word stand in for a possibility he didn't really want to voice. "We'll marry." Not the ideal way to start a relationship, especially given the conversation they'd just had, but Emrys' hands were tied. It took two to tango, but if she was in a delicate situation he assumed the lion's share of the blame. He ought to have known better, ought to have taken precautions. He had no intention of abandoning her after saddling her with his mistake. Even if the alternative was a marriage that would be unfulfilling and hollow for them both.

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Lou made this! <3

'Speechless' could rarely describe Angelica, but Emrys Selwyn managed the nearly impossible. He'd denied her the one thing that could solve both of their concerns, even if he was too bullheaded to understand. She'd been certain, after a few hours apart, that he would see the sense of her solution; the sense of having her as his. He'd surprised her in the most disappointing way, still certain in his delusional choice to deny her, but then he truly muddied the waters.

There were other solutions she refused to voice now, at least the only one she'd consider. If - what a dangerous word - she was currently carrying his child, she would raise it, but she wouldn't need to do so in Britain. Her family had extensive property in Italy, going back to Russia was out of the question. She could live as a widow with her child abroad, reinvent her life another time. She'd rebuilt after her late husband and she would do it again if she must. The thought that truly stung wasn't the possibility of leaving the country again, it was his evaluation of her worth. How could he see so little in her? She should let it rest, let it be, and hold her grief close, but speechlessness was temporary and Angelica relentless. "I will not satisfy you, but an heir would be sufficient grounds to marry me?" It stung, but even voicing that felt unfair. Reluctantly, resignedly, she amended, "Now I am the irrational one. Of course, an heir would be enough. How ridiculous to think otherwise when you lack one."

WC:265

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MJ made this miracle!

The muscles in Emrys' neck tightened. If the accusation hadn't made him angry, it would have depressed him. To think that after all this time, she thought so little of his character. To think that she apparently had no idea the depth of his feelings towards her, even after he'd come out and explained very clearly why he didn't want to marry her in the first place. It would have depressed him... but at this point it was just the latest in an increasingly long line of ways in which she'd been disappointingly out of sync with what he was trying to do, ways in which they'd talked past each other instead of understanding. He didn't have it left in him to be surprised any more, but he did still have his pride and his anger.

He reached out to take her wrist and removed her hand from his thigh, putting some distance between the two of them by force. "I don't care if there's a child," he snapped, edging past her to rise from the chair and cross the room. "I care about not burdening you with the cost of my mistakes. Write me when you know."

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Lou made this! <3