Lady Sarah's Secret

XXXXIV. Amelia's End Instead

"Where will you go?" Amelia spoke softly, as she stood in the doorway of Henry's bedchamber watching his valet scramble to pack. He spared only a glance at her, then continued his own hurry about the room.

"That is what you are about to do, is it not? Leave me... again," her voice rang clear in the heavy silence of the room. Amelia felt a numbness begin to crawl up her arms as she watched him, a pain too great to bear was coming over her now and she did not know if she would survive it again. But she stayed where she was, for neither could she walk away from the sight before her. It would be etched in her mind, she promised herself, this moment when she ceased hoping for Henry Pembroke.

He did not speak, Amelia did not leave and at last the valet had the trunk packed away and departed to load it onto the coach. The coach that would take him, she thought to herself, the thing that would finally tear him away.

"You do not want a life with me," Henry spoke as he stopped to face her in the doorway, and she could see the hardness in his face that she'd suspected all along.

"No grins? No winks? No jokes, dear Henry?" she mocked him in a subdued tone, and watched as his jaw clenched and he looked away from her.

"You do not know what I am now, Amelia," he insisted in that dark tone, but it settled against her ears as his true voice all along.

"I have guessed all along," she denied his claim calmly, "It is you who do not know what you are now, I think," she added, staring at him as if he could be figured up or sorted out should she stare at him long enough. But then, he would never stay to let her try, she smirked to herself.

"I have only just killed a man before your eyes, Amy!" he shouted now, his arm outstretched towards the parlor as if to replay the event itself. Amelia did not flinch, she did not flinch when others flinched. Only continued to stare at him, wanting him to know exactly how he would leave her this time; against her desire entirely, with eyes wide open.

"You would deprive me of a life with the man I love? Children? Marriage? A home?" she accused, emotion finally cracking her voice, "All because you do not care for me to know what you've done, how you've changed?"

She could see her words wounded him that time, his expression grew helpless for an instant, he moved his arm as if to reach for her, then dropped it again to his side.

"You will have those things," he insisted, that desperate ring to his tone, "As soon as you are rid of me, you will find all those things you want," Henry repeated, but she knew he only meant to convince himself of his rightness in abandoning her.

"No," she answered easily, the word hung between them for several seconds.

"No I will not," she stated it as a fact that would not be argued away, "You've never believed that to be true."

"I cannot do this with you Amelia-"

"You will not, Henry, it is a choice!" she snapped back at him, her resolve finally dissipating as her hands clenched into fists at her side.

"You will break me, Henry," she declared, her voice full of the grief and betrayal that thrummed through her, "You will take everything I have ever hoped for... and you will break me," she promised, tears pooling in her eyes as she watched him.

"You will find another," he said coldly, then leaning forward pressed a kiss to her forehead, Amelia closed her eyes, wishing to remain in that moment with him forever, to never reach the next.

"Do you not love me at all?" she asked in a whisper, then waited with baited breath, aching for him to deny it, to correct her, to hold her again. She felt Henry's hand brush against her cheek, and opened her eyes as he stepped away from her. Amelia felt a sharp pain in her chest, black dots scattered across her vision as Henry's lack of denial settled over her in full.

"Henry," she whispered in a broken voice, hating how desperate she was, but having no other choice. He only stared at her before taking another step away.

"I must go," he excused himself quickly and turned to take the stairs.

"Do not come back," she said in a thin, icy voice as she watched him go, "There will be nothing here for you anymore."

He paused for a moment, and she wondered if he might look back, but in another instant he was taking the stairs by twos, fleeing from her, leaving her behind. In a moment of uncharacteristic sadness, Amelia Amesbury sunk to the carpet where she'd stood and sobbed.