“What lead?” Summer asked. “What /lead/, my lord? Am I not already there? What then will you have me do? I cannot leave your city, my lord, for that there is no one to escort me. I cannot stay, seeing you every day.” She pulled away, rising and taking a few strides along the shore. “If there is no hope — and you say there can be none, which I must believe — then I would you did not know. ‘Twould be simpler.”
Whirling, she looked at Henry. “Am I to have no choice at all?”
He looked at her.
“I mean that I would lead you to something that I know not what it is.” he said to her, “To have you grow such emotions for me, when I… I do not know my own yet, I do not recognise them. Perhaps it is best that we leave such things alone, for I do not seek to break your heart…”
And he sighed.
“Though I fear I already have.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you treated me with such kindness. Certainly before you kissed me. Why, then? I will know why.” In her anger and frustration, tears spilled down her cheeks. “My lord, I asked not even a chance, and yet you offered one, and now take it away.”
He looked at her and put his hand on her face, concerned and upset at how she was reacting to his words, “This is why I wished to say nothing, and my mind did tell me to not kiss you… to not touch you… and to not wish you within my arms, but… I could not listen to it, I could not hear upon those words.”
“Your every action belies your speech.” Despite her tears, anger emboldened Summer; she clasped his hand with one of her own, and reached up to brush his face with her fingertips. “Henry. Answer me. Why, last night? I thought it a dream. But you tell me ‘twas reality. /Why/?”