Page 83 of The Trouble with True Love

“Indeed?”

“You want honorable marriage, which I am offering, though a bit late in the day, I grant you. You also want children.” His gaze lowered, then lifted. “A desire that might already be in the process of being fulfilled. Have you thought of that?”

She hadn’t, heaven help her, not until this moment. And Irene had explained the facts of life to her so painstakingly when the vicar had come courting. A lot of good it had done her.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, seized by a sudden jolt of panic.

Rex grasped her arms as if perceiving her suddenly wobbly knees. “It’s all right,” he said, his voice savage. “There’ll be no shame for you. No ruin. I swear it. We’ll be married straightaway, and no one will know. We’ll live at Braebourne, of course. Don’t worry,” he added, his voice gentling. “It’s a big house, enormous, wings sticking out every which way, plenty of room for a dozen children. It has dogs, horses, apple orchards. It’s in the Cotswolds—Gloucestershire, to be exact. Our village is Stow-on-the-Wold. Very picturesque. Lots of thatched cottages, rambling roses, and bilberries everywhere in summer.”

She felt the appeal of what he described. How could she not? “It sounds like everything I’ve ever wanted,” she whispered and felt an absurd desire to burst into tears. “But it doesn’t have the one thing that matters, does it, Rex? You want me, you are willing to marry me, but—” She took a breath, looked into his stunning blue eyes, and made herself to say it. “But you are not in love with me. Are you?”

His lips pressed together. He stared back at her, his face showing regret for what he did not feel and probably never would. The silence seemed endless. “No,” he said at last, a simple reply, brutal in its honesty.

Again, she tried to turn away, but he would not release her. “Clara, I realize this is not the most romantic situation, and I’m sorry for that. You talk about love, but I honestly do not know what you mean by the word. Infatuation? Passion? Companionable friendship and affection? What sort of love is true and lasting, and what love is not? How does one know the difference? As I’ve said, I desire you. I think very highly of you—”

“Very highly,” she echoed dismally. “Goodness. That’s almost as romantic as celestial marriage.”

“Well, I’m not offering that, just so you know.”

How absurd, she thought. For the second time in her life a man was proposing marriage to her, the first because he didn’t desire her at all, and the second because he desired her too much. But neither had offered marriage out of love for her. She had a penchant, it seemed, for men incapable of loving her.

“Well, there we are, then,” she said. “You do not love me. And—” She stopped, unable to say she did not love him. She couldn’t say it, for it would be, she realized, a lie. She did love him. She’d been falling in love with him all along, bit by bit, starting that very first moment she’d seen him in the tea shop.

How mortifying to know she was such a fool.

Pride came to her rescue, enabling her to say something. “And that means you will marry me, not out of love, but out of obligation.” Pain pierced her chest at the word, her heart cracking wide open, breaking right there in front of him. “An obligation inevitably becomes a burden. I will be no man’s burden.”

“And the child, Clara? What will the child be if you refuse me?”

She flinched, drawing back as far as his hold would allow, desperate for space and time to think. “We don’t even know if there will be a baby.”

His gaze was steady, calm, as cool as ocean waters. “And if there is, it will be my bastard, if you do not let me do right by you.”

“I’ll decide what to do about that when it happens, if it happens, which it probably won’t.”

He shook his head in adamant disagreement. “The longer we wait, the more risk of scandal. I have no intention of compounding the wrong I’ve done you by risking your reputation.”

“And I have no intention of making an irrevocable decision because you insist upon it. My answer is no. I will not marry you.”

“And if there is a child? Will no still be your answer then?”

She didn’t reply, and she could feel panic setting in again, not the panic of an illegitimate child, of giving it up or raising it alone, or of her own possible ruin. If she stood here much longer, she would waver in her decision. She might even relent, and then, she would be trapped. She could see her future with him, a future that was secure and safe and bleak. She could see herself years from now, still in love with a man who did not love her, a man who’d had more women than he could count and had never loved any of them, who could very well not be capable of love at all and who might not even manage to be faithful. She would want him to love her and only her, she would hope for it, yearn for it, and if he could not give his heart and be a true husband to her, it would destroy her.

She looked at him, knowing he was still waiting for an answer to his question. “I refuse to worry about things that haven’t happened,” she said, and jerked hard, wrenching free of his hold. She ducked around him, fighting back tears as she walked away.

“This isn’t over, Clara,” he called to her.

Yes, it is.

She did not say it out loud, and she did not look back, and as her heart broke into pieces, her only consolation was her absolute certainty that refusing him was the right thing to do. Whatever it cost her, giving him her heart was not worth the price of her soul.

Chapter 19

Clara sat in a train carriage compartment, staring out the window at the fields and hedgerows of Kent, watching as they gave way to the coal-dusted streets and sidewalks of London. Her companions all had books, but she feared they were only pretending to read, for whenever she chanced to glance at them, their gazes were on her. When caught watching, they always returned their attention to their reading, but not before Clara saw the bewilderment in their eyes.

Carlotta, not usually the most understanding of women, had displayed a surprisingly tender regard for her well-being upon learning she had rejected Galbraith’s proposal. She had offered no lectures and asked no questions. Leaving Clara with her maid to pack, she had gone at once to inform their hosts and her sisters-in-law that a matter of urgency had arisen for Clara that required them to return to London immediately, and she had made all the arrangements for their departure from Lisle.

Carlotta must also have instructed Sarah and Angela to ask Clara no questions, for as the late afternoon train carried them back to London, no one spoke. Even the usually lively Angela was silent. None of them pressed for details, and Clara was relieved, for what could she say?

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