Page 99 of A Deal with the Broken Duke
“No!” Harry protested. “Of course I didn’t lie to Juliet. I wouldn’t have done that, Daniel. She knew. She and I agreed to do this.”
“Is that true, Juliet?” Daniel looked as if he was about to hit someone.
“Yes,” Juliet answered quickly. “He’s telling the truth. If you want to be angry at anyone, Daniel, you should be angry at me. It was my idea. I asked him to do it.”
“But why would you ask for such a thing?” Daniel demanded.
“Father was going to force me into a courtship with Lord Stickland,” Juliet explained. “I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t face it. I asked Harry to pretend to court me hoping that Lord Stickland would lose interest and that we could eventually end our courtship and I’d be free to find someone else. I know I shouldn’t have lied, but it was the only way I could think of to escape my predicament.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Daniel spluttered.
“What could you have done?” Juliet asked. “Do you really think you could have overruled Father’s wishes?”
“I certainly would have tried,” Daniel said. “Especially now that I see the sort of man Lord Stickland is. I would never just stand back and allow him to marry you.”
“No one else will have her now,” Lord Stickland scoffed. “Not once they find out that her courtship with the Duke was a sham, not once everyone knows that no one ever wanted her, and that was why she had to beg him to pretend that he was courting her.”
“I’d stop talking now if I were you,” Daniel warned. “You forget that I’ve caught you in a room alone with my sister preventing her from leaving. How do you think that’s going to look?”
“I was in here first,” Lord Stickland said matter-of-factly. “That’s all I’ll have to say. I was in the library and then she came in, and no one forced her to do that. She can’t deny it.”
“How dare you threaten her?” Harry hissed.
Daniel turned on Harry. “Don’t think I’m finished with you,” he snapped. “My sister may be defending what you did, but in my mind, there’s no excuse for it. I don’t see how you could allow her to risk her reputation that way.”
“He never loved her,” Lord Stickland went on. “What difference would it make to him if her reputation was tarnished? He’s never cared about her. Just look at how easy it was for him to leave her behind when he was finished with her. That should tell you all you need to know.”
“No,” Harry growled. “No, that isn’t right at all.”
He turned to Juliet. “You know how I feel about you,” he said. “But I’ll tell you again anyway. I’ll tell you as many times as you need to hear it. I love you. I’m in love with you.”
Juliet felt tears come to her eyes. “Please don’t,” she whispered. “I can’t bear to go through it all again.”
“I thought I had to leave you because of the curse. But, Juliet, everything has changed for me tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“The curse,” Harry said. “It isn’t real.”
“I’ve always known that.”
“But now I know it too.”
Daniel’s jaw dropped. “I never thought of it that way,” he said. “But you’re right. This proves it.”
“I don’t understand.” Juliet frowned. “What’s changed?”
Harry glanced at Lord Stickland. “Perhaps we’d better discuss that later. But what matters is that every reason I had for distancing myself from you is now gone. I have no more desire to stay away from you. I know now that your life won’t be at risk if we’re together.”
“What are you saying?” Juliet asked.
She knew where she thought this was going, but she couldn’t afford to let herself hope again and be wrong.
“I’m saying that I love you and I want us to have something real,” Harry said. “A real courtship. More than that, if you’ll agree to it. I’d like to marry you, Juliet. I’d like to ask your father’s permission, but I want yours first.”
“Oh, youmustbe joking!” Lord Stickland exclaimed, but everyone ignored him.
Harry and Daniel had their eyes on Juliet, waiting for her answer.
