Page 86 of The Last Duke She'd Marry
He couldn’t help thinking once more about unconditional love. It seemed neither Juliet nor her father understood the concept. Was it childish to believe that if she truly loved him, she’d take him? If she truly loved him, she’d know that he’d never wrong her.
But the sad fact was that he’d take her on any terms he could get her, with unconditional love or not. The even sadder fact was that she meant to leave him.
When he swung back to face her, she was watching him with dazed anguish. She’d picked up her bonnet and had gone back to clutching it in front of her as if it would save her from all the world’s monsters. Among whom she clearly counted the man she claimed to love.
“Must we part as enemies?” she whispered.
Evesham told himself that he wasn’t the first man rejected by the woman he loved. For pity’s sake, it wasn’t even the first time that Juliet had rejected him. She’d refused him four times now.
People didn’t die of thwarted love. Give him a few years – maybe fifty – and he’d look back with a nostalgic smile on his pursuit of the unattainable Juliet Frain.
The problem was that right now, he felt like she knifed him and left him to die in a puddle of blood.
He braced his shoulders, as if he faced a dangerous foe. Because despite how much he loved her, Juliet was his foe.
“I’ll ask one more time, Juliet. Then I’ll never ask again.” His voice was a harsh rasp. He didn’t sound like a lover, even if he loved her beyond reason. “Before you answer, think of what you’re giving up and also think what you’ll gain. Not least a place as a duchess, which you were born to hold. Will you marry me?”
Juliet surveyed him out of blind eyes. Her features set in a way that sat oddly with the corroding despair that she couldn’t hide.
Her answer emerged as precise as a cut diamond. “Thank you, Your Grace. My answer is no.”
Chapter 24
Hampstead outside London, three months later
The hammering at the front door woke Juliet and had her scrambling out of bed and flinging on her wrap before her mind started to work.
A quick glance at the mantel clock told her it wasn’t late. Only ten o’clock.
These days, she went to bed earlier and earlier to escape the dreary loneliness of her days. Perhaps the happy occasion might arise where she just slept the clock around and never had to wake up to survey the horrid mess that she’d made of her life.
By heaven, she hoped that day arrived soon.
As Juliet stumbled along the landing, the din stopped and she heard voices in the hall. Her maid Lizzie must have answered the door. She heard a door shut and assumed Lizzie had put the visitor in the parlor.
Juliet had rented this house shortly after her arrival in London, following a tense and largely silent journey up from Salisbury with Lucas. She still shuddered to remember back to the agonizing torture of those hours in his carriage. Having him close enough to touch and yet knowing she could never touch him again. He sat mere feet away from her on the opposite seat, but it felt as if he was as far out of reach as the moon.
After that heartbreaking quarrel at the inn, she’d have much preferred to go her own way. But he’d insisted on honoring his offer to take her to the Trinders. She’d hated having to accept, but her broken heart didn’t banish the practical problems of leaving her father’s roof.
Nonetheless, she’d been determined to strike out on her own as soon as she could. She’d only stayed with the Trinders for a few days, and she’d used her interview with Lucas’s man of business to get the name of another solicitor to oversee her interests. Mr. Baxter quickly arranged to take management of her inheritance from Papa’s lawyer and had helped her to find this comfortable house in the pretty village of Hampstead.
Mr. Baxter had protested that the house was too modest for the wealthy daughter of an earl, however disgraced. But it seemed silly to pay for reception rooms that she never used. Silly, and an inescapable reminder of everything she’d lost.
Portia hadn’t been allowed to leave Wiltshire to see her, but they exchanged frequent letters via an animal-loving friend in Afton village. Viola had offered Juliet a place at Brazey Castle with her and Renfrew, but while she appreciated the gesture, Juliet had put her sister off.
Against all expectation, Viola and Renfrew appeared to making a success of their marriage. The last thing Juliet wanted was to see two lovers find happiness, when she remained so far from that fortunate state herself.
She hadn’t trusted Lucas to stay away, although he must have known that she’d said her final word on their future. But to his credit, he hadn’t come near her since introducing her to the Trinders all those long weeks ago. According to Portia, who heard more gossip than she did these days, he’d retreated to his estate in Devon and hadn’t been active in society.
That made two of them.
Every day, Juliet prayed that she’d wake up without hungering for his presence. So far, those heartfelt prayers hadn’t been answered.
And here she was thinking about the rogue again, when she should be wondering about her mysterious visitor.
“Who is it, Lizzie?” she asked, when the maid appeared at the bottom of the steps.
Only now did it occur to her that it could be news from Afton Park, some trouble with Papa’s health. Although hadn’t she heard a woman’s voice? If a messenger came from home, it would be a footman.
