Page 2 of To Woo and to Wed
“I need to speak to you.” Her voice was calm, but there was a note of strain that would have been undetectable to someone who didn’t know her well.
“Of course.” He turned back to David. “If you’ll excuse us—”
David nodded equably, his brow wrinkling slightly at whatever he, too, could detect from Sophie’s expression. “I’ll see you at the boxing match tomorrow?”
“Right, right—” West was distracted; he’d already forgotten that he’d reluctantly promised David he’d accompany him to a boxing match in Kent the following day. He offered his friend a vague wave of farewell, then turned back to Sophie. “Let’s find somewhere more quiet where we might speak.”
She nodded, and he led her around the edge of the ballroom, out a side door, and into an empty hallway. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but it would do in a pinch.
“Your father doesn’t want us to marry,” she said in a rush, as soon as they came to a halt. He reached out to gently grasp her hands, pulling her so that she was facing him directly.
“Why do you say that?” he asked, a feeling of terrible foreboding building in the pit of his stomach.
“Why?” she repeated, a note of frustration creeping into her voice. “Because he sought me out deliberately tothreatenme, that’s why!” She tugged a hand free from his, pushing a loose tendril of hair behind one ear in an impatient gesture.
West went cold at the words, as slow, creeping anger began to make its presence known. “What do you mean, threaten you?”
“I mean that he asked me to go on a walk about the ballroom and used that time to hint, in oh-so-vague and polite terms, that if I were to marry you, he’d take it out on Maria’s matrimonial prospects.”
West inhaled slowly; all his life, he’d existed within the carefully drawn parameters that his father expected his heir to occupy, and while he’d occasionally chafed at these restrictions, he’d never found himself feeling trulyangryabout them until now. “I would not allow that to occur.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Your father does not strike me as a man who is much concerned by what his son mightallow.”
He could hardly argue with this, but West had spent his entire life playing the dutiful heir, making himself indispensable to the duke. Just this once, he thought, he could push back and emerge victorious.
He had no choice—not when the other option was to lose Sophie.
And he had never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wanted to marry her.
“My father needs to be reminded that I am no longer a boy—that my life is not his to arrange as he sees fit,” he said, reaching out to take her hand.
She allowed him to pull her closer, her eyes troubled. “Do you think it will be that simple?”
Truthfully, he did not. But he did not wish to admit any uncertainty to her—could not bear the thought that she would doubt, even for a moment, his ability to give her the future he’d already all but promised her. “I think that my father is a strong-willed man,” he said carefully. “But I also think that he has never sought to exert his will over something that mattered as much to me as this does.”
Something in her eyes softened at this, though there was still a crease in her brow that he did not like. “You cannot—I know—” shebegan haltingly, then blew out a frustrated breath, her gaze skittering away from his. “I know that you had mentioned plans to call on my father, but you must know we cannot become betrothed until this is resolved.”
His grip tightened on her hand. “Do you not wish to marry me, then?” The words were stiff, his voice quiet.
Her eyes did return to him now. “You know I do,” she said softly. “But we cannot risk our marriage ruining Maria’s reputation—not when she is still unwed.”
“I know,” he said, reaching out to touch her cheek. He glanced quickly up and down the hall, saw that they were still alone, and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “I would not have anyone in your family suffer because we had the bad luck to fall in love.”
The words landed with some weight in the space between them—for all that they had been courting for weeks now, had hinted at a betrothal, neither of them had yet spoken the words to describe precisely what it was that existed between them.
She swallowed. “Was it bad luck, then?”
“No,” he said quietly, reaching down to take her other hand, too. He ducked his head so that she could not avoid his gaze. “Meeting you at that musicale is the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me, and I’ll be damned if I allow my father to ruin it.” He squeezed her hands gently. “I’ll speak to him, I promise.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “All right.” They started at the sound of footsteps and laughter drawing nearer, and West dropped her hands, immediately missing their soft warmth.
“I should go find my sister,” Sophie said reluctantly, waving away his proffered arm. “It’s best if we don’t return at the same time, I suppose.”
He inclined his head. “Of course,” he said, and pressed a kiss to her hand before watching her walk away, the fair skin of her shoulders a tantalizing promise. Her hair gleamed like a coin in the soft candlelight, and he could not tear his eyes from her until she’d rounded a corner and was out of sight.
It was only then, alone with his thoughts, that he allowed himself to lean back against a wall, his head meeting it with a dullthud, and mutter, “God damn it.”
David found him in the billiards room, where he was not playing but sitting moodily in an armchair, staring into space, a mostly drunk glass of brandy before him.
