Page 52 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
Not an apology—but close. She could practically feel his torment from here.
“So what now?” she whispered.
“Now, we will attend this ridiculous dinner hosted by a man pretending not to be in love with the woman he’s betrothed to, and then we will return home.”
Home. The word sounded as though she belonged there.
“And then?” she asked.
His voice was kind as he said, “And then I will be in no fit state to entertain you.”
“Because of this mystery ailment you suffer from?”
“Yes.”
She longed to ask what it was, but she knew that would achieve nothing. So, she reached forward and placed her hand on his knee.
“I thought I hated you,” she whispered. “When you came back, Itriedto. Truly, I did. But now, I think I want a life with you, if you will permit me.”
He laughed, actuallylaughed,and his hand found hers, just for a moment. “I’m afraid the reality may be a disappointment.”
“Perhaps we could try and see?”
The silence that followed her vulnerability stretched long enough that she retracted her hand, but eventually he said, “Perhaps”, and the tension in her body eased just a little.
She had been successful, after all. He wasn’t about to throw her aside as though she meant nothing.
She could most definitely work with that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Really, Alexander ought to have known Godwin would go overboard for his dinner. That was always the man’s way—to take an idea and stretch it right to breaking point. Because this was not the quiet, relatively peaceful dinner Alexander had anticipated.
Oh no.
Thiswas a positively rowdy group of Godwin’s various associates from the area and London. Never mind he’d only had the scope of a single day to send invitations and secure attendees; he had managed it, apparently, without issue!
Alexander stared at the appalling number of guests in his old friend’s drawing room.
Unlike Alexander, Godwin was not the heir to a great estate, and he had no political seat. He was, in essence, a wealthy gentleman and nothing more. And yet, over the course of his time in genteelsociety, he had managed to build a collection of people around him who would travel for an hour or so out of London in order to attend his obscure dinner party.
Beside him, Lydia’s eyes went very wide. “Oh…” she breathed.
Miss Parsons came bounding up to them immediately, looking, it had to be noted, rather pleased with herself. Evidently, she did not object to a dinner engagement of this sort in theslightest.
“Your Grace!” she chimed. “Lydia, dearest, I really must steal you away. Forgive me, Your Grace.”
Alexander’s rather primal—and wholly unreasonable—impulse was to hold Lydia close. Being with her both in the lakehouse and in the bath had given rise to an unforeseen level of possessiveness that had only been fueled by her words in the carriage.
I think I want a life with you, if you will permit me.
She had no idea of what she asked. If it were merely a question of what hewanted, then he would accept. Swallow his guilt, swallow all the ways in which he was not the man she deserved, and strive to be a better man for her.
But it was not all that simple.
He was not just her husband—he was the reason behind her father’s death. The means by which the man had died, evenindirectly. If he had not been there, perhaps Lord Blackmoor’s horse would never have bucked. The carriage would not have swerved. It would not have crashed.
He would not have sat beside Lord Blackmoor’s bedside after taking him home and calling for a physician, and he would not have proposed to his daughter out of guilt.
