Page 87 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
How could she come to terms with these facts? How could she bring them together?
She blinked, and twin tears ran down her cheeks. Her chest felt as though it was splitting apart all over again, and she drew in another shuddering breath. His warm hands came to brush away her tears.
“I’m so sorry, Lydia,” he murmured, his voice breaking. “If I could go back in time and change things, I would. Even knowing I could never be happy without you, I would.”
With another tight breath, she reached up and wrapped her fingers around his wrist, bringing his hand to her cheek. “Alex…” she whispered.
“If you need time, then you can have it. I’ll give you space to consider whether you can bear being with me or not. And if the answer is you can’t, I… I will try to understand. That is why you heard me that night saying I would have a bag packed—so I could leave at any time.”
If he left, she would be all alone in this big house with her new grief. And as conflicted as she felt about Alexander and the numerous roles he had played throughout her life, she didn’t want to be alone…
What sheneededwas to grieve. Openly, unafraid of asking for comfort…
“D-don’t go,” she managed, her voice choked. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’m right here.” He pulled her against his chest immediately, one hand in her hair, the other banding around her waist. “As long as you want me, wife. As long as you’ll have me.”
Wife.
She hadn’t forgiven him, not yet. But she would. And knowing that he intended to stay eased some of the pain inside her.
“I know I don’t deserve you,” he mumbled against her hair, as his voice began to break into a million pieces. “But I will do everything in my power to make your life the best it can be from this point on.”
Clarity came to her in a burst of light. Alexander might hold himself responsible for her father’s death, but he wasn’t the only one to have been walking about that day. If her father’s carriage hadn’t encountered him, then it may well have encountered someone else.
And ifthathad been the case, Alexander would never have gone out of his way to help. When she got home, it would be to the news that her father had perished; there would have been no helping hand in the form of Alexander or his offer of marriage.
So many things might never have happened. Much as she grieved her father, how could she say that this was not the way it ought to be?
Cupping his face in her hands, she leaned back and gazed into his red-brimmed eyes. Loving him felt complicated and difficult now, but that feeling would fade with time. Then, all she would feel would be adoration.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered somberly.
His eyes searched hers, damp with his own tears. “If it weren’t for me, it-it wouldn’t have happened—”
“And if it weren’t for the horses, or the coachman’s control over them, or God’s will, the carriage would never have tipped.” She slid her fingers along his cheekbones, down the sharp planes of his face, until she reached the corner of his mouth. Until recently, she hadn’t seen him smile. For so long, he had been bearing the chains of his guilt.
No longer.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated. “You said it yourself—it was a terrible accident. Would you intentionally hurt me?”
“No, never! Of course not.”
“Then please stop punishing yourself over something you had no control over.” She brought her hands to his shoulders, using him to hold herself up. Her throat felt thick, but as she looked into the face of the man she loved, she knew she was making the right decision. “Release yourself from this guilt, Alex. You married me; you absolved yourself over and over again.”
“I married you, then abandoned you out of shame…” he rasped brokenly.
Not over Helena, after all. Or at least, not entirely. He had always vowed never to marry, and he had, but worse than that, he had married the daughter of the man he felt responsible for killing. As though he had taken a gun and pointed it at her father’s heart.
They still had so much to work through, but at least they could work through it together now.
“You married me…” she murmured. “You saved me when I would have had no other recourse. My life would be bleak if you hadn’t. And perhaps not happy if you had never been walking down that road on that specific night. All we have is now; all we can ever have is this.” She pulled him closer so his nose brushed hers. “I want to make the best of it,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Even if it is hard for the moment.”
His large hands came to cradle the back of her head. “The things most worth doing are hard, sometimes…” he murmured. “And no matter how hard it is, if you can forgive me, then I will fight for you.”
All the tension left her body. That was what she had wanted—what she hadneeded. Alexander, to stay and fight, even if she got angry. Even if, sometimes, she lost herself again to the pain of losing her father.
She would so much rather that than loneliness.
