Page 35 of Stolen By the Cruel Duke
“It’s mortifying,” Iris added as he handed her a lemonade. “All these people think that I would engage in an affair with a man without the promise of marriage. They probably think you only married me because you got caught. That you are resentful of having to be married to me.”
“Hmm.” Phineas did not like that one bit. It was important to him that everyone knew he was the most happily married man in all of London. “Then why don’t we show them that I’m quite content to be married to you?”
Iris barely had time to look surprised and pleased by his words before he had bowed before her, taken her hand, and pressed it to his lips.
“Duchess,” he murmured, “would you do me the honor of the next dance?”
“But… it’s a waltz,” she breathed. “It’s already considered the most scandalous of dances.”
“Which is exactly why I want to dance it with you.”
She laughed even as she blushed. The sight made his heart beat faster in his chest. She looked so adorable with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes.
“It’s unseemly for married couples to dance with one another,” she pointed out, although she didn’t sound convinced by her own argument.
“I don’t care.” Phineas was determined, and she could tell.
The music from the previous dance ended, and with another blushing smile, she set her cup of lemonade down on the table and allowed him to steer her to the dance floor. They took their positions, the music began, and they started to waltz.
“For someone who never dances, you’re quite good at this,” Iris remarked as he whisked her across the dance floor with graceful ease.
“I always loved to dance,” he said. “As a child, my favorite lessons were with my dancing instructor.”
“That’s unusual. Most gentlemen I know hate to dance and have to be talked into it.”
Phineas chuckled. “I remember telling my mother once that I planned to be the kind of gentleman hostesses love to invite to their parties because they actually like to dance with all the eager debutantes.”
Iris laughed. “You would have been the most popular gentleman in the ton, under different circumstances. You probably never would have noticed me.”
Phineas shook his head. “I would have noticed you.”
“You didn’t,” she pointed out. “It took my father’s scheming for you to even realize who I was.”
“But that’s because I avoided marriage altogether. After my parents’ deaths and the loss of my land, I became so single-mindedly hell-bent on revenge that all thoughts of romance went out the window. But if I had been allowed to have a normal life—if I had gone to balls without that grief and thirst for vengeance hanging over my head—then believe me, I would have noticed you. And I would have asked you to dance at every single ball. Twice.”
He twirled her expertly, and when she faced him again, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were soft.
“It would have caused much gossip,” she murmured. “I think you would eventually have had to marry me.”
“There is no alternate version of life where I don’t marry you,” Phineas said.
He hadn’t meant for this to come out with quite so much heaviness, but the moment he said it, he could feel the air between them grow warmer. It was the closest he had come to confessing his feelings for her, and from the way her eyes grew wide, he knew she’d taken it as a declaration of sorts.
And then suddenly Phineas couldn’t bear it any longer. He couldn’t wait a moment longer to tell his wife exactly how he felt. If anyone knew that life was short, it was him. And he wasn’t going to waste any more time he spent with her without telling her what was in his heart.
“Iris,” he murmured, “there’s something I have to tell you.”
Iris gazed up at him steadily. He took a deep breath. The words were on the tip of his tongue. All he had to do was say them.
It would be all right. Iris wouldn’t reject him. He could do this.
And then suddenly, unbidden, an image of his mother and father flashed before his eyes—the two of them waving goodbye from the carriage as he stood on the steps of Eavestone Castle, their smiling faces, the last time he ever saw them alive.
He couldn’t do it, he realized, as he stared down into the hopeful, expectant eyes of his wife. Everyone he loved had left him. It was better to cut off all emotion than to feel the pain of losing those he loved.
His mouth was open, but he didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t do it.
But then Iris reached up and placed a hand on his cheek. She smiled. “I love you, Phineas,” she confessed.
