Page 71 of His Haunted Duchess
She stepped away from him, towards the shelf where Tacitus was enjoying his afternoon nap. He wanted to follow, to pull her to him like a blanket in winter. She rubbed the space between her eyes.
“I think—it seems,” she stumbled, “the feelings you have developed for me are admirable and good but perhaps misplaced.”
Misplaced?It clanged around his thoughts like a shout. Though she spoke it so softly, it pierced his very soul.
“Perhaps, Your Grace,” she offered, “the marriage arrangement has confused you. Perhaps you feel appropriate admiration—affection, even. But love?—”
Time had stopped. No breath, no sound, no stirring other than the mournful melody of her voice assailed his senses. For a moment, the strings of his heart twanged like an arrow of a bow. She was slipping away from him. The dream of her was crumbling, slipping through his fingers like gossamer, and he couldn’t draw her back.
Then, he straightened.
“I appreciate the tact of your reply,” he said, deliberately, “but I disdain the assumption that I am not familiar with the quality and depth of my own feelings.”
Her mouth opened in surprise. He blazed forward, sure of his footing now.
“I do love you—and I know how I feel as certainly as I know anything. But—” His hopes burbled to the surface in the surge, like fish escaping the thrash of a fisherman’s lure. “What I do not know, and wish desperately to understand, are your feelings.”
She hesitated, and his heart leapt the bounds of doubt that had constrained it and raced to find its place next to hers. He could feel her closeness, see it in her eyes.
She closed them.
“Your Grace, I?—”
He stepped forward and took her hands again. She would try to refuse him—for what reason or secret fear she alone understood. He had only just discovered how much she meant to him—how could he possibly lose her now? He put his hand on the side of her face.
“Caroline,” he begged, “look at me.”
Her eyes opened, stealing his breath anew with their clarity and passion. He brushed his hand across her cheek.
“Look me in the eyes, and tell me that you do not feel the same.”
She opened her mouth to answer. His soul rested on her response. Nothing seemed to exist beyond this moment, this eternity between confession and remark.
Nothing. She struggled, her eyes locked in his. A flicker of hope ignited inside him, rising to a roaring flame. Her silence, locked in tension against the truth of her feelings and the inclination of her reason, spoke loudly as a choir on Ladies’ Day. She did love him.
He pulled his lips to hers. They kissed, warm and close, their hearts beating together in simple unity. Frederic pulled back, smiling. To his surprise, tears filled her eyes.
“But, I—I am cursed—” she choked. “And if something should happen?—”
Frederic laughed. He threw back his head and laughed with the relief of a man freed from bondage.
“Is that it?” he gasped. “Has that been your worry all of this time? My dear love!”
He put his forehead down until it touched hers.
“There is no such thing as curses,” he said. “Not here—not with my duchess.”
A smile tickled the corners of Caroline’s mouth. Frederic ached to kiss it. She leaned into him and sighed.
“I hope—I hope not. That’s what Philip said, too?—”
Frederic pulled back and stared at her in surprise.
“You told Philip before me? What possessed you?”
She blushed as crimson as a reddleman.
“He asked. He—he was worried that I didn’t love you—that I would leave.”
