His kisses stopped abruptly. ‘Kind! You think I married you because I amkind?’
‘I am sure that was not the whole reason. We were caught in a rather delicate situation and you had no real choice. But you must have seen how desperate I was and…’
He muttered something darkly about her mother and then said, ‘I did not marry you out of kindness.’
He could deny it all he wanted, but she knew the truth of him. He was a decent soul who had rescued her from a terrible situation. ‘Last night, I heard some people talking. The rumours around the Ton are that you married me because I was already expecting your baby.’
His eyes widened, his grip around her waist tightening. ‘I shall call everyone out.’
She laughed. ‘See, you are very funny.’
‘I mean it,’ he growled. ‘How dare anyone suggest such a thing? Is that why you left early? You know you can always come and find me if you are upset. I would have stopped the orchestra and made an announcement.’
She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his mouth, but she could tell that he was too cross to respond. She hadn’t meant to irritate him, only to explain. If this marriage was to work, then she needed to be honest about what she wanted. ‘See. You are kind, Freddie. You are the best man I know but… I do not think I want to go to balls any more. I find them uncomfortable and awkward and they set me on edge.’ His forehead crinkled. ‘But I do not want to stop you from attending,’ she added hurriedly. ‘I know that you have lots of friends and I want you to carry on enjoying being around them. I thought maybe we could arrange things between us so that we are both happy.’
He was quiet for a long moment and her toes curled in her boots. She had laid all her cards out, well, not every card. She had yet to tell him that she loved him. She would. One day. When the stakes between them weren’t so high. He was a good man and he deserved to know that he was loved, but she didn’t want him to feel pressure to say it back. He cared deeply about her and that was enough.
‘I do not have any friends,’ he said eventually.
She almost laughed, but she could see that he was serious. ‘But you are always surrounded by people; you are all laughing and having a wonderful time,’ she protested. ‘People love you.’
He shrugged. ‘They like the man I pretend to be, but I have always had to put on a front. It will be a relief for me not to go to balls either. I can think of plenty of ways for us to entertain ourselves.’ He grinned and her heart kicked, even though she still couldn’t find it in herself to believe him. She did not want him to give up things for her.
‘But…’
‘There are no buts,’ he said firmly. ‘I would rather sit by you as you read the duke’s entire library than ever go out to a ball again.’
She snorted. ‘That is not true.’
‘It is.’ His smile died, his eyes earnest. ‘Emily, until I married you, I was lonely. Everyone thinks they know me, the man with a quick joke and a ready smile, the man who was too lazy to pick up a newspaper, but they do not. Yes, I am popular at balls and other social occasions, but only because I pretend to be someone I am not. The person Society sees is the person I had to become in order to get through Eton. I realised early on that a friendly joker was more likely to get help than a scared little boy. It is not the way it should be, but there you are.’ He shrugged as if that wasn’t the most heartbreaking thing Emily had ever heard. ‘You are the only person to truly knowme and I…’ He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, emotion shone from them, a warmth that touched her heart. ‘Being with you, even if you are reading about some obscure Roman general who everyone else other than the author and you have forgotten about, is better than making polite conversation with strangers. If I have given you any cause to believe otherwise since our marriage began, then I am sorry.’
‘Oh, Freddie. I thought…’
‘What did you think?’
‘I do not know. Maybe that you were being compassionate.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Trust me, I am not that much of a sap. In fact, it makes me question your intelligence that you would consider that for a moment.’ He winked and she felt her answering smile down to her toes.
She wanted to believe him, wanted more than anything to think that he felt the same way as she did about attending events populated by the Ton, but there was something holding her back. ‘Why do you go to balls if you do not enjoy them?’
‘I have always wanted to be liked. Attending, making people laugh, made me feel better about my inadequacies. Although…’ his eyes twinkled in the way that she adored ‘…there was often a lady at these events and I liked to poke at her. When she snapped back at me, it was the highlight of my day.’
The last of her doubts faded away. She knew how often he had sought her out. She always thought it had been with the express purpose of irritating her, but now she knew him, those encounters took on a different light. A conviction took over her, a belief so strong she could keep it in no longer. ‘You love me.’
Freddie glanced to the floor, then out of the window and then back to the floor. His silence went on for so long that she almost began to doubt herself. He cleared his throat and then did it again. ‘Yes,’ he saideventually, all amusement gone from his countenance. ‘I do. I love you.’
His ears turned red and Emily dug her fingers into his shoulders, stopping herself from pulling his lips to hers. She wasn’t above a little poking herself.
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Er…’ he shuffled on his feet ‘…I want to say since we married, but that would be a lie.’ The redness was creeping across his skin, turning his cheeks a delightful shade of pink. ‘I believe I have loved you since the moment I first saw you when your family moved in next door.’
‘When we were children?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes. I mean, I could not pinpoint the exact day and time. But I do know that my young heart was desperate for your attention and when all I could get from you was a glare down your haughty nose at me, then that is what I aimed for.’
‘I do not have a haughty nose,’ she countered, the only thing she could think of in response to his dramatic revelation.
