She winced. Although they could not save their relationship, she could do him this courtesy. “I cannot be ruined if there is no scandal. No one will know we made love.”
His eyes beseeched her with equal parts hope and pain. “Did we make love if I don’t even know who you are?”
“You do know who I really am,” she burst out, and took a halting step toward him. “I love you. Your happiness matters more than my own. Your place in Society is critical. Your career is important to so many. I’ve never thought I was good enough for you. There is no trap. You can walk away. You are under no obligation to me at all.”
He stared at her in stony silence, a man at war with his honor and her betrayal.
She had known learning the truth would mean losing him forever. Curse those bloody caricatures. If she could have known from the start she would one day meet him and fall in love…
But she hadn’t. And here they were.
Soon, she would go back home where she belonged.
His world was not meant for her. She’d had no call to believe the future they’d painted was any more substantial than a dream. But not like this. Her heart twisted. She hadn’t meant to ruin Heath’s faith in her so irrevocably. She certainly hadn’t meant to trap him into wedding someone he despised.
She’d meant it when she’d said he was under no obligation toward her. Losing Heath would carve a void in her soul that she could never fill.
But no matter how ardently Nora loved him, if being anywhere near her caused him pain, she would walk away and never look back.
Chapter 27
Heath stared at the woman he loved and thought he knew.
He had suffered through his parents’ estranged marriage, witnessed a hundred loveless unions by peers in search of money or power. He’d expected to marry for duty, but a secret part of him had hoped for something more.
He’d yearned to believe that something as simple and pure and honest as true love could exist for someone like him.
But there was nothing simple about his relationship with Nora. He had known from the start that she did not fit Society’s definition of a perfect bride. Her lack of status, of a title, of money, of connections… the very fact that for someone of her humble origins, taking employment as a companion was a stepuprather than down.
All those impediments were things he had slowly come to realize he could look past. He did not need a bride’s dowry or connections. More importantly, Nora’s lack of status was due to happenstance, rather than any fault of her own. In the face of true love, such details had become irrelevant. He could not discard her for circumstances beyond her control.
The caricatures, however… She had done them onpurpose.
Perhaps she’d begun them out of a sense of duty to her own family, long before she’d met Heath, but she had consciously chosen to continue down that path. She’d gone so far as to immortalize his innocent sister. And all but lie to his face by allowing him to fall in love without the courtesy of knowing the truth.
Heart heavy, he turned to face the woman he had intended to spend the rest of his life with.
Nora was pale and trembling; her face puffy, her eyes bloodshot. She looked heartsick and miserable.
Good. So was he.
But here they were.
He rubbed his hands over his face in sudden exhaustion. The words needed to come out. “Just because I love you doesn’t mean I can forgive you for lying to me. For letting me make love to a version of you that doesn’t exist.”
“I know,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I accept that. I deserve your rage.”
Her admission did not make him feel better.
He let out a breath. “Then why did you do it?”
She closed her eyes. “I told you. For my family.”
He shook his head. “I understand poverty. I meant why use your obvious talent to hurt and mock the beau monde? Do you hate us so much?”
“Doyou understand poverty?” she countered, her over-bright gaze haunted. “How often have you fallen asleep mucking out a stall or a chimney and startled awake a scant hour later to start the day all over again? How many times have you and your siblings been forced to butcher your last source of income in order to feed your starving bellies? How long has it been since you first realized that if you didn’t do something desperate to change the future, none of you would live long enough to see it?”
He stared at her, trying to process her words. These were not hypothetical situations suffered by hypothetical indigents. These were real memories Nora had been forced to live through. The woman he loved.
