“You said one night,” she stammered.“It’s daytime.”
Not the most auspicious start.He pressed on anyway.
“Here,” he said.“I made these for you.”
Her hands seemed to accept his offering reflexively, rather than out of any particular desire to receive a gift.She did not even glance down to see what it was.“Nicholas—”
“They’re turtledoves,” he blurted out.So much for his grand romantic gesture.It could not possibly go worse, and he was powerless to solve it.Or stop his mouth from babbling.“Glass figurines.They stand alone, and they can interlock.Turtledoves mate for life.”
Splendid.Now he sounded like Virginia.
To his horror, Penelope’s beautiful brown eyes took on a wet sheen.Not in athis-is-so-romantic-I-could-just-crysort of way, but in athis-is-so-horrible-I-could-just-diesort of way.“Nicholas—”
“I love you,” he announced, using his last scraps of courage.“That’s what I came to say.Even if you don’t feel the same, I thought you should know.”
“It’s not love,” she said, her eyes tortured.“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
He tried his best to hide the tornado of disappointment within.There was his answer.
He was not what she wanted.
“Very well,” he said despite the swaying in his head.“There’s no need to ask why.I can well imagine.”
“I don’t think you can.You don’t know the whole truth.”She took a deep breath.“It was me.Rather, it wasDuchess.I believed I had perfected a formula that could manipulate male emotion—”
“You what?”he stammered.
“—but I couldn’t be certain until I proved it.I needed a test subject in order to run the trials—”
“A what?”he repeated, taking a jerking step backwards.
“—and I gave the trial a strict time limit in which to accomplish predetermined tasks.”Her voice cracked as she met his eyes.“The experiment worked beyond my wildest dreams.”
“Itworked?”he repeated, banging a trembling fist to his chest in anger.“You toyed with my heart to prove a theory?”
“That wasn’t the intended goal.”Her voice cracked.“I only meant to—”
“I was listening,” he said, not bothering to hide his bitterness.“Your intent was to manipulate my emotions in order to trick me into playing the lovesick swain for your own amusement.”
“Not amusement,” she said quickly.“Science—”
He scoffed.“You are very amused by science.Don’t shift the blame.”His hands shook.“I believed you of all people would treat others with unfailing honesty, and you purposefully misled me.”
“I…” She closed her eyes.“Yes.I did.”
“It was a game to you.”His heart lurched in humiliation.“See how long it took me to exhibit whatever behaviors you’ve been marking behind my back with your little tally marks.”
She winced.
“I’m surprised you didn’t enter your wager in the betting book at White’s,” he said, each word scratchy and raw.“Then everyone could laugh at the silly laboratory specimen who believed he had finally unlocked his cage.”
She shook her head, cheeks pale.“I never thought of you as a specimen.”
“Didn’t you?”His voice was empty.“Wasn’t that how you chose me to be an unwitting part of your little experiment?You saw me as athinginstead of a person.”
He had been such a fool.He’d believed he had found love, but he hadn’t even found a real connection.He was just a research subject.An animal, like any other.Useful for a brief moment, then dumped back in the wild.
It had been a farce all along.
