“Is that why you want to stay away from me?” she asked. “You don’t want to indulge in fantasies?”
“I’m not going to marry,” he said. “It doesn’t matter so much in my case.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t matter,” she agreed. “But if that’s true, why are you so determined to keep us apart? What difference does it make to you?”
She very much wanted to hear the answer to this question, though she wasn’t exactly sure why it was so important toher. What was he going to say, after all, that would make any difference?
She was hoping that he would tell her he cared for her.
The moment she had the thought, she knew it was true. She had already as good as confessed her feelings for him, and she wanted him to tell her that he felt the same way in return. Even though it wouldn’t help. Even though he seemed so determined not to marry. Even so, she wanted to know that what was between them had been real.
If I have to marry a gentleman for whom I feel nothing, at least let me know before I marry that Ididexperience real love. Let it have been a part of my life, even if I can’t be allowed to keep it.
At the same time, the whole thing was so tragic that she found herself half hoping that he would tell her he felt nothing at all. Perhaps that would make it easier to let him go.
“It’s the right thing to do,” the duke said. “It’s the right thing for you, Lady Lavinia. You deserve a fresh start. You shouldn’t be stuck in the past, all your attention and all your emotion caught up in a gentleman who is never going to give you the thing you want. I’m determined not to marry. A marriage between you and me…it’s the last thing in the world I want.”
Lavinia felt as if he’d slapped her.
She wished she had never asked the question.
And yet—she wasn’t sure if she believed him. There was something odd in his eyes, a sort of pain. It looked to her as if he wasn’t enjoying this any more than she was. She didn’t know what to make of that. If he truly didn’t care for her at all, shouldn’t he have been able to say these things to her without his feelings getting involved?
“You need to go,” he said. “Go now, before someone finds you out here.”
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t just walk away, Your Grace.”
“You stay, then, and I’ll go.”
“No,” she said. “Not yet. Just wait, please. One thing more, and then—and then I’ll leave. I’ll turn my back on you—on us—for good.”
“There is nous,” he told her, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
Lavinia steeled herself against that comment. It would sting later, when she allowed herself to feel the full force of it, but not right now. Right now, all she wanted was to make sure he was telling the truth about his lack of feelings for her, because as it was, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe him.
If she walked away without being certain, she would never be able to stop thinking about him. He wanted her to turn her attention to Lord Hennington fully, and perhaps that was theright thing to do, but she couldn’t do it until she knew for certain that there was nothing here—that there was nothing worth fighting for or trying to save.
“I’ve got too involved already,” he said. “I’ve done far more than I should have.”
“This is the last thing I’ll ever ask you for. I promise you that.”
“Ask me, then.”
She stepped closer to him. “Kiss me,” she said softly.
“Lady Lavinia?—”
“There’s no one here. No one is going to know. You kissed me before.”
“It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Do it again anyway. One last time. I’m asking you to.”
“I can’t.”
“You want me to walk away from you, don’t you? This will make me walk away,” she said. “If you can kiss me, and if you can tell me that you still don’t want me—if you can kiss me and look me in the eyes and tell me that a marriage to me is the last thingin the world you want, and make mebelievethat, then I’ll walk away from you and never look back.”
His eyes hardened. “You’re right,” he said. “I never saw you for what you were. I always thought that deep down, you had a weakness you weren’t showing to anyone. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You’re sheer audacity right to the core.”
