Time seemed to freeze, and for a moment James contemplated how good it might feel to let her. How, for the first time, he might feel as if he wasn't alone in all this. He might feel as if someone understood him. As if someone really cared for him.
It was frightening to realize how badly he wanted that.
And he knew he couldn't allow himself to have it. It was too risky.
He rose from the table. "Please don't see Benjamin again," he said brusquely. "You're right that I can't force you. All I can do is ask."
He turned and strode away from the table, feeling as if his heart was working overtime in his chest.
CHAPTER 30
"You came to breakfast," Victoria commented.
James didn't look up from his plate. "Did you think I wouldn't be here? I do have to eat."
"After our conversation last night, I didn't know what to expect," Victoria admitted. "You were very angry with me."
"I'm still angry," he informed her. "The fact that I'm eating a meal at my own table, in my own house, has nothing at all to do with my feelings for you. I did consider havingyourbreakfast sent to your room, so that I could enjoy my meal in peace. Perhaps I should still do that."
Victoria had had enough of his controlling ways. "You can send a meal up to my room if you'd like," she said. "I suppose you even have the right to tell your staff to refuse to serve me at the table, if that's what you want to do. But you don't have the power to send me upstairs, and if you try, I'm not going to go."
Now he set down his fork and looked at her. "I beg your pardon?" he said quietly.
"You heard me. You've spent too much time lately trying to order me around, and I've allowed you to get away with it. It's not going to work anymore. Unless you have a very good reason for giving me a command, I'm going to take your orders for what they are—merely yourwishes.You'd like me to go away, but I'm not going to do it."
"What makes you think you have the right to speak to me like that?"
"Oh, please, James," Victoria said. "I'm not one of your servants, you know. You might be the rightful Duke of Stormwell—I've accepted you as such. I give you the respect I owe to your title. But that doesn't give you authority over every little thing I do. If you don't want to have breakfast with me, you leave the table." She reached for a roll and broke it in half to spread butter in the center.
Her heart was pounding. She didn't know how he would respond to what she'd said, and itwasintimidating to stand up to him like that. But it had to be done. She couldn't allow him to keep treating her the way he had been, and he needed to know that she understood she deserved better from him.
"You act as if your rebellion is something new," he said, raising his eyebrows. "But you've been defying me for some time now, haven't you? Going out to meet with my brother when I expressly forbade you from doing that?"
"It's as you said last night," she said evenly. "You don't have the authority to forbid me from doing anything at all. I understand that you don't wish me to associate with your brother, but at the end of the day, I am empowered to make my own decisions about who I will and won't spend my time with."
"And you choose to spend your time with the one person I have asked you not to associate with. That's the choice you're making?"
"I choose, when I see someone with whom I am acquainted, to be polite and friendly," Victoria said firmly. "You have no authority to control the kind of person I am, James. I have made no plans to associate with your brother, but you cannot turn me into someone who doesn't have a heart just because you hate your brother. I'm sorry for what happened to you in your childhood. Truly, I think it's awful, and nobody deserves that sort of mistreatment. I'm glad you survived it. At the same time, Benjamin was not the guilty party, and nothing that happened requires that I should be cold or unkind to him."
"Just tell the truth," James said sharply. "You have feelings for him, don't you?"
"I—what?" That question was so shocking that for a moment, Victoria couldn't figure out how she was supposed to answer it. "What on Earth do you mean?"
"You're supposed to be looking for a husband. I told you that you could have your choice, and now you think you're going tochoose my brother. Just tell me why. Are you doing it to hurt me? To seek some kind of petty revenge?"
"James…what are you talking about? Of course I don't have feelings for your brother. Besides, he already has plans to marry. He's doing all this because he wants to develop a relationship withyou. He's planning on getting married soon and he wants you to be a part of that celebration."
"And yet, I can tell that you feel something," James said stubbornly. "I know that he means something to you, Victoria. I think you should admit to it."
"I think you should cope with your own jealousy," she shot back. "I don't have to answer these questions."
"Jealousy! That's the second time you've made that accusation. I don't know what could possibly be giving you such a strange idea."
"Truly, you don't? What about the fact that every time I speak to a man, you tell me that I've done something wrong? You claim to want me to marry, and yet you become angry when I do so much as engage in a conversation. How could I possibly see it as anything but jealousy? The way you act—it's as if you want to control my every move. It's as though you're driven mad by the thought of me doing anything at all without your permission. Is this even about your brother? Or is it merely about the fact that I spoke to him without consulting you first?"
"Do you even hear the way you sound right now?" he asked her. "How could anyone doubt that you have feelings for Benjamin? If you didn't, why would it even occur to you to make accusations ofjealousy? Why would you put things in those terms if that wasn't the way you felt?"
"He's a good man," Victoria said. "I like him. I like being able to spend time with him. I don't feel the need to explain myself further than that."
