All he could think about was Lillian.
She would come today. He was certain of it. After yesterday, after the declaration and the kisses and the promises, she would come to see him, expecting…...What? A continuation of what had begun? A conversation about their future? The first tentative steps toward something he could not even name?
She would come, and she would find him changed. Cold. Distant. Unreachable.
She would come, and he would break her heart.
The thought was agonizing. He could picture her face so clearly; the way her expression would shift from hope to confusion to hurt as she realized that the man who had held her yesterday had been replaced by a stranger. He could imagine her voice, soft with bewilderment, asking what had changed, what she had done wrong, why he would not look at her.
She had done nothing wrong. That was the cruelest part. She had been exactly what she always was—steady, warm, generous, brave. She had offered him her heart without reservation, and he had taken it, and now he was going to hand it back to her in pieces.
It is better this way, he told himself.Better a small hurt now than a great devastation later. Better to disappoint her today than to destroy her over years of slow disintegration.
But the words rang hollow, even in his own mind. He was not protecting Lillian. He was protecting himself. He was protecting himself from the terror of loving someone, of needing someone, of giving another person the power to wound him in ways from which he might never recover.
He was a coward. He had always been a coward. All his talk of control and discipline and rational management of emotion, it was nothing but elaborate justification for his own weakness.
A knock at the door interrupted his spiraling thoughts.
"Your Grace." Simmons's voice was carefully neutral through the heavy oak. "Miss Whitcombe has arrived. She is asking to see you."
Daniel's heart lurched painfully in his chest. He pressed his palms flat against the desk, steadying himself.
"Inform Miss Whitcombe that I am occupied with urgent estate business. I cannot see her today."
A pause. "Miss Whitcombe was quite insistent, Your Grace. She says the matter is of some importance."
Of course it is. Of course she wants to see you. After everything you said, after everything you did, of course she believes...
"I am unavailable."
"Your Grace..."
"That will be all, Simmons."
Another pause, longer this time. Then: "Very good, Your Grace."
Footsteps retreated down the corridor, and Daniel was left alone with the weight of what he had just done.
He had turned her away. Lillian had come to him, hopeful and trusting, and he had refused to see her. He had hidden behind his study door like the coward he was, and now she was standing in his entrance hall, being informed by his butler that the Duke of Wyntham could not be bothered to spare her a moment of his precious time.
He rose from his chair and moved to the window, looking down at the drive. From here, he would be able to see her when she left, he would be able to watch her walk away from him, confused and hurt, without having to face her directly.
It was the coward's way. But he had already established that he was a coward.
Several minutes passed. Then the front door opened, and Lillian emerged.
She paused on the steps, her face turned toward the house, and Daniel drew back from the window instinctively, though he knew she could not see him from that distance. She looked... not angry, as he had expected. Not even hurt, precisely. She lookedbewildered;as though she had been presented with a puzzle whose pieces did not fit together, no matter how many times she rearranged them.
She stood there for a long moment, looking up at the house. Then she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and walked toward the waiting gig that would take her back to Hartfield.
She did not look back.
Daniel watched until she had disappeared down the drive, until even the sound of the wheels had faded into silence. Then he returned to his desk, sat down, and stared at the papers before him.
He did not see a single word.
***
