Dawnford staggered back a step, then turned on his heel and limped off toward the house, one hand to his swelling eye.
Lady Montfort collapsed against the balustrade and began to fan herself. Frances ran to Lavinia’s side, and Tristan, feeling the tremor in his own hands, turned to face her.
She was shaking. Not out of fear, but from the release of something tightly wound.
“Are you hurt?” he said.
She shook her head. “I am unhurt.”
Tristan took a step toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. “Marry me, Lavinia!”
He was not sure if he had said it out loud, but the look on Lavinia’s face told him he had.
Lady Montfort stopped wailing instantly. “What?”
Frances gave a little scream, muffled by her own hand. Tristan rook another step forward, his whole body singing with the necessity of the moment. “Lady Lavinia, I ask for your hand in marriage. Here. Now.”
Lavinia’s eyes widened, then filled, then shimmered with something he had only ever seen in his wildest, most idiotic hopes.
He waited.
She did not speak.
CHAPTER 36
This cannot be real! It cannot be happening. You are dreaming, or dead, or both at once. If you answer, if you say yes,the world will snap back to its original, miserable shape, and you will be left standing in the wreckage.
Lavinia stared at Tristan as he waited. Lady Montfort let out a high, surprised sound—half triumph, half outrage—and Frances simply gaped, her eyes nearly as round as shillings.
Dawnford was gone. Good riddance.
“May we speak alone, Your Grace?” Lavinia’s voice was unfamiliar to her own ears.
She did not wait for consent. She stepped around the Duke and led the way to the drawing room. She paused at the threshold, listened for the sound of pursuit, and when it came, she did not turn.
Lavinia turned now. “Was that your notion of a proposal?”
He blinked once, then twice. “Yes.”
“It was abrupt.”
“I was under the impression time was of the essence.”
She drew a breath, then squared her shoulders. “Why?”
He looked surprised by the question. “Why what?”
“Why me. Why now. Why at all?” She took a step closer, every nerve raw and sparking. “You do not even like me, Tristan. You have spent the last month making a study of how little a man can feel and still claim to be alive.”
A muscle twitched at his jaw, but he did not look away. “That is not true.”
“You are not sentimental. The only thing you have ever done to demonstrate affection is to hire me, and even that was only out of necessity.” Her hands were cold. She balled them into fists to keep from shaking. “You cannot just punch a man in the nose and then expect everything to arrange itself around your whims.”
Lavinia felt unusual anger and uncertainty surge within her. This man had broken her heart thoroughly, yet he had the gallto stand before her and expect her to run into his arms, weeping tears of joy.
He took a step closer so they were separated only by a hairsbreadth. “You are correct,” he said. “I cannot.”
She tried to hold his gaze, failed, tried again. “Did you pay my father’s debts?”
