Forcing her gaze away, she sipped at her tea, trying to still the tremor of her fingers by gripping the handle of the cup. Her dilemma was total. She loved him. How could she possibly agree to a marriage of convenience? It was not in her nature to live a lie. To hide her feelings while she daily lived within his sight? And what of the nights? The enormity of that pretence hit her.
“Oh, I could not!”
He did not at once speak, but his gaze lingered on her face for a moment. He set down his cup with an air of finality. “I shall importune you no further. When you have decided what you wish to do, you may command my services to take you wherever you wish to go.”
The coldness of this utterance chilled Felicity. She could not look at him as he rose and crossed to the bell-pull.
“One of the maids will show you to your chamber. Good night.”
Felicity heard his steps. Her heart in tatters, she looked up in time to see the door close softly behind him.
He hardly knew where he was going, only that he could not remain in the same room with her. Her words echoed in his head.Oh,Icouldnot. Inwardly cringing, Raoul sped up, his steps taking him through the candlelit gallery. He ignored the night candles waiting on a side table and the footman ready to light them, and hurried down the dark of the stairs into the hall where the moonlit slivers of light from the high windows streaked the marble and the shadows thankfully covered his unutterable shame.
There was no bearing the knowledge she regarded him with revulsion. She had called him arrogant. How true. How despicably correct. Yes, he was guilty of arrogance. In supposing he had only to hold out against her arguments to force her to his will. He had not bargained for the demon of hurt that scourged him now.
Without the aim of going there, he found himself in his library, the decanter kept in a cabinet there in his hand. He poured a measure of brandy and knocked it back. Its fire burned his gullet, pooling heat into his chest as it went down. It was balm, of a sort. But the corroding sense of injury and loss did not leave him.
Pouring another measure, he replaced the stopper in the decanter and returned it to the cabinet, slamming the door. He moved to one of the leather chairs and sat, staring into the embers of the tamped down fire smouldering in the grate.
Oh,Icouldnot.
How had he got it so wrong? He thought she liked him at least. Yet she had not even paused to consider the proposition. She had shied away from it at the outset. Shied away fromhim. As if he was some kind of monster!
Someone came quietly into the room, bearing a candle. Raoul hardly noticed the footman who set the candle down on a table at his elbow and withdrew as silently. He was struggling with an unpalatable realisation.
Ever since the visit to Rusper, Felicity had changed towards him. She had been edgy. Nervous? Apprehensive? With the resolution of her search, she had changed altogether, now he thought about it. And he, determined on his own course, had not even allowed her time to reflect. Had not thought of her wishes at all. Had she not accused him of it?
Lord, but he had made a complete hash of it! Had been justly served too. Felicity could not endure the idea of marrying him. She had made that abundantly clear. A bitter pill. He had no choice but to swallow it. There was no marrying a woman who plainly could not stomach him for a husband. He would have to let her go.
Yet the thought of Felicity blundering into the sort of life she had endured was anathema. At least let him deflect her from that. Angelica! Remembrance of his cousin was productive of a tiny thread of hope. What if Felicity stayed with Angelica for a space? Might he persuade her to that at least? She would not go altogether out of his reach. Given time, might she recover a little of the former ease between them? It might grant him a chance to woo her, perhaps. Or was he baying at the moon again?
An odd yearning superseded the hurt. If only they might go back a couple of days. There had been intimacy. At Mrs Dadford’s, she had been so easy with him, had she not? Might she be so again if the threat — Dear Lord, but that was how she saw it! — if the threat of his offer were removed?
But he had removed it. He had told her he would take her where she wanted to go. Which meant she was effectively still dependent upon him.
He remembered the bank draft from Rusper and withdrew it from his pocket. He examined it in the light of the single candle, unable to make it out clearly beyond the writing and the lawyer’s signature. What should he do? It was useless to Felicity without his banking facilities. She could cash it, of course, but he would have to take her to a bank.
He made up his mind. Let him give it into her charge. That would show her he did not mean to stand in her way.
The decision made, he slipped it back into his pocket and rose, picking up the candle. But as he made his way up to his apartments, he became prey to renewed yearning for a very different outcome to his abortive attempt to make Felicity his marchioness.
The night was interminable. Snatched sleep, filled with unquiet dreams, felt momentary, bringing no relief.
Felicity turned and turned again, ruffling the bedclothes and increasing her discomfort. Being in the bed at all was anathema, reminding her too much of the distressing notion that had prompted her outburst. She had not meant to speak aloud. A bad habit, got into when her mind was churning.
She recalled the times Raoul had picked up her words, laughing at her apparent inconsequence. Not this time. He had shut like a door, alienated. Felicity felt it, in his voice, in his bearing, in his very words. He would not importune her further, he said. He withdrew the choice, the fateful offer. A marriage of convenience? Highly convenient for her it would have been, and Raoul was ready to spell out advantages which could not have been more obvious. She had balked because she wanted more from him, more of him. She wanted what he could not give. Fool!
What right had she to demand the moon when he was offering the stars? What, would she have none of the night sky if she could not have it all? Now she had lost her chance and she must dwell in the dark without him for the rest of her days.
This melancholy thought held for some little time while her imagination painted a night such as she had never dreamed on, until she remembered it could never have been like that. Useless to regret an impossibility. Convenient wives had an inescapable duty which had nothing to do with tenderness.
Oh, but he would have been kind. He had been. Gentle, even. That very first night he had shown compassion, holding her while the shock of her abandonment made her tremble. He had proffered his help every step of the way.
Yes, said her evil genius, because he hoped for a wife who would not bore him!
Groaning aloud, Felicity turned again, burying her face in the pillows and longing for the dawn. When it came at last she woke to the chink of crockery and Easter pulling aside the curtains around the four-poster.
“Morning, miss. I’ve brought your hot chocolate.”
