His jaw clenched.
“Why are you so desperate to marry her off?”
“I’m simply trying to secure her future, as well as her sisters’. They’re not as worldly as you or I and they’ll need someone trustworthy to protect them and help them through life when I’m gone.”
“And are you planning on dying any time soon?” Graham said sarcastically. Silence followed.
Graham turned his attention back to her. The crease in Belle’s brow was deeper, her wrinkled face twisted into a worried expression he had never witnessed before. Realization began to dawn on him, and he wondered if he had said the wrong thing.
“Lady Belle—”
Her hand flew up and he stopped speaking.
“So be it. Let Lismore go to you cousin. Stubborn fool.”
She swung around dramatically, her skirts puffing out as she did. He was dismissed and, apparently, freed from her meddling. But her failure to respond to his question irritated him. Was she unwell?
Glancing back across the ballroom, it took only seconds for him to find Hope again. Graham had never seen a woman so set on being happy. Almost as if she were determined to find joy in every situation. Even now, as the music played and she twirled faster and faster, the largest smile was plastered on her face. It made him inscrutably happy and oddly irritated that she should be smiling while being held in another man’s arm. He reminded himself firmly that she didn’t belong to him. But as he walked along the edge of the dance floor, watching her twirl across the dance floor, a new sensation sprung up within him.
Unwanted desire. Physically, he had craved her since he first laid eyes on her. But he had been able to chalk that up to mere animalistic instinct. What he hadn’t expected was to be enthralled by her and he couldn’t bear it. He refused to want her, if only to spite Belle.
Graham knew he should turn his back on the entire affair, make a clean break, but that prospect was equally unsatisfying. If he decided to wash his hands of the ordeal, he had no doubt that she would eventually marry someone else, possibly Jared, and he couldn’t allow that either.
He had never experienced such a sensation before. No person had ever stirred a possessiveness that seemed to swallow him up like when he saw Hope dancing with Jared. He had no claim to her, no reason to become incensed. Hell, he barely knewher. Jared was one of his greatest confidants, and yet it didn’t matter. All he saw was Hope, her body pressed against someone who wasn’t him, and his resolved snapped.
He crossed the dance floor and reached them in seconds.
“Ah, cousin, you should find yourself a dance partner,” Jared said with a friendly smile as he and Hope nearly bumped into him.
Graham didn’t reply. He only held out his hand, his complete attention on Hope.
“Oh,” she said, visibly startled by his actions. She seemed unsure of what to do as she glanced between Jared and Graham. “Um.” Swallowing, she slowly retracted her hand from Jared’s. “A-all right.”
“Ochs, no,” Jared said, annoyed. “Go find your own.”
But Graham didn’t listen. He steered Hope away, and they glided swiftly and effortlessly through the masses, edging closer and closer to the outside of the circle. Hope kept her eyes steadily on Graham, obviously waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He only wanted to be away from the crowd to give himself some time to think.
“That was rather impolite,” she said as they danced.
Graham tried to ignore the softness of her body beneath his hands. Instead, he focused on her words.
“So?”
Hope frowned.
“Is that all you have to say?”
He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. Hope let out a huff of disapproval and tried to wriggle away from him, but Graham couldn’t let her go.
“Wait. Come with me,” he commanded.
He didn’t know what propelled him to hold onto her, but he wouldn’t release her, and by the expression on her face, he wondered if she perhaps wasn’t at least a little curious herself.
On the third go about the room, he slipped out the back door, pulling her along.
His hand went through his hair as he tried to sort out his emotions, all the while with Hope standing before him. Perhaps it was because of what she represented. She was his chance to regain ownership of his heritage. Surely that was why he had dragged her out of the castle, fighting off the urge to snarl at anyone that got in his way. Surely it was just the idea of what he could have that made him feel so desperate.
They stood on the slate stacked terrace that overlooked a winding stream that cut through the forest. She was breathing deeply; arms crossed and visibly agitated.
