She took his hand and he sent a quick look toward his brothers before he let her take him from the room. They hadn’t even reached the foyer when Poole was calling for her carriage with a great glee in his tone.
She sighed. “He must have been listening.”
“I don’t give a damn about the butler,” Silas said, catching her arms and forcing her to look at him. “Please don't let them push you out of my house or my life.”
She stared up into this face she had come to truly adore. “Silas, we both knew this was temporary. We said it from the beginning. If it’s ending anyway, why not give in on this with your brothers? It gives them a point in this argument, gives them a reason to loosen their grip on anything else they demand. I can see they bothwantto do that.”
He glanced back at the dining room and there was such a longing on his face that it broke her heart. “I don’t care what they want,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Of course you do. Let me go. Talk to them. Try to work it out. Don’t be so bullheaded about an affair that you won’t let yourself have what you’ve wanted since you were a boy.”
“It is more than an affair and you know it,” he said, his voice broken and his eyes stormy seas.
Her carriage was already arriving at the door and for that she was happy because him saying those words made her heart soar and crash all at once. She cupped his cheeks and leaned up for a kiss. His arms came around her, almost desperate to keep her. But when she pulled back, he allowed it.
“It can’t be. And you know it. Good night.”
She stepped away then, didn’t even hear whatever snide comment Poole made when he helped her into her rig, didn’t feel the carriage move when Ingram set them on the road back toward her house. She was numb. That was a good thing because she knew when this pain came, it would be powerful. It would be changing.
How could it be anything but when she’d just walked away from the man she loved?
CHAPTER21
Silas could hardly hear over the pounding of his heart as he strode back into the dining room after Arabella left. She’d lefthimand it was perfectly clear that it wasn’t just for the night or for show. She was ending this and he hadn’t felt such a pain in a very long time.
“I’m sorry she felt she had to leave,” Charlie said as Silas entered the room.
Silas shook his head. “No, that was the purpose, wasn’t it?” He threw himself back in the chair. He couldn’t muster enough energy to speak angrily anymore, so his tone was flat, instead. “To drive her away. To take her from me so that you two could dance me all the more on your string.”
“Take her away?” Reginald repeated with wide eyes. “Do you know what you sound like?”
“Like a man who loves a woman,” Silas shouted.
For a moment that statement hung between them, stunning all three of them equally. He hadn’t allowed himself to recognize until now when it was being threatened. When he’d had to watch her walk away and felt like she’d ripped his heart out and put it in the carriage with her.
“You’re in love with her,” Charlie repeated softly. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt such a thing before. But it’s there and I won’t apologize for it. Arabella is sunlight streaming into a room where you’ve only ever had the curtains drawn. She is laughter in the midst of sorrow. She is bright and glorious and when I’m with her, I feel…happy. She makes me happy.” He shifted. “The very idea of walking away from that, of not asking her to stay in my life forever, is a pain I cannot describe. And it’s one I won’t bear, not even to have you two in my life.”
“You sound like you’re talking about marrying her,” Reginald said, his hands gripped on the tabletop.
Silas swallowed. “Yes. If she would have me, I would marry her.”
He had no idea if that was possible, of course. He knew that what they shared was real. He knew she cared for him, perhaps even loved him, though he wasn’tcertainof that larger feeling. But she might not agree to linking her life with his. She might push him even further away to protect herself…to protect him.
“If everything you wished for came true,” Charlie said carefully. “If you asked her to wed and she agreed, how do you picture that working? What would you have me say when it was brought up in clubs or at parties?”
He shook his head. “I expect you to tell anyone who bothers you about me to fuck off. And if you cannot do that, then roll your eyes and laugh and say something about bastard blood. That’s what everyone thinks of me anyway, isn’t it? You don’t have to claim ownership for anything I do. You can just be bemused by it.”
“Iambemused by it,” Charlie said with a sigh. “And perhaps a little envious that you have always gone your own way, never been constrained by all that goes along with being a son of the Marquess of Pentaghast.”
“Oh, trust me, I was more than constrained by that man’s name and expectations,” Silas said. “But it isn’thisname anymore, is it? They aren’thisexpectations. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be, or at least you don’t have to live the life he required.”
Charlie and Reg looked at each other and it was as if they had never considered that. For a brief moment, Silas wondered about their childhoods with their father. They’d both been grown when he met them, Charlie fifteen years his senior, Reg twelve. But what had Pentaghast done when they were boys to put them so firmly in line that they feared to stray even into their forties and he was dead in the grave for more than half a decade?
Silas leaned forward. “I wouldn’t ask you to invite us to your fancy parties, I want nothing to do with that. But why couldn’t you invite me and the person I hold dearest to Christmas? Or to the country estate for a week after the Season so we can all play croquette and watch the children swim in the lake? Jesus, you’re offering me family but acting like it’s a business connection.”
There was a long, charged silence and then Charlie cleared his throat. “Perhaps it’s all we knew. Perhaps we could all learn something from you on the matter of following your heart.”
