He grimaced. “You’re not upset?”
“I told you, did I not?” She rested a hand on his arm in solidarity. “My feelings for you extend to the familiar and friendly. I do not love you as you do not love me.” She allowed her gaze to drift back to Miss Norleigh, who still danced with Carrowell. “Or as you love another.”
“Love?” Alistair feigned confusion. “I do not… I might care for Miss Norleigh, but love? That is absurd.”
“Is it, now?”
“You of all people should know that I am not capable of such a thing as that…” He sighed and shook his head as if in defeat. “Why do you think that I wished for a marriage of convenience – that I even considered marrying you, despite neither of us having feelings for one another? I am broken, Lady Emily.”
“Just because you did not have feelings for me does not mean you are incapable, Your Grace.”
“It is not just you.” He went back to watching Miss Norleigh. He watched her smile. He watched her laugh. He watched her love the moment that she was in. “I have tried in the past. I have… I have wanted to fall in love before, as a younger man. But I learned early that such follies are not for me. And I have made my peace with it.”
“Perhaps you just haven’t found the right woman?”
If only it was that easy. What Lady Emily did not know was that Alistair’s feeling concerning love and marriage stemmed from his upbringing, his father who beat him, his mother who died because of how she was treated, and the repulsion he felt at even the suggestion of forcing such a thing onto another.
He was not the same monster that his father was, he knew that. But that did not mean he could simply forget… that he could ignore the impulse inside of him that screamed constantly to run and hide whenever a slither of happiness presented itself.
His father had whipped from him any chance of being happy.
“It is not about the right woman.” He watched Miss Norleigh dance, and his chest tightened because how he would have loved to have been the one with her… if only he was that type of man. “I am the problem.”
“Oh, now I don’t believe that.”
“It is true.”
“Maybe, maybe not…” He saw her watching him out the corner of his eyes, just as he saw the doubt that she wore as she did so. “Although, who am I to say?” She laughed. “I am not much better. Hence my desire to marry you.” She laughed again. “We truly are hopeless, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Not so hopeless that you won’t at leasttrywith Miss Norleigh, I pray. For example, right now, I sense that she needs you, and if you remain here feeling sorry for yourself, that need will go unfounded. And that would be a tragedy.”
He frowned and looked down at her. “Needs me? How so?”
She flicked her head across the ballroom where the dancing had just now stopped. As expected, the couples were slow to leave, and they remained holding one another as they drifted back among the crowd.
Alistair searched for Miss Norleigh and Carrowell, expecting them to come right back. Most strangely, they were nowhere to be seen…
“Where on earth…”
Lady Emily took his arm and turned him so that he found the two crossing the ballroom together, in the opposite direction of where Alistair stood. Carrowell walked with his arm aroundMiss Norleigh, and she leaned on him with a little too much familiarity.
Inside, Alistair felt a fire erupt.
“You might not think you deserve love, Your Grace, but how can you possibly know such a thing if you do not fight for it? How can you say what you want if you have never even tried?”
Alistair continued to watch Miss Norleigh walk closely with Carrowell. He doubted that his friend would dare to make a move when he so obviously knew that, tonight at least, she belonged to Alistair …but this is also Carrowell that I am talking about.
“And what if I fail?” he asked without looking at Lady Emily. “What if it is all for nothing?”
“Then at least you won’t die not knowing. To live with regrets is its own sadness, but to die with them is an entirely worse type of fate.”
Her words stirred something deep inside of him.
For a long time, Alistair had known that he had feelings for Miss Norleigh. And most recently, he had started to accept them as real – beyond mere fancies and physical attraction. But he was still hesitant, still not entirely sure if such feelings warranted any action. Yes, he liked Miss Norleigh, but was there any point to it? What could possibly happen between them?
Now… he was starting to wonder if that mattered at all.
