“That I could not possibly go to the workroom of Rare Confectionery and make chocolates if I were a duchess.”
However, when she opened her eyes and quickly looked away from him, he knew other thoughts were flitting in her brain. Thoughts ofhim, perhaps, and not of chocolate.
He sighed. “Can we put that aside for the time being? I cannot imagine chocolate is more important than...,” he trailed off.How pathetic to say he wanted to come before her love of making chocolate!
He paced the room to give her space to think and, hopefully, to say something more intimate, but he kept his gaze on her. She curled her delicate yet capable hands into fists at her sides. She glanced up at the ceiling and down at the floor. Finally, she looked directly at him.
“Would you give up your seat in Parliament or leave your townhouse to live with me in a middle-class house in the southwest outskirts of London?”
His eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that question. Give up the trappings of his inheritance?Absurd!
“But there would be no need,” he began.
She held up a hand to stop him. “What if marrying me meant giving up your fine house and your valet, as well as membership to your clubs and...?” She hesitated and frowned.
Her lovely face, even when frowning, made his heart ache. He knew this wasn’t going the way he had hoped.
“And what if you even had to give up your luxury coach?” she finished and sunk her teeth into her lower lip, appearing distraught.
Amity could not see herself as his duchess, and that hurt. If she loved him, she would leave Mr. Cole and enter his world with pleasure and gratitude. She would worry later about being a chocolatier.
With his heart squeezing painfully, all he could do was turn her words into a jest.
“That is unfair. Anything but my luxury coach. Definitely, I would rather have my Italian leather squabs than you for a wife.”
They stared at each other, and then she smiled, while tears filled her eyes. He could tell she was not going to acquiesce. She did not love him, or at least, not enough.
“I had best be on my way,” he said, feeling suddenly chilled and empty, “before I am discovered in your room.”
She nodded, crushing his hopes for a life with this warm and witty woman.
He nearly took her in his arms again.Who was to stop him?They both undeniably enjoyed it. But it seemed a shallow, lusty game, and he didn’t play those types of games, not with respectable young women.
With a bow of farewell, Henry slipped out of her room and headed back along the hallway to his own. It had never occurred to him that she would choose the lawyer and chocolate over him.Who wanted to be a regular missus instead of a duchess?
A part of him admired her for her loyalty.A very small part!The rest of him felt annoyed, confused, worried, uncharacteristically insecure, and above all, miserable.
As he undressed, missing his valet, he decided to depart at first light with a note left for the family. He was not one to flog a dead horse, nor to face humiliation at the hands of the victorious Mr. Cole.
