He shook his head. “I don’t want it. He can give it to someone else. I’m not interested.”
Amelia held him to her side and stroked his hair. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said gently. “It’s not something you get to choose.”
“I don’t want to be the bloody earl!”
As he leapt out of the chair, she stepped backward, tripping over a side table and falling.
He would have helped her up, but the livid look on her face made him hesitate.
“Well, you’re not the earl,” she spat. “Not yet, anyway. And the last time I saw your grandfather, he was fighting fit. You have at least a decade…unless he does something foolish, which I highly doubt, given you’re completely unsuited to the role and he’s bound to want to keep it out of your hands for as long as humanly possible. He’ll likely live to a thousand.”
She untangled her skirts from her legs and pushed herself to standing.
“This is unfair.” He slammed his hand into the wall, the plaster cracking under the impact. The pain in his hand was a welcome distraction from the nausea in his stomach.
Amelia’s expression was pure scorn. “This is a rather extraordinary display of emotion, isn’t it? Even from you.”
“I just—” He couldn’t put into words just how furious he was. Instead he thumped his bruised and bleeding fist into his palm over and over.
“Given you’ve never met your cousin, your grief seems a little extreme.” Her voice was sharp and full of edges. Was she angry with him?
What the hell did she have to be angry about? It was his life being ruined.
But of course, if he was the future Earl of Hemshire, she was the future countess. No doubt the chance that he might turn down the title had her in her own panic.
“This is exactly what you wanted,” he said. “Don’t pretend that you’re not ecstatic right now.”
Her face went slack, as if she’d copped a blow to her mid-section. Then it firmed into the brittle mask he’d not seen in weeks. “Actually, the plan was to marry a duke,” she said quietly. She moved to the window, turning her back on him. “But I suppose an earl will do.”
Finally the truth, out there for him to smack straight into. Whatever she’d said over these past weeks, whatever she’d done, she hadn’t been one-hundred-percent happy. There was still that part of her that found him lacking, just a little bit.
Until now.
Until a title he didn’t want was forced on him.
Until responsibilities he didn’t want and had no idea how to live up to were made his. As if he didn’t have enough burdens as it was.
But she didn’t care. As long as she was the future countess. “You are a cold one. So caught up in your titles you can’t see how much I don’t want this.”
She whirled around. “I’m cold? You’re so caught up in how awful it is to be handed something people dream of, you can’t seeanything. You poor darling. How dreadful Ducky’s death must be foryou.” She grabbed a vase from the still-standing side table and threw it at his head.
It wasn’t her loss of control that sucked the air from his lungs. It was the grief etched into all her features. The way she bit her lip hard. The tears running down her face. The lines around her eyes that made her look older than she was.
He was more than an ass. Of course she’d known his cousin. Amelia knew everyone.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry.”
If she heard him, she showed no sign of it. “Forget those of us that knew and liked him. Our grief pales in comparison to that of Mr. Benedict Asterly, who has been granted a future title, estate, vote in the House of Lords, political influence. What a poor wretch. My heart bleeds for you.”
“That’s not…I didn’t mean that. Obviously, I am sad for his loss.” Even to him, the words sounded like insincere platitudes.
“Why? You never met him. He was nothing but a parasite to you. Another great example of injustice and oppression.”
He closed the gap between them and tried to wrap her in his arms, but she pulled out of his embrace and shoved him in the chest.
“Well, we were of similar age. To me he was a sweet, kind boy who told terrible jokes and always saved a quadrille for me. He cared about the people of his estate. He showed up to every parliamentary session. He fought for his country even when your grandfather forbade it.”
She put the couch between them.
