Page 92 of The Wedding-Crashing Duchess

The moment the words left him, he wanted them back.

Augusta’s smile became even more polite. “Thank you.”

He could have sworn at himself.

The color suits you.

Gregory had looked at her once and told her she looked extraordinary, while Ronan had spent an entire evening staring at his own wife as though he had never seen a beautiful woman before and had somehow reduced all that admiration to an assessment a shopkeeper might make about fabric.

“You misunderstand me,” he said.

Augusta’s gaze returned to his. “Do I? What did you mean, then?”

Ronan knew exactly what he should say, and he wanted to say it so badly that the wanting itself became an obstacle.

You are beautiful.

He had thought the words repeatedly since she came downstairs, yet speaking them aloud seemed somehow more intimate than placing his hand at her waist, because once he said them she would know what he had been thinking, and he had spent most of his life avoiding precisely that kind of exposure.

He opened his mouth, but nothing useful came.

Augusta watched him for another moment, and something shuttered behind her eyes.

“You need not struggle so terribly for an answer,” she said, her voice gentle enough that the words hurt more than anger would have. “I asked a foolish question, and you answered honestly. Let us leave it there.”

There was a disappointment in her voice, and he hated that he had been the one to place it there. Only because it was difficult for him to admit out loud that his wife looked beautiful.

“I wouldn’t call your question foolish,” he told her. “It clearly matters to you.”

Her gaze moved toward the edge of the ballroom. “I think these things shouldn’t matter to me, anyway. I should try to be more mindful next time, and not ask questions whose answers I might not like.”

Ronan felt frustration rise, most of it directed at himself.

“Augusta, I am trying to explain,” he said to her.

“And I am trying to spare you the effort,” she replied, still speaking softly because they were surrounded by dancers and acquaintances who needed no reason to become interested in their marriage. “You do not have to say something merely because you think I want to hear it, and I would rather you did not force yourself into a compliment you do not mean simply because I was foolish enough to ask for one.”

“I did not say I did not mean it,” he corrected her swiftly.

“You barely said anything at all.”

That silenced him. Augusta looked away, and Ronan finally understood that the question had never really been about the gown.

The realization came too late. In earnest, she had wanted to know how he saw her.

Perhaps she had been thinking about the night before, about the moment when he had stared at her mouth and nearly kissed her, and perhaps she had asked tonight because she was trying to understand whether that moment had meant something to him.

The final measures of the dance began, and Ronan felt the approaching end with an urgency he had not expected, because once the music stopped she would be free to step away and he had the sudden certainty that she intended to do exactly that.

“Augusta,” he said, lowering his voice, “wait until the dance is finished and let me try again, because you are drawing conclusions from an answer I gave badly, and although I admit I have managed this conversation with remarkable incompetence, that does not mean your conclusion is correct.”

She looked at him, and for an instant he thought she might soften.

Instead, she gave him a small smile. “There is nothing to try again. You have spent the entire evening being kind to me, you came to a ball you clearly did not wish to attend, and you have just asked me to be careful because you are worried about my safety. I know you care about me, Ronan, and I am grateful for that. I should not have asked for something more.”

The words struck him harder than they ought to have.

Something more.