Page 66 of Engaging Sir Isaac

* * *

Millie’s head and heart warred with one another. Her mind immediately drew upon a list of reasons it could never be, but her heart thrummed painfully in her chest. Isaac hadn’t really asked her—hadn’t actually said those words to her. “You barely know me,” she whispered. “You cannot mean it.”

“I mean it.” He drew her hand up to his lips, holding it so close his lips brushed her knuckles as he spoke. “You are witty and wise, kind, forgiving, and you see past my weaknesses while making me wish to be stronger, better. Marry me. I will spend the rest of my life protecting you and working for your happiness.”

She stared up at him, wishing to say yes, longing to accept his hand and give him her heart. But then the reality of her situation broke upon her. “I cannot,” she whispered. “Isaac. Say no more. Please. Go—go away.” Millie withdrew her hand and stumbled back, grasping the handle of the door.

The pain in his eyes was sharp and drove a dagger into her heart.

“Why?” The single word was not plaintive but demanding. “Do you have no feelings for me? Could you never come to care—?”

“Isaac.” She stopped him, closing her eyes and leaning back against the door. What could she say? It would ruin him, ruin her, break her mother’s heart, devastate her father, disappoint his family. “I care for you. But I cannot marry you.”

Silence hung between them, with him standing stubbornly before her, fist clenched and eyes storming. Millie’s eyes stung with tears. “I wish I could say yes. But it is not possible. Not now. Lord Carning would tear my family apart. Lady Olivia would find another way to hurt us both.”

“You think I care what that group of fools thinks?” he asked, jerking his chin to the door. “Millie, I have stood before the armies of our nation’s enemies and led men into battle. I have been shot at, stabbed, and blown apart.” He shuddered and closed his eyes, the memories too much for him, perhaps. “I nearly died in a canvas tent, feet away from a massive grave of my fellow soldiers. And Lady Olivia and the silk-swathed ton are supposed to frighten me?”

“They frighten me,” she shouted back at him, then covered her mouth. She continued in a whisper. “Losing what is left of my family frightens me. The contempt of Society hanging over my head for the rest of my life stifles my very breath. And what of you? You say you do not care, but will you, when gentlemen turn their backs upon you? What about our children, when they cannot find friends, or support, to move forward in their chosen paths because of a choice I made?”

“We would manage. There are many who give no heed to what the likes of Carning and Alderton have to say.”

Millie shook her head again. She had lived under the frowns of Society, she had been given the cut direct the first time she attended a Social event and had heard her mother weeping over the betrayal of old friends. Six years had been a long time for her family to stand at the edge of the world they had once belonged to, and Millie would not do that to Isaac.

There was no way to make Isaac see as she did. She drew herself up, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You think you are in love with me?”

“I know I am.” His conviction would make what she said next hurt all the more.

Forcing her voice to remain even, to keep her tone cool as ice, Millie protected him the only way she could think of; she wounded him. “Then I have fulfilled my obligation to Lady Olivia, for I can think of nothing as humiliating as declaring your love to one who will not have you.” She tipped her nose in the air. “Now there is only Mr. Weston to deal with. Good bye, Sir Isaac.”

He stared at her with such shock that she knew she could escape at last, if she moved quickly enough. So she did. She slipped out the door and fled, not caring if anyone saw, all the way to her room.

A sob broke free of her throat, and Millie searched her room frantically for her trunk. Once she found it, she started shoving her clothing inside. Sarah did not find her until the room had been torn apart, and Millie sat on the ground beside her bed, sobbing into her hands.

Sarah gathered Millie up and rocked her back and forth, not saying a word.

“We leave in the morning,” Millie said at last between shuddering breaths.

“Yes, miss.”

“I want my things left for Lord Neil to see to. He will send them home for me.”

Sarah released Millie and sat back on her heels, raising her eyebrows. “Where do you intend to go, miss, if not home with your trunk?”

Millie shuddered and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You and I will travel by post to see Emmeline.” She forced a smile, though it likely appeared rather grim. “I need to speak to my sister. Will you keep packing? I have letters to write.”

Chapter 25

After calling himself every type of fool he could think of, Isaac walked home in the darkness. He knew the lands about his estate well enough that it was easily accomplished. But no matter how he growled and snapped at the bushes in his path like an angry dog, his heart continued to crumble. When he walked through his front door, startling the footman tasked with waiting for him to arrive home, the whole of his emotions finally fell to pieces.

Isaac went directly for his study where he knew he had a bottle of brandy. He had never hurt so terribly in his life, excepting when his arm had been removed from his body. And he meant to drown the pain in the burning alcohol. Forgetting everything. Forgetting Millie.

She loved him. He knew she must. She lied when she said it had all been for nothing, all to appease Lady Olivia’s twisted sense of revenge. Every moment the two of them shared, excepting that first dinner when she had attempted to flirt with him, had been real.

He took up the bottle of brandy and a glass from a cupboard and went to sit behind his desk. He put both items down on the table, then froze when he realized he had no way of opening the bottle without help, or risking breaking it. He glared at the alcohol as it promised hours of relief, of forgetting.

Then he opened and closed his hand, the useless, single hand.

Yet it had saved him. Had he started drinking, Isaac knew he might never have stopped. Not until every drop of liquor in the house had gone, as it had after his mother died.