Chapter 17
W hile Opal’s heart and breathing struggled to return to a normal rhythm, she clung to Locke’s glistening back.
Unable to open her eyes, unable to end this wondrous moment, unable—and unwilling—to let him go, she held him all the tighter.
And, maybe I don’t have to…
Hope fluttered in her breast.
Maybe Flint was right in that Locke did care about Opal. By his own admission, he respected her, admired her, enjoyed being with her—and now he’d made love to her. And there wasn’t a thing on God’s green earth that could ever compare to lying in Locke’s arms.
Locke rolled onto his side and cradled her close like she was a priceless artifact, to be cherished and preserved forever, and ran his hands over her back. “Was it good, love?”
Dazed, she stared dreamily into his eyes. “It was…” She sought for any way to try and do even some justice to the splendor she’d known. “It was fireworks and summer sunsets and soaring in a swing.”
As if to reward Opal for her poetic honesty, Locke captured her lips in a long, drugging kiss, that addled her already wooly senses—that ended too quickly.
Humming to himself, Locke leaned over her and grappled for his jacket.
“Leaving already?” she drawled teasingly.
Instead of the intended grin or laugh, the color seeped from Locke’s cheeks.
“I’m teasing, Locke,” she said gently.
His previously open expression now shuttered, he fished something from his jacket and said nothing in return.
Without a word spoken, Locke guided Opal onto her back, and then poignantly, reverently, cleaned between her legs.
She blinked back tears. Love. How easily he referred to Opal so, and how tenderly he held her after having made breathtaking love to her. How could he do all those things if he didn’t love her—if even just a little?
Worriedly, he looked up. “What is it?” He paled. “Did I hurt—?”
“N-No!”
With an apparent mistrust of that hastily given assurance, Locke restlessly examined her.
Against her body, she felt all Locke’s muscles bunch up. The kerchief slipped from his fingers, and Opal followed its sad white dance to the floor.
Sitting up, he swung his legs over the side of the small bed and dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, God.”
Frantic, she scrambled onto her knees beside him. “What?”
Locke exhaled a horrified whisper. “You have regrets,” he said, his beautiful baritone low and ravaged. “I’m so bloody sorry, Opal. I should have never—”
Opal took his arm and lightly shook him. “ Never , Locke!” She gave him a squeeze. “I wanted you to make love to me. I wanted you to be the first.” I want you to be the only . “What we did here…” She attempted to somehow put it into words. “It is and will always be the singular most special, earth-shattering moment of my life.”
Locke must have heard something in Opal’s earnestness; he picked his head up to look at her. The blood rushed from his cheeks. “Christ,” he hissed.
She shook her head. “Wh—?”
He held up his hands, warding off the rest of her imploration. “I see how you are looking at me, Opal,” he croaked. “And… don’t . It’s my fault. You are young. Confused. I’m your first lover. This—” He dragged a hand back and forth between them, knocking her fingers from his person—intentional or not, she did not know. “This was always going to confuse it, and I should have anticipated that, and I never would have…”
She scanned his face. “ And you would never have made love to me if you knew I had feelings for you?”
At his damning silence, a heaviness settled in Opal’s chest and limbs. She rubbed at her arms. “I see.”
That he could feel that way—that he could even think that—about the singular, most beautiful, astounding, thing to ever happen to her…
Opal let her arms drop. “I’m not confused, Locke,” she said solemnly. “I’ve never been surer about anything in my life. I love you.” Her voice didn’t so much as quiver. Rather, she felt freed by sharing that admission with him.
Locke didn’t seem to hear her. Feeling exposed in every way, Opal gathered the blanket and brought it about herself to conceal her nakedness. Were it another time, she’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of modesty being bare in front of him after they’d already been as intimate as a man and woman could be.
His complete silence and blank expression was the response she’d dreaded. Truthfully, it was also the one she’d expected. Having repeatedly played out this very exchange in her head did nothing to ease the crushing weight of Opal’s sorrow.
See me. Please, see me.
When he said nothing, Opal said it again, for him. “I love you,” she vowed with greater insistence. She’d continue to speak them until he acknowledged her.
However, the unfailingly collected, stouthearted Duke of Strathearn merely snatched up his black wool trousers. The speed of his actions spoke of a man about to run.
She frowned. Where she’d been concerned, she’d long considered herself a coward, but she hadn’t taken him for one.
When he stuffed one strong, defined calf into the leg hole of his trousers, she stared incredulously at him. “Locke, I love you.”
“Opal,” he said, his voice strained as his features, and condescending, too— Oh, the great big lummox . If she didn’t love him so, he’d have driven her utterly mad.— “You do not just fall in love with someone after…after what we’ve done here.” Infuriatingly he tugged his trousers up and set about stuffing the length of his fine lawn shirt into the waistband.
“No, I am well aware of that,” she said calmly.
Appearing relieved and pleased with her concurrence, Locke jammed his other leg inside the trouser opening.
She waited until their eyes again met. “It is you, Locke.”
He froze in a crouched position and stared blankly at her.
“It is you , Locke,” she repeated. “It has always been you.”
Straightening slowly, he finished pulling his trousers up. “Me,” he repeated dumbly.
“Always,” she said softly.
Locke shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
He didn’t understand or he didn’t want to?
His cravat still forgotten at their feet had left his shirt gaping at the top and she had full view of his neck; the corded tendons in it taut.
He eyed her with a growing wariness that set off the first stirring of disquiet.
Opal scrabbled with the thin blanket in her hands. She’d come this far.
“When I told you the first day I’d fallen in love with one of,” do not mention Abaddon , “the library’s sponsors—” It was too late. Locke’s eyebrows soared up, knowing what she’d been about to say. “I spoke the truth. I do, in fact, love one of those patrons, and that patron is and always has been you .”
Out of his inexpressiveness, she tried—and failed—to make sense of Locke’s feelings but he remained unflaggingly straight- faced. And, for a long, horrible stretch of time, she believed he intended to ignore this latest confession and leave it where they’d last ended to never speak about it again.
“When you asked that I…help you earn the affections of some gentleman…”
She was already nodding.
“That gentleman was in fact—”
“You.”
“Me,” he finished over her.
Somehow, she found the courage to keep speaking. “I have loved you as long as I’ve known you.”
“You were a child when we met,” Locke said, his tone flat.
His gaze traveled to the rumpled bed, her stays, gown, and slippers strewn around them. So much blood left his cheeks, for a moment she feared he’d hit the floor. She jumped up to go to him, got tangled in the blanket, and came back down on her knees.
Opal lifted a solemn gaze to his, willing him to see. “I’m not a child now. I want to marry you, Locke.”
That knocked him from his inertia.
A strained laugh gurgled in his throat. “Opal, did you just…propose marriage to me?”
Hers had been more of a statement, but it wouldn’t benefit either of them getting caught up in wordplay.
To be fair, when she’d set out for his estate and put her plan into motion, it’d never ended with Opal being the one to ask for his hand. She loved him too much for that.
You loved him and you lied to him.
Stricken by that realization she fished about for something—anything—to say in the face of his anger. “Are you saying if I’d told you from the beginning, I loved you, you’d not have avoided me at all costs, Locke?”
Will he feel anything for you now that you lied to him? a voice in her head taunted.
His rigid jawline rippled.
She only ever saw this suppressed fury from him when they were in her father’s company. Never had Locke’s rage been directed at her.
An increasing chill built rapidly inside Opal, brutally obliterating all the warmth and good and light of this night. Within the shadow of his resentment, the splendor of earlier may as well have been a daydream she’d carried out of her own selfish, desperate yearnings.
What is he thinking? Opal dampened her mouth. But, do you truly wish to know?
“I didn’t do this to trap you, Locke,” she said haltingly. “Surely, you know I—”
“ Of course, you didn’t,” he said with an adamance she most certainly did not deserve. “Your abhorrence for dukes and dukedoms is second to only mine.”
“Given you’re a duke and reap many benefits from that title, I’d say with certainty yours is second to mine,” she groused.
For a moment, her recalcitrance appeared to penetrate his outrage. His well-formed lips twitched at the corners, but a true smile never formed.
His countenance grew more serious. “From the very beginning of our time together here, Opal, you’ve been untruthful with me. Instead of honesty, you chose duplicity.”
“I had no other choice,” she cried softly, regretting her girl-like outburst.
“You always have a choice, Opal,” he chided her like the child he saw her as. “In no world is deceiving a man one of them.” Then, the words began flying fast from his lips, growing tenser, angrier, until she was drowning in the oppressive weight of them. “You played games with me. You made me believe there was someone else. You continued to dangle the promise of his identity with me.”
He was right. About everything.
“Opal, my God,” he said, horrified. “Think about who you are. Think about who I am…your brother-in-law’s best friend.”
Despairingly, Opal watched him there.
Everything was happening so quickly. She’d had so much time to think what she’d say…and she hadn’t.
Even though she’d reminded herself over and over her chances of making Locke fall in love with her were about as likely as goats flying, the truth was, she’d not actually let herself imagine failing . For when she did, then Opal would have to acknowledge to herself the future she dreamed of with Locke as her partner, friend, lover, and husband was over, and all that awaited her was the same, terrible, heartbreaking fate endured by the mother Opal didn’t remember.
An ugly curse tore from Locke and echoed in the stable. “I’m a bloody fiend.”
“No,” she beseeched. “You are good and honorable. I’m the one who—”
“I’m so honorable I took the virginity of my best friend’s sister-in-law.” Bitter recrimination and self-loathing dripped from his voice.
I did this to him.
Unable to face Locke, Opal climbed down from the bed. On trembling legs, she performed the same unsteady hunt for her garments. Her teeth knocking loudly and viciously together, she stupidly drew her stays on before remembering—
Gentle hands brushed her back. “Here,” Locke gruffly ordered and fastened the white article.
Wordlessly he helped her into her dress, and with exquisite regard, he righted her hair.
Their gazes locked.
“Do you know what I admired most about you, Opal?” he murmured.
Dumbly, she shook her head.
“It was your honesty,” he said, matter-of-factly, continuing to speak in that past tense way that pushed spikes into her lungs and left her breath serrated and shallow.
Opal’s entire body curled into itself. Were Locke to drive his fist into her stomach it wouldn’t hurt more than this.
I cannot bear this…How am I still standing…?
“Where other women are false and deceitful, and in search of the title duchess, power, jewels, my sexual attentions, you were the one honest and good one.”
Were.
Opal’s lower lip trembled. She managed a threadbare whisper. “I didn’t want any of those things.” She inched her tear-filled gaze up to his shadowy eyes. I just wanted your heart.
But he didn’t ask what she’d yearned for. He already knew all he’d decided he needed to know.
Opal drew a slow breath in through her nostrils and released it from her lips.
“You are right.” Who was this calm woman speaking? The voice sounded very much like hers. “I conducted myself abominably and you are right to feel the resentment, disgust, and anger you do.”
Suddenly, it was as if he’d awakened from a dream. Locke blanched and his body began to tremble.
“Opal,” he said, taking a hasty step towards her. “I am sorry.”
Just as quickly, Opal put that same space between them. “N-No.” She’d not allow this good man his misplaced guilt on her behalf. “You are right .” She was beginning to unravel. She felt it. She had to get out of there. “I wronged you.” Her teeth chattered more violently. “I…I do see it.”
Locke groaned. “Don’t do that.”
Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “What did I do?” Now.
Another tortured sound rumbled from him. “Please, don’t cry.”
“I’m n-not crying.” The crack in her voice and the tear sliding along her cheek made a liar of her.
A bigger liar, there never was.
“Opal, I—”
Her heart climbed.
But he didn’t give her that vow she’d have sold her soul to Satan for. “Opal, I care about you.”
Locke cared about her.
She glanced at her bare toes. “I…understand.”
“What do you understand?” he asked, affectless, and it was that unemotional voice that threatened to undo her.
“You care about me, but you don’t love me.”
He had a faintly ill look.
“Opal,” he said, his voice strained. “Were things different, were I different, and you were not who you are and—” Locke dragged both hands through his hair. “But, if I’m selfish and take every gift you are offering me, you’d have no Season and no opportunity to meet some good, decent, worthwhile, gentleman.”
“Please don’t do this, Lockwood,” she besieged.
He was unrelenting. “You won’t find a one of them deserving of you, but you’ll at least find someone better than me.”
There is no one.
Opal didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until his face contorted into a paroxysm of grief.
“You haven’t even made your debut, love,” he begged.
As if, in pleading with her, he could just stop Opal from feeling the way she did about him. Then again, his stature afforded him the dominance to control all. Were the same true of his power over her emotions, how much better off they’d both be.
“I never will ,” she said quietly.
He favored her with a brass, sanguine grin. “As if Devonshire would allow you that pleasure.”
This is where they’d normally share a smile and laugh and jibe at the Duke of Devonshire’s expense.
Opal didn’t even attempt a false smile. She’d always delighted in their battle of wills and wits. How empty being right over him this time.
It is done…
She lied to him for a second time. “It is fine.” Unable to meet his eyes, needing a purpose, Opal retrieved her shoes and slipped them on. “I want you to not only be loved, I want you to be desperately and madly in love .” I’m actually speaking these words to this man . “I want you to lose yourself so completely in some woman and her love, that you’ll do absolutely anything for her. I want you to have a love so great you couldn’t even bear the thought of your lady with another and w-would lay at her feet and beg b-before setting her f-free.”
Locke’s low, mournful, moan rumbled around the stables. He stretched his arms out for her, but Opal evaded his pitying embrace.
“I-I should r-return, lest our absences are—”
“Of course.” His relief was palpable and the alacrity of his agreement nearly collapsed the thin control that kept her from sobbing until she broke.
Where before she’d been unable to meet his gaze, this time, she didn’t want to. This time she didn’t want him to see how weak she was.
Contrarily, when she reached the stable doors, Locke finally called out.
“Opal.”
Her heart jumped. From the fragile ashes of despair, hope stirred anew, and brought her around to face him.
They gazed at one another.
“Maybe…if in the future, Opal,” he said gruffly, “after you’ve had a chance to see the world and meet other gentlemen and you still feel—”
She cut him off with a jerky nod. “Maybe.”
An inhuman, plaintive wail begged to be set free. Yet, Opal hesitated once more at the threshold.
“Opal?” There was a question in his husky baritone.
If she were honest with him now as he’d urged before, if she told him the reason there’d be no Season and why, would it make a difference?
It shouldn’t. Were he to love her, nothing else would have mattered to him.
Opal scrabbled with the door, and stumbling out into the cold, she ran like the devil himself was after her. Free to cry and lament what would never be, she sobbed, leaving streaks of tears that felt frozen upon her face. Her vision blurred, and breathless and out of breath, she tripped upon a slick patch of ice on Locke’s front steps.
Gasping and panting through her misery, Opal yanked the door open and stumbled to an immediate stop.
She stood there, her skirts and slippers dripping melted snow upon the marble floor, and stared.
The tall, hateful and hate-filled figure before Opal, did a contemptuous—and worse, knowing—once-over, taking in her disheveled state.
Funny, she’d intended to outrun the devil, only to find herself face-to-face with him.
The Duke of Devonshire sneered. “Hello, daughter .”