Chapter 12
“Ithought,” Violet said, staring the duke down, “that you wanted us to be on a first name basis now.”
“And I thought you didn’t want that,” he countered. “Have you changed your mind?”
“I suppose I have,” she agreed. “It happened when you walked in on me in the bath. Suddenly I feel less of a need to be formal with you, for some reason, Jonathan.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “All right, Violet,” he agreed. “If that’s what you’re comfortable with, that’s what we’ll do.”
“Oh, don’t try this on me too.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe how low you can be.”
“All right.” His brow furrowed. “It’s time for answers, Violet.
It’s time for you to tell me what I’ve done that you find so reprehensible.
I know I teased you a bit at breakfast the other day, and I really am sorry if that bothered you.
I didn’t mean for it to. Or at least, not this much.
I admit I was trying to frustrate you a bit, and perhaps that was unkind of me. So I apologize.”
“I don’t care about what you said to me.” Did he really think she was so petty? “This is about the things you said to Noah.”
“To Noah? What did I say to Noah that was wrong?”
She was having trouble looking at him. Talking to him was out of the question. “If you really want a conversation with me then put a shirt on,” she said. “I can’t stand here talking to you while you’re…” She waved a hand at his body to indicate the fact that he was undressed.
He seemed as though maybe he had forgotten that fact. He looked down at himself, then back up, his eyes wide with surprise.
Violet kept her gaze down. At least, she tried to keep it down.
It was difficult, though, to keep from glancing up occasionally at the broad planes of his chest. He was so attractive, such a man.
She had never seen a man without his shirt on before.
It stirred something deep within her that she wouldn’t have expected, something she wasn’t sure she wanted.
It was no good to her to be captivated by this duke.
She needed to keep her mind on her own affairs so that she could have the conversation with him she needed to have.
Jonathan picked his shirt up off the floor and pulled it back on.
Now it was safe to look at him, and she did so.
His expression was baffled and a little wounded, as though he really didn’t know what he had done wrong, but that couldn’t be the case.
Not after the way he had acted. Not after the way he had come to Noah and tried as hard as he could to pull Noah in… to get him on his side…
He wasn’t showing any recognition of that fact, though, and she needed him to understand. If she had to spell this out for him, she would do it.
“You just…turned on a dime, didn’t you? You wanted nothing to do with that child.
You were cold and distant with him. And then, suddenly and out of nowhere, you treated him like a friend.
Like a father, nearly.” Anger was boiling through her, just as it had that day at the breakfast table. “Why would you do that?”
He threw up his hands. “You wanted me to do that! Don’t you remember? Don’t you have any memory of the way you told me that was what he needed and I ought to provide it?”
“Don’t pretend you got close with Noah because I told you to.”
“Well, why did I do it then?” he asked her. “You seem to know more about my motives than I do, so maybe you can enlighten me here.”
“You did it because you realized that raising Noah was a part of taking ownership of this house. You did it because you wanted to convince everyone that you deserved that responsibility. But that’s a horrible way to try to come into possession of a house.
That boy has been through enough. He needs someone he can rely on, not someone who is only pretending to care about him so that they can take ownership of a house! ”
It was a relief to finally say all these things out loud. She was breathing rapidly when she finished, as if she’d just run a race.
Jonathan stared at her. “That’s what you think?” he asked quietly. “You think I was putting on an act to gain his trust so that I could get the house?”
“I just don’t see how it could have been anything else.”
“I wasn’t doing that,” he told her. “I was trying to help. I was taking your advice by trying to get to know him a little bit better. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really do like him. I don’t know if I’m a father.
But I can be a suitable guardian for a child.
I can provide him with everything he needs—not just supplies and employees, but a person he can trust. And I thought that was what you would want. ”
Violet turned her back on him. She didn’t want him to see her right now—to see the way she was reacting to his words.
She didn’t want him to see her cry.
The tears filled her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She couldn’t. She fought fiercely, blinking several times, swallowing hard, and drawing several deep breaths, and after a moment, the emotion subsided.
She didn’t turn back to him right away. She couldn’t face him—he must know what had just happened. “I do want him to have someone like that in his life,” she said.
“But you want it to be you.”
He had seen to the heart of things. She couldn’t deny the truth of his words. But even so, she could hardly stand to look at him when she spoke.
“I do want it to be me,” she said quietly.
“I care for him. I care for him already. I have always wanted a child, but I didn’t want to marry—that’s the answer to your question.
I just didn’t want to marry. And I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never have a child, that I would be alone for the rest of my life. That was fine.”
She paused and looked at him. He was watching her, waiting for her to continue. Truly listening.
“And then I inherited this house, and everything changed,” she said.
“I was able to escape from under my father’s thumb for the first time.
I was able to dream of freedom in a way I never had.
And Noah—he’s a blessing I never thought I’d be given, the chance to be a mother.
To see you stand there and say that you’re capable of being a person he can trust…
all right. Maybe you are that. I don’t know.
But what I do know is that you don’t long to be that for him.
Not like I do. And you don’t need this house like I do either.
You can go back to whatever you were doing before all this began and you will be perfectly fine.
You have another place to live. You have everything you want or need in life.
I’m the one who needs this place, and you’re trying to take it from me. ”
She had never said it all out loud like that before. It felt so good to get those things off her chest, to finally put words to the thoughts that had been tormenting her since this had all begun.
“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Jonathan asked her.
“Tell you what? That I wanted the house?” She looked at him in disbelief. “Did you need me to spell that out for you?”
“Not that,” he said. “You didn’t tell me that you wanted a child. You didn’t tell me why you hadn’t had one, and I did ask you.”
“The answer I gave you that day was the true one. It’s none of your business. That’s a question you never should have dared to ask me,” she informed him. “You were so far out of line that I can hardly believe it happened. But now you know the truth, so I suppose you’re happy.”
“Well, I did want to know,” he admitted. “I didn’t know how to reconcile it. You didn’t seem that unhappy with your lot as a spinster. I rather thought you liked being unmarried.”
She crossed her arms. “I do like that. Why should I want to tie myself down in marriage when freedom is an option?”
“But if you wanted to have a child, you must have realized you would need a husband,” he reasoned. “And yet, you decided against it. I didn’t know what to make of you. I still don’t, really. I don’t know why you would make that choice.”
“How do you know it was my choice?” She raised her eyebrows. “I am a spinster now, but I was younger once. I was a debutante in her very first season once upon a time, and how do you know I wasn’t simply rejected by all the men I met? Perhaps I am a spinster due to a lack of options.”
“Of course you’re not. You just said that you didn’t want to tie yourself down. Don’t ask me to hear you say that and believe that this isn’t by your choice.”
“Or maybe that’s a lie I tell myself to give myself comfort,” she said. “Maybe it’s true that I wasn’t picked for courtship, and now I tell myself that I never wanted to marry anyway so I’ll feel better about it.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t true.”
“What do you mean, it isn’t true?”
“I’ve spent enough time around gentlemen to know what they like,” he said simply. “I know what all men agree on when they look at ladies. You would have been picked. So I know for certain that you are alone because you wished to end up that way.”
Violet couldn’t help feeling shocked. Was he really saying what she’d thought he was saying? Did he mean that he found her so attractive that he couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t have attracted attention?
That was what it had sounded like—but why would he have said such a thing? He didn’t feel that way about her, did he?
Does he?
She had been staring at him too long, she suddenly realized. He had noticed it, and he was pulling back from her, his face slightly red as if he had just realized what he had been saying. “You’re right,” he told her. “I should get out of here and leave you to—to what you were doing.”
It was a little late for that sentiment, she thought. She had been well and truly disturbed, and it was impossible now to imagine going back to her peaceful swim. She wouldn’t be able to settle her thoughts. Not after everything that had happened here.
But Jonathan turned and left all the same, hurrying back out into the hall. She heard his footsteps on the stairs and knew she must have been awfully distracted to have missed hearing that before, when he was on his way down here.
She looked at the pool of water behind her. She had been having a nice time, and it might be worth it to get undressed and go back in—but the truth was that she didn’t really want to.
She took off her stockings, sat on the side, and contemplated what had just happened.
What had he meant by telling her that he knew she would have been courted if she had wanted to be?
Did he really feel that way?
And if he did—why had he said it?