Chapter 36
This cannot be real! It cannot be happening. You are dreaming, or dead, or both at once. If you answer, if you say yes, the world will snap back to its original, miserable shape, and you will be left standing in the wreckage.
Lavinia stared at Tristan as he waited. Lady Montfort let out a high, surprised sound—half triumph, half outrage—and Frances simply gaped, her eyes nearly as round as shillings.
Dawnford was gone. Good riddance.
“May we speak alone, Your Grace?” Lavinia’s voice was unfamiliar to her own ears.
She did not wait for consent. She stepped around the Duke and led the way to the drawing room. She paused at the threshold, listened for the sound of pursuit, and when it came, she did not turn.
Lavinia turned now. “Was that your notion of a proposal?”
He blinked once, then twice. “Yes.”
“It was abrupt.”
“I was under the impression time was of the essence.”
She drew a breath, then squared her shoulders. “Why?”
He looked surprised by the question. “Why what?”
“Why me. Why now. Why at all?” She took a step closer, every nerve raw and sparking. “You do not even like me, Tristan. You have spent the last month making a study of how little a man can feel and still claim to be alive.”
A muscle twitched at his jaw, but he did not look away. “That is not true.”
“You are not sentimental. The only thing you have ever done to demonstrate affection is to hire me, and even that was only out of necessity.” Her hands were cold.
She balled them into fists to keep from shaking.
“You cannot just punch a man in the nose and then expect everything to arrange itself around your whims.”
Lavinia felt unusual anger and uncertainty surge within her. This man had broken her heart thoroughly, yet he had the gall to stand before her and expect her to run into his arms, weeping tears of joy.
He took a step closer so they were separated only by a hairsbreadth. “You are correct,” he said. “I cannot.”
She tried to hold his gaze, failed, tried again. “Did you pay my father’s debts?”
The silence was exquisite, like the moment just before a string snapped. “Yes,” he said after a time. “I did.”
She could have screamed, or sobbed, or fled the room. Instead, she did what she always did: she stood her ground. “Why?”
He shook his head, as if the answer itself were too large to fit in his skull.
“I do not know. At first, I convinced myself it was duty. Or pity. Or the desire to see you free of men like Dawnford.” He looked up at her, the mask gone, and the honesty in his face was almost unbearable.
“But none of those are true. It was because I could not bear to imagine a world in which you did not exist, and did not look at me the way you do now: as if I am at once the only man in the world, and the last one you would ever choose.”
She closed her eyes. He is lying. He must be lying. Or worse, he is telling the truth, and you will never recover from it.
“You are being cruel,” she managed.
He was already reaching for her shoulder. “You mistake me, Lady Lavinia. I have no talent for cruelty. Only for cowardice. I let you believe that I was made of stone, because I could not endure the risk of caring again.”
She laughed, but it was not a nice sound. “You could have simply told me you were incapable of love, and saved us both the trouble.”
He dropped his hand. “I am not incapable of love.”
“Then prove it.”
He stilled, as if stunned. Then, “How?”
She squared her shoulders, every inch of her bristling. “By telling me the truth. The whole of it. Why did you truly never marry again? Why did you swear off every woman in England and condemn yourself to loneliness, just to spite your father’s memory?”
He faltered. Then, with the air of a man flaying himself alive, he said, “It is as I told you before, Lavinia. Because I married the wrong person, once. Because it killed her. And because I did not want to take the risk that I might do it again.”
She blinked, caught off guard by the rawness of it. “You did not kill your wife, Tristan. She died in a carriage accident. The world is filled with such accidents. They are not curses, nor are they punishments.”
He looked away, his throat working as he swallowed. “You do not know that. You did not see the joy on her face the night before she left, or the way the house grew colder with every year until there was nothing left in it at all.” He breathed out. “I have never told anyone that.”
She stepped back, needing space, needing the air. “So, you doomed yourself to be alone, forever, just because you were afraid to be unhappy again?”
He let out a sound, something between a laugh and a scoff. “Yes. I suppose I did.”
“Then why propose to me?” Her voice trembled for the first time, and she hated herself for it. “Why now?”
He stared at her, the force of his longing so unguarded that she could barely stand to look.
“Because the thought of you marrying Dawnford, of you vanishing from my life, and from Sophia’s, was a misery I could not bear.
Because I would rather be wounded again, rather be made a fool, than spend one more night knowing you are out there, suffering, and that I did nothing to stop it. ”
She looked at him, searching for the lie. She could not find one.
He means it. He is a fool, and he is broken, and he is stubborn, but he means every word.
Still, she had to be sure. “Is this obligation, or guilt?”
“It is neither,” he said, his voice low and almost savage. “It is need, and it is want. It is the certainty that if I do not claim you now, I will never forgive myself for what comes after.”
Lavinia wanted to believe him. She ached to believe him. But every part of her that had ever been hurt before raised its voice in warning.
She took a step closer, so close she could feel the heat of him, the wildness of his heart.
“Show me,” she whispered.
He looked at her, then, and his entire body seemed to shudder with restraint. For a moment, she thought he would seize her and kiss her, and perhaps she wanted that. But instead, he only said:
“I will prove it to you.” His eyes bore into hers, and he stood so tall before her that he seemed to bend everything around him.
Lavinia grew breathless. “How?”
He did not break his gaze. “Come to Evermere tonight. Bring your sister, and Lady Montfort. I want to host you for dinner. I will make my case in front of them all, and if you do not believe me by the end, I will leave you in peace.”
The challenge hung between them, bright and dangerous. Lavinia found herself nodding. “Very well.”
He smiled at that, the first true smile she had ever seen from him. “I promise, Lavinia, you will see.”
They stood in silence, the draw of each to the other so intense that it was almost a physical tether. She could not look away.
He bowed, then, as if she were a queen and he a soldier on the scaffold and not a duke. “Until tonight.”
She watched him go, and did not know whether she had just saved her own life or ruined it beyond repair.
Her hands were shaking, but she did not let herself collapse until the door shut behind him.
Outside, she could hear Lady Montfort and Frances whispering like a pair of conspirators.
She composed herself, smoothed her hair, and opened the door.
Both women jumped to attention. Lady Montfort’s fan was vibrating at a dangerous frequency; Frances’s lips were pressed together so tight they were nearly white.
“Well?” Frances demanded.
Lavinia drew herself up, the words feeling strange and heavy in her mouth. “We have been invited to dine at Evermere this evening. I believe it is to be… a family affair.”
Frances’s eyes went wider, if possible. “Is he truly… did he really?”
Lavinia nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Lady Montfort exhaled sharply. “Well,” she said, “thank the saints and the Prince Regent. Perhaps we may be spared the scandal after all.”
Lavinia looked out the window at the retreating figure of the Duke. He walked like a man headed to battle, or to church, or to both at once.
She felt the edges of herself begin to uncoil, just slightly.
Tonight. Tonight, she would find out if there was such a thing as a second chance. And if there was, she would be damned if she did not seize it with both hands.