Chapter 20 #3
“He was hoping for money,” she said.
The duke’s gaze remained on her, intent. “You did not give him any, did you?”
She shook her head. “I hadn’t any to offer.” That was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it? She had nothing to offer anyone—not John, and certainly not the duke.
“Good,” the duke said. “He would only gamble it away.”
Clara’s heart pinched with hurt, then pride. Did the duke think so little of her that he could believe no other reason had motivated John’s return? She looked down at her injured finger and pressed against the wound. “He promised me that day at the market that he would return for me.”
There was a short silence. “He sold you, Clara. To the highest bidder.”
“Yes,” she said with a rueful smile. “To you. For a guinea.” She fiddled with her finger, which stung, just like her heart.
He stepped toward her. “Clara…” He put a hand under her chin and lifted it gently, until she had no choice but to meet his gaze.
To her horror, her eyes too began to sting. It was all too much—the secrets she was keeping for and from the duke, the stress of John’s demands, the knowledge that she could never have the man she loved, that she would never be enough, no matter what she did.
The duke’s thumb brushed her cheek, wiping a tear as he looked down at her intently. “I paid John one guinea because I could not stand to give him a penny more. Not because it reflects your worth.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat, searching his eyes through her own blurry ones. But all she found was honesty there, just as he had promised her.
She put a hand over the one that cradled her cheek, unable to stop herself.
“Promise me you will not go back to him, Clara.”
“Where else can I go?” She had no intention, no desire to be with John, but she needed the duke to understand how impossible the future felt, no matter where she went or who she was with.
“Why must you go at all?”
“How can I stay?”
His eyes held hers for a moment, then he sighed, grimacing his understanding. They were in impossible positions, both of them. Whether there would truly have been a chance of something more for them if she had not been married, she didn’t know. She never would.
But it did neither of them good to dwell on things that could never be. Neither did Clara wish for him to be burdened by guilt on her behalf. He had so much already on his shoulders.
“I promise I will not return to John,” she said quietly.
It was an easy promise to make, for she would rather a hundred other fates than to be with him again, forever working for money he wouldn’t hesitate to lose at play, wondering when he would be desperate enough to sell her again.
She could not count on someone like the duke to come to her rescue a second time.
“But I cannot promise to stay at Rushlake.”
His eyes searched hers under a creased brow, but there was understanding there.
He sighed, closed his eyes, and let his forehead rest against hers.
She too shut her eyes, letting herself breathe him in—the cedar and the soap from shaving. She could almost imagine the softness of the skin on his face.
Slowly, she lifted her fingers, letting them graze the hard line of his jaw.
His head shifted, and his nose brushed hers, and it was no longer his jaw she wished to feel. It was his lips on hers, a desire so strong it transcended mere want. It was a need.
His bottom lip swept past hers, and her entire body trembled with the realization that she would do anything for the man in front of her.
“We cannot,” he said.
He pulled back enough to look at her, his eyes dark with desire and torment.
She forced her feet to step back, feeling as though she had just tugged herself from the precipice of a rushing waterfall—one she desperately wanted to experience, no matter what lay at its foot.
She nodded.
They stared at each other for moments that stretched on and on.
“Promise me you will not leave Rushlake without first telling me,” he said.
“I promise.” She didn’t know if she could have even if she had wanted to.
“And that you will not help John.” It was not an order but a question—another promise he wished her to make.
How could she, though?
“Will he leave you be?” the duke asked.
Now was the time—to tell him everything. To admit to him the circumstances of her dismissal from the Redgraves’. To confess she was a thief.
But she couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on his face, to take this bittersweet goodbye and turn it entirely bitter.
“I believe so,” she said.
He nodded, not doubting her response for even a second.
It made her feel sick with guilt.
“And your finger…”
“I will wrap it,” she said, unable to meet his eye. She wished he would go. He was better off without her.
“Very well. I should return to the house.”
She nodded, picking up the shears again. Anything to avoid his gaze.
He hesitated for a moment, as though waiting for her to look at him.
She couldn’t.
“Goodbye, then,” he said.
“Goodbye.”
After one more moment of hesitation, he turned down the path and soon disappeared from view.