Chapter Twenty-Three
Emily gaped at him in horror. Of all the things he could have done and said on this, their last night together, he had to say the worst thing possible.
Asking her to marry him when he knew she could not. Would not.
At her expression, he came to sit at the edge of the bed.
“I know you’re scared,” he said, “but there’s no reason to be.
I’m not Marlbury, and although no one can protect against death indefinitely, you are not your mother, or your father.
As for Isabella—we can take her with us. I have connections that—”
“Enough.” She didn’t recognise her voice, or the cold, almost cruel edge to it. “All this to trick me into marriage?”
“Trick you? If I had tricked you, I would have a marriage certificate in my pocket, or we would be making our way back to Gretna Green.” He ran a tortured hand through his hair.
“I’ve finally found something I want, Em.
And I think you might want it too, if you would only let yourself want something for once in your damn life. ”
She had allowed herself to want something—she had allowed herself to want this, and he had thrown it back in her face.
“I told you my reasons for remaining unmarried,” she said, her calm disintegrating.
Anger was safer than grief. “I told you repeatedly I would not marry you—and you promised never to ask me. You promised.”
“Would marrying me be so terrible? I’m not the finest gentleman in the land, but I can help you. Surely it would be better than the life you’ve been living.”
There was this awful cracking feeling in her chest, a hollow ache that she knew would not go away no matter how hard she tried. “I’m not some pity project, Oliver. You don’t get to swoop in like one of Arthur’s knights of the round table. I’m not a princess in a tower.”
“I wouldn’t be saving you,” he said, face suddenly alive with frustration. “You’d be saving me! And I’d be helping you. That’s what marriage is—or what it can be.”
Despite her best attempts, she imagined what her future with Oliver could look like.
A house in the country—modest, but well-proportioned.
Larger than the one she had grown up in.
Stables with several horses and a carriage.
Servants. Seasons in London. New dresses and shoes and absurdly rich and titled relations.
Security.
And Oliver. She would wake beside him every morning. Write his letters for him. Watch him strive to become better in ways she now knew he would.
It was all so very tempting.
But they had known each other a handful of days—not long enough to know if they had a foundation for marriage.
Perhaps his motivations had changed, but he had left for the country with the intention of finding a wife to spite his brother.
If she were that wife, her relationship with his family would be strained, probably for the rest of time.
A mere week ago, he had intended to marry her sister.
Isabella.
How could Emily ever marry the man her sister had hoped to marry? This was one thing—a short, fateful affair that would end when he took her home. But marriage?
She couldn’t.
“Isabella,” she managed.
Oliver rolled to his feet, finding his breeches and awkwardly tugging them back on.
“That again?” There was disgust in his voice.
“How many times must I bring up her selfishness for you to believe it? She never loved me, and while she may love you, let me tell you now, she would not sacrifice herself for you if the positions were reversed.” His eyes were hard now, no sign of gold or green in their brown depths.
“You are denying yourself for a sister who does not respect you enough to do the same.”
“And what would you know about my relationship with my sister?”
“I know enough.” He snapped his jaw together. “You know she never once mentioned bringing you with us when we married. Every time we spoke of the future, she mentioned her visions for herself. I assumed we would bring you, given your situation, but she did not once ask me.”
Emily stared at him, stunned. It felt as though he had reached a hand inside her chest, taken hold of her lungs, and squeezed. The pressure was so intense, she couldn’t move.
Nothing suggested he was lying—even now he groaned and strode across the room, dragging his hand through his hair in such visible frustration, she almost pitied him. Almost. The ache in her heart was too great for much else.
“She will have wanted me to accompany you,” she said, her lips numb, tasting the words as she said them and praying she could find truth there. Surely she could find truth there. Isabella loved her. Yes, she could be young and headstrong and impetuous—as were all girls her age—but she loved her.
“Perhaps,” Oliver said. “But listen to me. If I told her that leaving you behind was my condition for marrying you, I have no doubt in my mind that she would have agreed.” He came back to kneel before her the way he had done more than once, taking her hand in his and smoothing his thumb over her knuckles.
Almost a week of no work, and they were slowly beginning to heal.
“Do not,” he said quietly, “sacrifice your happiness for her sake.”
“My happiness?” Emily choked on a laugh, but there was no humour in the sound.
“How can you be so sure that we will make each other happy? Real life is not as idyllic as you imagine. You think you want me now, but what of tomorrow? What of next week when you encounter a prettier girl? You are only three-and-twenty, and—”
“Do not assume I am incapable of knowing my own mind. Do you think me so fickle?”
“Yes,” she said, ripping her hand from his and also standing. Where were her clothes? “I think you are eager for acceptance and a place in the world, and you think that I can provide that, but it is out of the question.” She snatched her chemise from the floor. “I can’t stay.”
“Where will you go?” He stared at her, something bleak in his eyes.
“To Dalston.”
“Now? In the dark?”
“Yes, in the dark. I was a fool to agree to stay.”
He picked up his shirt with one arm and painstakingly wiggled into it. “Fine. Then allow me to escort you.”
“No.”
“I won’t come inside,” he said impatiently. “I’ll see you to the front door and leave you there, never seeing you again if you wish.” His words were bitter, and she wondered if he had intended them to be. “But I cannot in good conscience let you make the journey alone.”
“I am perfectly capable of handling things alone,” she said, wrestling with her dress. Her hands shook, and she forced them to steady. This would not break her. If he had not asked for marriage, they could have parted amicably. Now there would be this frustration standing in the way.
Her head pounded. Tiredness, that was all. Once she returned home and found Isabella safe, she could repair any damage her absence had caused, and everything would go back to how it had been.
Isabella would forgive her in time. They would be happy.
“Let me do this one last thing for you,” he said.
“I should never have come here.” Her voice broke, and she pretended it didn’t. “Why did you have to go and ruin everything?”
He gave her a soft, sad smile. “I think you know why.” Finally dressed, if approximately, he came to stand before her, looking every inch the gentleman and nothing like the man she had ravished just minutes earlier. “Wait for me in the taproom,” he said. “I’ll hire us a carriage.”
Then he was gone, and she was at liberty to sit helplessly on the bed, press her hands against her face, and give way to tears.
Oliver could not have proposed more badly. There was no way he could have made a worse go of it.
Not that he didn’t think marrying her was an excellent idea, but he could have chosen a better occasion for announcing it to her. Any other time would have been better than the tender, vulnerable, naked moment directly in the aftermath of strictly unwed debauchery.
He scowled as he stomped through the inn, informing the hassled innkeeper that they would not be staying and that he required a carriage with immediate effect.
Then he scowled some more when he stepped outside to find it was raining once again.
The snow had all but turned to slush. Soon, it would flood. There was already mud everywhere.
And, of course, it was dark. Already.
They were only perhaps an hour from Dalston, and from there, he would have nowhere to go.
Only an hour left with her.
He rather doubted he would get much of a goodbye.
Confound it, what had he been thinking?
He’d been so afraid of losing her, he had broken his word and guaranteed her loss far sooner than he would have otherwise. The question, the solution to her problems, had fallen out of his mouth without any assistance from his brain, and he had ruined everything.
He might as well just be honest with himself and call it love. Nothing else could make such a fool of him.
His mood only deteriorated further when he re-entered the taproom, having bargained for the use of a carriage with almost all his remaining money, to find Emily’s face blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed.
She avoided his gaze.
Wonderful.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice, taking her elbow as he guided her through the room, which was now increasingly filled with rougher-looking locals. When she flinched and stepped away from him, he dropped his hand. “I never wanted to upset you.”
“Then why—” She cleared her throat and found her composure again. “You should never have asked.”
“No,” he agreed. “I shouldn’t. But that doesn’t mean we can’t part as friends, Em. Whatever else I may feel, I don’t want to lose my friendship with you.”
In the middle of the courtyard, a rickety carriage waited for them, a drenched ostler holding the reins and an equally drenched coachman glowering at them in the light of the oil lamp.
Emily hesitated in the inn’s doorway, and Oliver removed his coat, sliding it clumsily over her shoulders.
His bad arm ached, and he wished he were anywhere but here. All his euphoria had deserted him.
Still, he put his hand against her back and guided her to the carriage.
Up close, it was even more dilapidated than he had thought—certainly a relic from the last century.
He shivered as he handed her in and shut the door.
Inside, it was even darker, and he debated lighting the internal lamp swinging from its hook by the door, but eventually decided against it.
“You cannot give me your coat,” she said, shucking it off and tossing it at him. “I won’t take your charity.”
He huffed an incredulous breath. “Is that why you think I proposed?”
“I’m not ashamed of the life I lead.”
“I never once suggested you ought to be,” he said, feeling as though he had sunk into a fever dream. Just an hour ago, he had been inside her, and it had been bliss. “But what comes next? Are you going to stay in that old house for the rest of your life as it slowly rots around you?”
Her sharp intake of breath was enough to tell him his words had landed, and he instantly regretted them.
“I happen to like that house,” she said.
He closed his eyes. “Of course you do.”
The swaying motion of the carriage threatened to disrupt his stomach, and he had flashbacks to the last time they had been in the vicinity of a carriage—and one a deal sight better than this. Then, the weather had been equally bad, and he knew that he had not been inebriated.
He did not have the same faith in the coachman.
Darkness continued to fall.
The silence stretched between them.
“What will you do once you’ve dropped me off at home?” she asked. “It’s late.”
“I still have my watch and ring.” He shrugged. “That should get me a room for the night, then I expect I will have to take the stagecoach down to my brother. If the worst happens, I should be able to travel post.”
She closed her eyes; he saw little in the dim light, but he saw that. “You shouldn’t have come with me.”
“If I had procured a decent carriage in daylight, I might not have done.” Especially given he had offered for her, and she had refused him.
This proximity and coldness was akin to torture.
“But, unfortunately, that was not on the cards for today, and I would prefer to be here in case something happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
As she said that, the carriage turned a particularly sharp corner, and the springs creaked ominously as they leaned to the right. Emily reached for his knee, and he gripped her as tightly as he dared, holding his breath as the carriage righted itself.
She let out a long, shaky breath, and when he squeezed her fingers, she didn’t pull her hand free.
“Just in case,” he repeated.
And this time, she said nothing to counteract his claims.