Chapter Twenty-Four #2
The lie burned his throat. He had regained some footing while he was with her, but now he had returned to his safe hermit ways, leaving the house only once over the past two weeks. He had slunk back into the dark corners of Society where he belonged.
She held his gaze and came over to him, standing so close that he could see the small trail of freckles across her pert nose. ‘And as we discussed before, what if you are the man who deserves me, Lucas? What if you are what makes me happy?’
He tried to hold steady.
‘I would ask you why you’d ever believe that. For although I know why I love you and believe that you could make me happy, I cannot fathom why you would love me or how I could ever make you happy…as I am.’
She stared upon him with that bright, certain gaze of determination that always made excitement and fear rush through him.
‘Because you are perfect as you are, Lucas. You are not the broken man you believe yourself to be. You do not need to be fixed or healed or changed back into who you were before the war. You are a beautiful, splendid man just as you are…now.’ She cupped his cheek softly and held his gaze.
‘I am nothing of the sort.’ He moved out of her hold and thrust a hand through his hair.
Explaining this was going to be difficult, but he cared far more for her and protecting her from himself than losing a bit more of his pride, so he continued.
‘Do you remember those envelopes you saw me sealing up on the day of Diana’s wedding? ’
Her gaze narrowed. ‘Yes.’
‘They were filled with money. Compensation, or at least my poor attempt at it.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Compensation for what? Are you being blackmailed?’
His chest tightened. He had not thought of it in such terms, but he supposed he was.
‘Only by my own conscience, perhaps, if one could frame it in such a way.’
The next words hovered at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t bear to say them.
What would she think of him? She held his gaze with a ferocity that made him unable to look away but also unable to utter the truth.
He didn’t want to lose her any more than he already had.
The way she looked at him as if he were someone important rather than the nobody he had felt for so long was sacred.
He had become protective of her view of him.
If he couldn’t have her as his wife, he wanted to still have this, whatever it was between them.
He started to speak and faltered again.
‘Lucas,’ she pleaded. ‘I need you to be honest with me.’
‘Ophelia.’ The way her name rolled off his lips felt so delicate just like her view of him, like the tether that held them together. But he suddenly wanted, no needed, her to understand him. All of him.
‘I send those women money each month because I owe it to them. They are the women and children of the men who died under my command when I was in the Americas. I am trying to make amends to the men who can no longer live the lives they deserved to…’ He paused and continued, despite how his raging heartbeat threatened to drown out his words.
‘Supporting their families is all I can do.’
She stilled and the colour drained from her cheeks.
‘How many men did you lose?’ she asked softly.
‘Too many. Seven to be precise. But it may as well have been a thousand. The number does not matter. It is only the loss, the senseless and careless loss that matters.’
‘And you blame yourself for their loss?’ Her curiosity was winning over her understanding, as it often did. It was one of the many things he adored about her. ‘Why?’ she pressed.
‘Because it was my decision to attack. We could have simply retreated. There was no reason to charge the hill and claim any more lives. We had pretty much already won the battle that day, but I wanted a stunning victory. It seemed important at the time, and I don’t know why.
’ He shook his head and scoffed, staring down at the fine lines of his palms. ‘That is a lie. I do know why. I thought it would make my dead father proud of me. Finally. I was the biggest fool of them all. I just ended up ruining more lives.’
‘And that is why you support all of these widows, and their families, each month?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice raspy with emotion. ‘It is all I can still do. The only thing I can do to try to make amends.’ He wiped at his eye as a tear threatened, which angered him even more.
Do not be so weak.
His father’s words echoed in his head. He tried to shake them away.
‘Lucas,’ she said softly, and the way she made his name sound made his soul shift, his body quake from within. When she took his hand, holding it tenderly against the bodice of her gown, he almost came undone. ‘Why did you not tell me this before?’
He shrugged, unable to form words for a moment as his body recovered from the impact of her. ‘Shame. Pure and simple.’
He still couldn’t look at her, but the warm steady pressure of her hand was enough.
‘It is an extraordinary kindness to help them as you do. But this cross you still bear for their deaths, you need not carry any longer,’ she continued. ‘It was war. It was not you that killed them. Surely, you know that.’
He looked up and met her gaze full of warmth and care. ‘Diana has told me that often, but I do not believe her either,’ he replied with a sniff and a jagged chuckle. ‘That is how I met her. Why we are such friends. Her husband was under my command. She discovered I was her benefactor, you see.’
‘It all makes sense,’ she murmured with a nod. ‘Why you would be so close to her above anyone else,’ she said, perhaps more to herself than him.
His thumb ran rhythmically over the soft inner flesh of Ophelia’s wrist. She was so lovely. So very soft, pure and good. He wished somehow that he deserved her, but deep down, he knew he didn’t. He was still too broken.
‘You must let that go,’ Ophelia said.
Lucas shook his head. ‘I don’t know if I can.’
‘You can. I know you can.’
‘You think it would be so easy?’ he challenged.
‘No, but you can do it anyway.’
‘And what have you had to let go?’ he asked, edging closer to her. She could tell he was itching for a fight and a way to push her away from him again. She was getting too close once more, and fear was making him try to run.
Ophelia decided to give him the truth instead.
‘The hatred for my father who abandoned me. I never knew him, and he never cared to know me it seems.’ Her heart beat loudly in her ears. She hadn’t said that to anyone before. Not even Trudy or Hattie.
The anger in his features melted away leaving only compassion and understanding. When he said nothing, she continued, emboldened to tell him all of it in the hope it might free him, as well.
‘I am an orphan. That is how Hattie, Trudy and I know one another. We grew up in an orphanage together. I never told you as I didn’t want you to think less of me. Or doubt my abilities as a matchmaker.’
‘Did you tell Dolph this?’ he asked, studying every inch of her face as if hungry to soak in every detail.
She looked away. ‘No. I didn’t want to. I worried I would not be enough for him as it was.’ Her eyes welled unexpectedly, and she blinked the tears back. ‘At least now I do not have to endure that guilt.’
He tightened his hold of her hand, which made her want to cry more. ‘Ophelia, he would have only loved you more. It is nothing to hide or be ashamed of.’
She wasn’t so sure. She knew love sometimes had its limits when it came to people of privilege. Her father was a prime example.
‘I have always felt like I was never enough and never would be. That is why I never told him.’
‘Then, why have you told me?’ he asked, his eyes again searching hers.
Why did she tell him? Truth be told, she hadn’t even hesitated as if telling him was the most natural thing in the world. As if she was meant to.
She bit her lip. ‘Because we have that in common, you and I,’ she replied quickly.
‘We have both lost years over trying to prove ourselves to others and punished ourselves over the past. I don’t want to do that anymore.
I don’t want you to do that anymore either.
I want us to be daring and to live for now.
Like we both deserve. I love you, Lucas. And I think you love me, too.’
Her words and touch unleashed a dam of emotion within him.
He covered her hand with both of his and shook his head.
‘But can’t you see? I am unworthy of your love, unable to be healed, and I do not deserve someone as precious as you, or your love, Ophelia…
Not yet, anyway. I have much to relearn about myself and how to be a good man, but I am working on it. Thanks to you.’ There, he’d said it.
She shook her head and smiled. ‘Do you not see that we have already begun to heal each other? That we need one another to become the best possible versions of ourselves?’
He swallowed hard. ‘Need me?’ He dared ask the one question that still plagued him above all others.
‘How can you be sure? How can you know you will not tire of me in days, months or years from now? I am obtuse and thoughtless and selfish…and I do not like to shop,’ he quipped, trying to lighten the desperation he felt in asking.
She chuckled. ‘How do you not know you will tire of me in days, months or years from now, my lord? I am full of fanciful ideas, my mind often lost in the clouds…and I do like to shop.’
‘Because I have loved no one as I love you,’ he began, finally saying the truth.
‘Not Rebecca, not Charlotte, no one. I cannot stop thinking of you. You are everywhere I look. You and your love have become the centre of my world.’ There, he’d said it.
He had put words to what he felt while painting her portrait. A weight finally lifted from his chest.
No matter what she decided now, at least he had been brave enough to say it aloud. He would have one less regret to live with.
She smiled, tears shining in her eyes. ‘Then, you know exactly how I feel about you. With every part of who I am. What do you say to that? Will you risk this love match of ours?’
Lucas’s chest tightened. Could it be that somehow, some way, she would finally be his?
Could he choose to let the past go and allow himself such happiness? Could he trust in love? As he stared upon her, his desire for love and hope overtook his fear, and he could see his future clearly for the first time.
He needed to set himself free of the past and all the burdens he’d carried. If he was truly going to live his life to the fullest and have a family of his own, he needed to let his past go. The disappointments, heartbreaks and resentments all needed to be set free like a dove in the wind.
He would keep the warm, lovely memories close, but the rest…the rest would go.
Today.
And that included Rebecca.
What he believed had been love for Rebecca simply wasn’t. Love was being there for someone through the worst of times, being there for them when they were in their greatest hour of need, and loving them despite their flaws, whether they were physical or emotional.
Rebecca had never loved him.
She had abandoned him when he needed her most and cast him aside because of his emotional and physical wounds.
Ophelia had taught him that. She cared for him despite all his failings and imperfections, and they could talk through their disagreements and apologise to each other with kindness and honesty.
Ophelia had helped him see what love actually was, and to be brave enough to leave his hermit shell existence of safety and live a life.
A wild, beautiful and glorious life without shame, guilt or fear. The life his men should have had. The life he would live in their honour and in his own.
He deserved happiness.
He was no beast. Not anymore.
He paused and swallowed back the emotion before he spoke.
‘Then I would say the gossip sheets shall have a field day when I take you to be my bride, Miss Ophelia Granger.’ He smiled and bent down on one knee.
‘You have transformed me, Ophelia. You have taken this Beast of Barnett House and helped me see who I am again through your love. I am not lost, but am found through you. Will you marry me?’
‘Yes! Yes. I will.’
He pulled her into his arms, crushing his body and lips to hers.
He could have sworn all that was locked away burst free in the promise of her, and them and their future life together as he kissed her now in the way he had only dreamt of over the last few weeks.
Finally, his heart was free from the loss, disappointment and unworthiness that had weighed him down for so long.
And so was hers.