Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

“ I didn’t intend to do this, you know,” Seth said.

“To do what?” Lady Lavinia asked him.

“Dance with you today.” He was surprised he was even confessing that fact to her, but it seemed impossible to keep his mouth shut around Lady Lavinia, even when he knew perfectly well that he ought to. He certainly shouldn’t be telling her that he had reservations about dancing with her now. It was showing far too much of his hand.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to,” she said, gazing up at him. He found her eyes captivating, as he always did—that mix of green and brown that made him want to stare into them forever, trying to unravel the mystery of what color they truly were. He felt as if he could look into her eyes forever and still continued to see things that were new to him. “You didn’t need to dance with me. I had no expectations. In fact, if you’d asked me, I’d have said you weren’t planning on speaking to me at all tonight.”

“And I wasn’t,” Seth agreed. “I still think I must be crazy for having approached you at all.”

“You think that, and yet you did,” Lady Lavinia said. “Why?”

Seth wasn’t ready to grapple with that question yet, so he told her what he knew to be a lie. “I wanted to make sure you were ready, that’s all,” he said. “I wanted to make sure you were prepared to face the challenges of this ball.”

“How much more sure can you be?” Lady Lavinia asked him. “You’ve been through all this preparation with me. Either I’m ready or I’m not ready, but either way, you must know the answer by now. You can’t possibly be surprised by anything about me.”

“Perhaps not,” Seth said quietly. “I don’t know. I don’t know how you manage to keep surprising me—I agree that it doesn’t make sense. And yet, it continues to happen.”

“Well, you said that I seemed calm and in control of myself when I was with Lord Hennington,” Lady Lavinia said. “You approve of the way I conducted myself there.”

“I do,” Seth agreed.

“So this—what’s happening now—this is a test,” she said. “You’re testing me to see whether or not I’m ready. Whether or not I pass.”

It sounded cold when she said it like that, but could he really deny it? “I suppose I am,” Seth said.

Lady Lavinia looked down for a moment, and Seth got the impression she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

Then she swallowed and looked back up at him. Her eyes were clear of any emotion. Had he imagined he would see her crying? She was far stronger than that. She wouldn’t cry. Not over him. Even if she felt something, as he imagined she must, she would never cry for him. Not now that he had made it clear to her that there would never be anything between the two of them.

“And?” she asked.

“And what?”

“Have I passed your test?”

“Oh,” he said. “You’ve passed, yes. You’re ready. Ready to find love.”

The words felt heavy as they left him. He had never said it so explicitly before, and he heard what he was really saying to her— you don’t need me anymore .

“People are watching us,” Lady Lavinia said quietly.

“Don’t look at them. Keep your eyes on me.”

“They’re going to think there’s something between the two of us.”

“It’s all right,” Seth said, for he understood that it wouldn’t serve her well for anybody to think that. “If anyone asks you, you let them know that this was just a dance. Tell them that you felt you had to agree to it because I’m a duke and you didn’t want to be disrespectful to me, but that you have no interest in me. People will believe that of you.”

“Why would anyone believe that I’m not interested in you? Every young lady is interested in you.”

“But you’re not like the rest of them, and people know that about you,” Seth said. “People have noticed that you aren’t chasing after status and titles. People have noticed that you’re unwilling to marry unless it’s for love. That’s known about you.

“No one will be surprised to hear that you weren’t interested in me solely for my title—that when you didn’t have feelings for me, you turned away. You granted me a dance out of courtesy, and then you left me behind. That’s what you’ll tell them. That way, no gentleman will be too timid to approach you after having seen us together.”

“All right,” Lady Lavinia agreed. “I’ll tell them that—but what will you tell them, Your Grace?”

“What do you mean?”

“How will you account for the fact that you asked me to dance? You don’t think people will have questions about it? You don’t need to win my approval. I’m only the daughter of a marquess.

“There’s no legitimate reason for you to ask me to dance unless you were taken with me. I mean, you and I know what the real reason is, of course. You wanted to see if I passed your test. But no one else will know about that, and you’re not going to tell them—are you?”

“No, of course I won’t,” Seth said. “But why do you assume people will think I’m not interested in you?”

“I don’t know,” Lady Lavinia said. “We wouldn’t want them to think that, would we? It might make people think they should stay away from me for fear of offending you.”

“I don’t think anyone will ask me what I was doing,” Seth said. “You forget, I think, that as a duke I’m not questioned nearly as much as a young lady like yourself. And if someone does ask me a question that I don’t want to answer, I can simply say so and they’ll apologize and go away.”

“They might go away, but that won’t stop them from forming opinions and spreading gossip.”

“Are you worried people are going to gossip about you?”

“I don’t know,” Lady Lavinia admitted. “I don’t know whether I’m more worried about them gossiping about me or about you .”

“Well, don’t worry about me.” He lifted a hand and caught himself just in time. He had been about to caress her cheek, as he had done in the library. It was too easy to forget that they weren’t alone together anymore, that everyone could see them now.

“Don’t worry about anything, my lady,” he added. “If I have to, I’ll tell people that I chose to dance with you because you’re beautiful, but that I could see you weren’t very interested in me, so I moved on. Your father won’t like that if he hears it, but with a bit of luck, you’ll be with someone else by then and you won’t have to worry about his opinions anymore.”

Seth knew he was going to have to find a way to wish for that outcome for her, even though right now it felt impossible. He didn’t want to see her with someone else. He didn’t want to admit that this was very likely the last time he would ever hold her in his arms—and yet he knew that it was true.

Seth couldn’t even justify another dance with her after this one. This conversation was evidence enough that they could barely justify this dance.

This last dance. The last one they would ever share.

Suddenly, it felt full of importance, and he didn’t want to let her go. He wanted it to last forever.

But time wasn’t on their side, and neither were their circumstances. They never had been. The music stopped, and all around them, couples began to pull apart, changing partners. Seth knew that he had to do the same. It was time for Lady Lavinia to find a partner who could stay with her. That wasn’t him and never could be.

And yet, for a moment, he considered changing his mind.

What if he were to do as Allan had suggested? Open himself up to the idea of marriage?

It was difficult even to consider it. He had been so opposed to the concept for such a long time, and it was a struggle to imagine himself married to someone now. But if he did imagine it—marriage with anyone—surely someone like Lady Lavinia would be the best candidate.

There was no denying what she had come to mean to him. There was no pretending that he didn’t enjoy her company and wanted to keep her around.

But that would make it hurt all the more when the inevitable happened—when they turned on one another, as married couples so often did. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if the two of them couldn’t manage to tolerate each other’s company; if they became like his mother and father had been. It would be an even bigger tragedy than marrying someone he had never cared about.

No, he could never marry her.

And knowing that filled him with a grief he had never expected to feel.

He dropped her hands and stepped back. “I wish you all the luck in the world,” he said quietly. “I know you’re ready for this. You’re going to find someone who’s capable of seeing all the wonderful qualities you possess, and I believe the two of you will find love with one another.”

“I owe you thanks for all the ways you’ve helped me,” Lady Lavinia said. “It’s meant the world.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Seth told her. “My debt was to you. That’s the reason I did it.” And not for any other reason , he told himself firmly, though the more time went by, the more he understood that wasn’t true at all. He had had plenty of reasons for wanting to help her. Most of those reasons were things he could never admit out loud.

But he could admit them to himself, within the depths of his heart. He could admit that he had feelings for her that went beyond anything he had ever felt for anyone else. He could admit that the way he felt around her was enough to make him question his resolve not to marry.

It was that questioning, more than anything else, that let him know for certain how vital it was to keep his distance from her. He couldn’t afford to allow himself to grow close to her, not knowing as he did that his heart was on the line.

He wanted to reach out for her again. He wanted to ask her for one more dance, to delay their parting a moment longer. But he couldn’t do it.

It was time to say their farewells to one another and move on.

He forced himself to turn and walk away. He forced himself to keep his gaze straight ahead, to not look back at her and see whether or not she was watching him go. He knew that neither answer would make him happy.

If she wasn’t watching, he would have to assume that their parting hadn’t been as painful for her as it had for him. But, on the other hand, if she was watching him, that would mean that she didn’t want him to go—perhaps, even, that she wanted him to return to her.

And if he knew that was what she wanted, Seth didn’t know if he would have the strength to commit to what he knew was the right thing to do—to walk away from her and leave their time together in the past.