Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

T he duke regarded Lavinia quietly for a long time—so long, in fact, that Lavinia began to regret having come out here to speak to him at all. Maybe it had been a mistake. It felt so uncomfortable to be standing here waiting for his answer. It felt as if she had been unpleasantly vulnerable with him, and she didn’t know what to do.

“Maybe I should go,” she mumbled.

He stared at her. “Maybe you should go? You came out here and made all those demands of me, and now you’re just going to walk away?”

“You’re not answering me,” she pointed out.

“You know,” he said, “I still think you think of yourself as a very timid person, Lady Lavinia. I still think you think you’re shy and retiring and that the only way you’ll gain the attention of a gentleman is if he notices you and approaches you. It isn’t so. You demand attention when you want it.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not in your case it isn’t—though I’m sure a man like your father would tell you that it was. It’s something I’ve always found very interesting about you. You compel people to look at you, to give you their attention. Even when you aren’t making that demand with your words, you make sure everyone knows that to ignore you would be a mistake.”

“I’ve rarely been ignored,” Lavinia agreed. “People pay more attention to me than I would like most of the time, but they don’t ignore me.”

“Because you stand out,” the duke said.

“But not usually in a good way.”

“That’s changed,” he said. “It used to be true that you stuck out from the crowd because you were odd and nobody knew what to make of you, but things are different now. People are starting to see the best in you, and to admire you for it. And this proposal is proof of that.”

“But I don’t know how to appreciate it,” Lavinia said. She felt as if she was on a boat in the middle of the ocean, unable to settle. “Why can’t I just fall in love with him? It would make everything so simple. It would solve all of my problems.

“I was so afraid my father was going to shackle me to a gentleman I didn’t like at all, but that’s not what’s happened. I do like him. I’m happy to call him a friend, and if this proposal didn’t mean the end of my dreams of finding love, I would be happy about it.”

“You seem so sure that love exists,” the duke said. “What if it doesn’t?”

“What if love doesn’t exist?” She shook her head. “I can’t believe that, Your Grace. That can’t be true.”

“Why can’t it be true?”

“Because I’ve felt it,” she whispered, looking him in the eye.

She was afraid he would look away, but he didn’t. He held eye contact with her instead.

“You’re so sure that what you’ve felt is love,” he marveled.

She didn’t answer. He hadn’t asked a question. And if she had answered, she would have had to tell him that yes, she was sure. She knew what this feeling was.

“There’s only one thing I can say to you,” the duke said. “Only one more instruction I can give you that will help you to eventually learn to love your husband.”

“What is it?”

“Promise me that you’ll do it,” he said.

That made her feel uneasy, but she nodded. “I’ll do whatever I have to do in order to fall in love with the gentleman I’m supposed to be with. All I want is a real love story.”

“You’ve got to walk away from me,” he said. “That’s the answer. You’ve got to turn around, walk away, and content yourself with never speaking to me or seeing me again.”

A shiver passed through Lavinia.

“Why?” she breathed. How could that be the solution she was looking for? What good was it going to do her?

And for that matter, why did it sound so impossible when he named it?

“Look at yourself,” he said. “Look at your hands, Lady Lavinia.”

She looked down at her hands.

“They’re trembling,” he pointed out.

“I’m nervous.”

“I know that. You’re always nervous around me. Every time we’re together, you’re like this. And I’ve watched you with him?—”

“You’ve watched me with him?” She looked up at him.

“Don’t look at me like that. That’s a part of your problem. You keep looking at me like that, and I see the expression in your eyes. The look on your face. I know what you’re feeling, Lady Lavinia.”

“You feel it too, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t matter. Talking about things like that is not going to help you. You’re never going to be able to feel this for Lord Hennington as long as you indulge fantasies about someone else.”

“Is that why you want to stay away from me?” she asked. “You don’t want to indulge in fantasies?”

“I’m not going to marry,” he said. “It doesn’t matter so much in my case.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t matter,” she agreed. “But if that’s true, why are you so determined to keep us apart? What difference does it make to you?”

She very much wanted to hear the answer to this question, though she wasn’t exactly sure why it was so important to her. What was he going to say, after all, that would make any difference?

She was hoping that he would tell her he cared for her.

The moment she had the thought, she knew it was true. She had already as good as confessed her feelings for him, and she wanted him to tell her that he felt the same way in return. Even though it wouldn’t help. Even though he seemed so determined not to marry. Even so, she wanted to know that what was between them had been real.

If I have to marry a gentleman for whom I feel nothing, at least let me know before I marry that I did experience real love. Let it have been a part of my life, even if I can’t be allowed to keep it.

At the same time, the whole thing was so tragic that she found herself half hoping that he would tell her he felt nothing at all. Perhaps that would make it easier to let him go.

“It’s the right thing to do,” the duke said. “It’s the right thing for you, Lady Lavinia. You deserve a fresh start. You shouldn’t be stuck in the past, all your attention and all your emotion caught up in a gentleman who is never going to give you the thing you want. I’m determined not to marry. A marriage between you and me…it’s the last thing in the world I want.”

Lavinia felt as if he’d slapped her.

She wished she had never asked the question.

And yet—she wasn’t sure if she believed him. There was something odd in his eyes, a sort of pain. It looked to her as if he wasn’t enjoying this any more than she was. She didn’t know what to make of that. If he truly didn’t care for her at all, shouldn’t he have been able to say these things to her without his feelings getting involved?

“You need to go,” he said. “Go now, before someone finds you out here.”

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t just walk away, Your Grace.”

“You stay, then, and I’ll go.”

“No,” she said. “Not yet. Just wait, please. One thing more, and then—and then I’ll leave. I’ll turn my back on you—on us—for good.”

“There is no us ,” he told her, but he didn’t meet her eyes.

Lavinia steeled herself against that comment. It would sting later, when she allowed herself to feel the full force of it, but not right now. Right now, all she wanted was to make sure he was telling the truth about his lack of feelings for her, because as it was, she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe him.

If she walked away without being certain, she would never be able to stop thinking about him. He wanted her to turn her attention to Lord Hennington fully, and perhaps that was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t do it until she knew for certain that there was nothing here—that there was nothing worth fighting for or trying to save.

“I’ve got too involved already,” he said. “I’ve done far more than I should have.”

“This is the last thing I’ll ever ask you for. I promise you that.”

“Ask me, then.”

She stepped closer to him. “Kiss me,” she said softly.

“Lady Lavinia?—”

“There’s no one here. No one is going to know. You kissed me before.”

“It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Do it again anyway. One last time. I’m asking you to.”

“I can’t.”

“You want me to walk away from you, don’t you? This will make me walk away,” she said. “If you can kiss me, and if you can tell me that you still don’t want me—if you can kiss me and look me in the eyes and tell me that a marriage to me is the last thing in the world you want, and make me believe that, then I’ll walk away from you and never look back.”

His eyes hardened. “You’re right,” he said. “I never saw you for what you were. I always thought that deep down, you had a weakness you weren’t showing to anyone. But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You’re sheer audacity right to the core.”

“I don’t know what I am,” she admitted. “But I know that what I’ve been telling you is true, Your Grace. I can’t just walk away from what might be the closest thing to love I will ever experience in my life.”

She drew in a deep breath. “I may live to regret saying that out loud, but I see no point in pretending anymore. I’ve already confessed my feelings to you, and you’ve already made it clear to me that you know the truth anyway. All I want is one last kiss.”

His eyes blazed, and Lavinia had a split second to doubt whether perhaps she had asked for more than she could handle. Maybe she didn’t want this kiss after all.

Then he reached out and pulled her into his arms, and she forgot to worry.

She lost herself in the kiss. It was perfect bliss, perfect pleasure, and from the moment his lips met hers, she knew that she hadn’t imagined a bit of it. No one could kiss anyone like this and not mean it. Not even the duke, who was so skilled at pretending in order to charm people, who had taught her everything she knew on the matter—not even he could put on such a convincing performance.

This was real, and she no longer had any doubt.

Nor did she want it to end. Even though it was real, there was no telling how he would address her once they parted. He might not be learning anything at all about his feelings from this interaction. Perhaps he was perfectly prepared to send her away again, and Lavinia knew that she had promised to go.

She wrapped her arms around him and held him close to her, and he didn’t push her away. Instead, he deepened the kiss, his lips and his tongue showing her things that she hadn’t imagined before knowing him.

It made her wonder—given time—what else he might be able to show her.

It made her sure that she didn’t want to learn these things from any other man.

“What on earth is going on here?” A harsh voice demanded.

Lavinia and the duke released one another and separated quickly, and Matthew emerged from the shadows with an outraged expression on his face.