In the Duke's Arms by Carolyn Jewel

Author:Carolyn Jewel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Romance
ISBN: 9781937823344
Publisher: NLA Digital LLC
Published: 2016-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

If he spoke, there was no possible outcome but another disastrous exchange of words at cross-purposes. The chances of his finding both the right words and the right inflection were, in his experience with her thus far, vanishingly small. He would either growl at her, or tell her what was in his heart. She wasn’t some young girl who would accept a proposal of marriage from him merely because a duke bent a knee to her. God in Heaven, he would not want her to be such a woman.

He floundered in the waters of his admiration for Edith. Men like him married for the suitability of the match. They married young, to secure the line of inheritance. They married nobility, or else for reasons of money, property, and politics. He’d done none of that. None. The thought of doing so now turned him dead inside.

There was merit in a marriage made for reasons of duty. Until Edith, he’d intended to make just such a marriage. Had his life not taken such an odd turn, he might this moment be married to a woman—likely Miss Louisa Clay—who would have accepted him for reasons of his rank rather than her heart. He would have had no quarrel with that result. They would have made the pattern from which others might make similar marriages of suitability.

Then, Jesus, weeks after his hopes for Edith lay in tatters, after days and days of rumors and gossip about the men who had offered for her once her circumstances were so changed, she’d inquired about Hope Springs. This he’d learned solely because of his insistence on reviewing with Goodman the details of his estate.

For ill or good, he’d picked up the letter from her solicitor to his and said, “This offer.”

Now he feared what the future might bring. That leaden weight in place of his heart was dread that she’d moved here because she believed he would marry her cousin and hoped to be close to Miss Clay without making a nuisance of herself. Dread that she would meet some other man and see in him all the joy of life that he lacked.

“I shall see you home.” The words came out all wrong, with gruff emphasis on the word will. One look at her, and he lost all chance at serenity. Because he had never in his life cared whether anyone liked him. He’d never thought about it. Until her.

She intended to tell him no. Because that was her way. Because she was worried he might throw over her cousin on some whim or other. She was not wrong in that, since, in fact, he did mean to. Just the other day, when he’d felt the delay in a response to Clay’s invitation was yet another message, he’d replied to the man’s letter, which included a breezy, amusing paragraph from Louisa. In his single-paragraph reply, he wished Clay and his daughter all the happiness of the coming holidays and ended with the dry fact that he intended to remain at Killhope until February or March and then remove to Wales until June.

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