Page 86 of A Bride for the Cruel Duke

“Move out of my way!”

“However, if you continue in this action toward my wife, I assure you that the way I treated you the last time we spoke will feel like a warm bath in comparison. Now…” Still perfectly calm, he glared at Daniel, almost daring him to overreact. “… if I let you go, will you do the smart thing? Or the stupid thing?”

Daniel looked furious! He glared at Anthony, then at Caroline, before he seemed to consider the situation and if it was worth pursuing. But Caroline knew her brother well enough to know how cowardly he could be, and where he might have happily taken his anger out on her, he would not do the same to Anthony.

“Fine!” he said, straightening himself up. “Have it your way. All I have done was for this family. But if you wish to... to sully our name! If you wish to be withhim. So be it. I will not stop you...” He curled his lip. “Have her.” With that, Daniel turned on his heel and strode for the stables.

Anthony stayed where he was for a moment, watching after Daniel until he was certain that he had left. Only once he was sure that Caroline was safe from him, did he turn back. And once again, he was smiling.

“That was quite the performance,” he said.

Caroline gaped up at Anthony. Her heart was racing. Her mind was running in a dozen different directions. That he was here was one thing. But that he appeared amused, his mood clearly better than the last time she saw him, was another. It gave her hope.

He looked down at her, still wearing that same smile, still looking regretful but also confident, affirmed in his decision to be here and what had made him. Whatever that might be.

“I—”

“Please, Caroline,” he spoke over her. “Before you speak, there is something I need to say. So many things, truth be told.”

Caroline forced her mouth closed, nodding for him to continue, while ignoring the way her heart raced because she suddenly knew what he was going to say without him having to say it. That was how well she knew the man.

“I have been lying to myself,” he began, his voice cracking. “Worse than that, I have lied to you—about everything. I…” He hesitated, biting into his lip. “For my entire life, I have believed what people said of me. What they thought of me. The Cruel Duke…” He laughed bitterly. “So assured was everyone who I met that this was the real me that I let that persona take over. The truth is, I wanted it to.”

“Anthony…”

He held out a hand to silence her. “When my mother died, it broke me. It hurt in ways that even now I still struggle with. It hurt me so much that I made a promise that I would never let anyone make me feel that loss again. I would become cold. Dispassionate. Remove myself emotionally from this world because I figured that would be easier to do. And for a time there, it was…” He shook his head at that. “And then something happened.” He looked at her.

She knew what he wanted her to say, so she said it. “What happened?”

“You entered my life.” He was looking right at her, his eyes seeing her as they always did. There was no anger there. No frustration. No sense that he wished her gone from his sight. The way he looked at her, it was as if he was afraid to blink in case doing so would see her vanish. “I was telling you the truth, that night we first married. What I wanted from this marriage—not just an heir.”

“Peace and quiet,” she said with a smile.

He shook his head. “A marriage that is more than one of convenience. A marriage to a woman who sees me for more than what I am, beyond what people say of me, through me as you always have. You are the first person I have met who has done that, Caroline. Who has dared to give me a chance. At first, I thought it made me weak, caring about you the way I did—relying on your love, as I have done. But now, I know the opposite is true.”

“Which means…” she pressed him gently.

“It makes me strong,” he said, stepping into her. “It makes me whole. It makes me a better man than I thought was possible. What is more, it shows me a future that I had long since given up on. I should have never asked you to leave in the first place.”

“Is that right?” She cocked an eyebrow at him, her heart soaring.

“I want you to return with me. Not because of what your brother wrote, and not because I want an heir or because you might feel obliged. But because…” He hesitated, the lingering remnants of his old self toiling with his conscience.

“Say it,” she said to him. “Say it.”

He straightened up and looked down at her; even before speaking, she could see in his eyes what he was going to say. “I love you, Caroline. I am sick of denying it. I am sick of pretending that it is not what I want or who I am.” He took her hand and squeezed it; her body flooded with warmth at his touch, the same as it did every single time he touched her. “I love you and if you feel the same, I want to give this marriage another chance. I want you in my life, Caroline. Now and forever.”

Caroline’s heart swelled at the words. Indeed, such happiness took her that she felt as if she could fly. She wanted to tell him that she loved him back. She wanted to throw herself at him and kiss him until the world ended. She wanted him, her husband, in ways that defied logic and reason, but she knew to be true.

However, before she did any of that...

“Another chance, you say?”

Anthony frowned. “I just meant?—”

“You have had more than enough chances. Five by my count.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “So tell me, why should I do such a thing?”

“To be fair…” He was grinning. “I have only had four. I am still owed one more.”

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