Page 89 of Tamed By her Duke

She tugged at her wrist, but he didn’t release her. “Surely you can see how that’sworse, Caleb?—”

“No,” he interjected. He pulled her closer, grabbed her by the shoulders. She was likely to hurt herself with all that tugging. “That’s what it means.Leannan. It means ‘sweetheart.’ Or ‘darling,’ I suppose.”

She stopped tugging. Tears sprang to her eyes.

These tears felt infinitely worse, because Caleb knew, without a doubt, that he had caused them. He was not entirely sure how or why he’d caused them, but they were indisputably his fault.

“Oh,leannan,” he said, the endearment tripping off his tongue before he could remember not to speak it. “Please don’t cry.”

“I—” She paused, sniffed. “I don’t understand. You’ve…you’ve been calling me that for ages.”

Caleb felt almost bashful despite himself. “Aye, I suppose I have.”

“But—” She glanced wildly around the room, as if their surroundings might somehow provide illumination. “Butwhy?Can’t you see that it’s unkind to call me sweet names when you don’t want me? Is it…is it some sort of joke to you?”

It was perhaps the most pain he’d ever heard in her voice. She’d been so steady when confronting her father, when telling him of all the horrors she’d endured. But now she sounded small, fragile. Like one wrong word could shatter her to pieces.

For Caleb, a solider and a brute, never a poet, this was a precarious position to find himself in. So, lacking any better option, he told the truth.

“Of course I want ye, sweetheart,” he said, choosing the English word even if it didn’t feel quite right. She was hisleannan, as much a part of him as was his mother tongue. “How can ye think otherwise?”

She raised a hand to her snarled curls as if she could physically cram understanding into her head.

“Because you’releavingme!” she shouted, and her anger was ever so much easier to bear than her sorrow. “Because you’re doing what you said you’d do from the beginning—getting an heir upon me and then sending me away so that you don’t have to deal with the inconvenience of a wife any longer.”

“Grace,” he said softly, comprehension settling over him. He could not stop himself from reaching for her face. “I’m nae doing that because I daenae want ye. I’m doing that becauseyedaenae wantme.”

His fingers had just grazed her cheek; she’d just begun to lean into the caress. When his words registered, however, she smacked his hand away.

“Oh, I don’t want you, do I?” she demanded. The ice had been replaced by fire. “How verythoughtfulof you to tell me how I feel without bothering to ask me!” This time, when she yanked her hand away from him, he let her.

Something stubborn inside Caleb refused to hope, to even consider what those words might mean. Hope had never been a luxury he could afford. He’d been pragmatic all his life, and it had gotten him through a brutal childhood with a violent father, through being the odd Scottish boy at Eton, through the army. Through losing his brother and his mother.

If he gave in to hope now, only to have it snatched back away from him, he did not think he could bear it. He had survived all those things, but this, he feared, might well and truly break him.

“Grace,” he said hoarsely. “Ye watched me nearly kill your father.”

She looked away from him. “He’s not my father, not anymore. And he tried to kill me—or at least made it very possible for it to happen. Do you know how many times I wondered, while I was away, if I was living my last day on earth?”

Her words were like knives, but she shook her head as if they didn’t matter, as if that past pain was nothing compared to what she felt now.

When she turned back to him, her gaze was fierce.

“If you think that watching you defend me against someone who failed so miserably in protecting me—if you think watching you stand up for me when nobody else did—if you think those things make me want you to leave, then you are a fool.” She squared her shoulders, even as tears sparkled in her eyes.

“I am done being afraid. I refuse to cower. I am going to say what I mean, even if you didn’t ask, even if you hate me for it. I love you, Caleb Gulliver, you foolish, impossible, bothersome man. I love you, even if you persist in believing that I am a shrinking little flower who is afraid of you. I love you, even if half the time I want to smack you for your obstinance. I love you because you are brave, and dutiful, and steadfast, and you make me feel safe, damn it, when nothing else does. And if you don’t like that, well. That’s just too bad, because it’s how I feel, and that is somethingIcontrol. Me. Just me.”

Caleb had long prided himself on his courage. He took the right path, even when it was hard. He plunged into danger when it was necessary, stood his ground when the situation called for it.

And yet, now, he realized he’d been too easy on himself. He was a coward—one who felt shamed by this brave, marvelous woman in front of him.

Her hands were on her hips, her mouth set into a mulish expression. She paid no attention to the tears sparkling against her cheeks.

God above, how he loved her.

“Grace,” he said, determined to get this one thing right. Thisone thing. “I am nae always good with words. I may never be the most expressive man. I’ve said unkind things, I know. I’ll likely err again. I’m stubborn. Perhaps even a fool, as ye said.”

She was watching him warily and he knew that he could not leave any part of this to implication or innuendo. He had to say it all clearly, here and now.

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