Page 64 of Duke of Pride

“You?”

There was something raw and unguarded in the way her gaze searched his. In the way her voice dropped to a mere whisper.

Tell me this is true, Victoria pleaded silently, her eyes full of hope.

His jaw tightened. His hands behind his back were sweating. It was merely the right thing to do. That was all this was—just the right thing to do.

“Yes, me.” He paused. “As a man of honor, I can no longer in good conscience continue our acquaintance without offering you marriage.”

His tone was so cold that Victoria took one small step back. He didn’t allow her to comment.

“It is my duty, as the Duke of Colborne, to rectify the wrongs done to your virtue.”

The light was snuffed out, and her faint smile dropped. Her wide eyes narrowed as she regarded him with doubt. His face remained carved from cold marble.

She sighed with cold mirth and shook her head. Her jaw ticked as she pursed her lips. She looked down at her feet before looking up at him.

It was his turn to be hit with an icy look.

Victoria’s expression hardened. The warmth in her eyes, the hope that had flickered there just moments before, vanished, replaced by something colder. Sharper.

“How very noble of you, Your Grace.” Victoria wielded that honorific with the precision of a seasoned swordsman.“Rectify the wrongs done to my virtue,”she mockingly repeated. “This is the reason for extending such a generous offer?”

“It is my?—”

“Duty,” Victoria added with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, I heard you the first time. I just wanted to see if you?—”

For a moment, her hard façade cracked. She swallowed and looked over his shoulder, as if she wasn’t able to withstand looking at him without breaking down.

“How stupid of me to assume you’d value anything more thanduty.”

Stephen’s chest tightened. He should say something. Anything. But the words wouldn’t come out. He remained unmoved, watching her struggle. Digging her nails into her palms, almost shaking, overwhelmed, she turned to him.

Stephen knew even before she opened her mouth.

“I am afraid I must turn down such amagnanimousoffer.”

“Victoria…”

“You see, Your Grace.” Her voice was as sharp as an executioner’s axe. “I was always candid with you. I do not wish to marry.”

Her eyes darkened, and she lowered her chin to make herself look more menacing.

“And least of all a man like you. No, that is not accurate. I would never marryyou.”

Stephen went utterly still. The world narrowed to the sharp planes of her face, the unflinching resolve in her eyes. She was rejecting him in the most shattering way possible. She wasn’t coy, she didn’t employ shyness or excuses. She made it personal and clear.

The truth of it lanced through him. He had miscalculated. Badly.

“Victoria, listen to me,” he tried. “I was just?—”

“You speak of duty, of honor, yet you think so little of me that you believe I would resign myself to a life shackled to a man who sees me as nothing more than an obligation?”

Victoria chuckled. The coldness of the sound could make summer itself hurry to hide away. Yet, her throat was working hard, and she was blinking her eyes too fast.

Is she going to cry?

Stephen took another step toward her without realizing it. His body separated from his cold logic, and it demanded he rectify the wrong he had committed. But Victoria fisted her mallet, spotted the ball, gathered it, and walked away from him. She didn’t look back.

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