Page 97 of A Bride for the Forbidden Duke
Her fingers curled into his jacket. “Henry, you aregood. You are kind and considerate. I have seen how you speak with your tenants. I have seen the glimpses of joy Mr. Shawcross and your family bring you. You hide your moments of happiness well, but I can see through that facade. You told me not to pretend you care for anyone, but you have shown me so many moments where you do. As it sounds, your father would never act in such ways.”
“And so… you would be a wonderful father,” she insisted.
Henry’s pained expression hurt her too greatly to look at him, but she persisted. Even as he pushed her back towards the tree trunk, her back pressing into the rough bark.
Her breath escaped her when she had the full weight of his emotions on her in his eyes.
“You are nothing like him, and that fear from your past should not have the power to jeopardize your future.”
“Except it does,” he growled. “Because I grew up under his fist. I was never taught kindness, so how am I to teach a child it? I deny anybody who tries to get close to me. I have shut you out many times.”
“And I am stubborn enough to come back,” she argued.
His hands were hot on her hips, pressing through her thin dress. She ached for them to seek her body beneath the fabric, to be so daring in such a place. But he was not fired up in such a way. No, anger blazed through his eyes—but not the kind that meant he would bring her to a dizzying climax from his intensity.
“So that is what you will teach our children?” he spat. “That to earn their father’s love they must be stubborn and persistent?Iwas stubborn and persistent. I craved my father’s love, and the more I searched for it in places where it could not grow, the angrier he became.”
“He is not you, and you are not him.”
“I do not know that for certain.”
“You shall not even give us the chance to learn? For yourself to learn love and tenderness? You are dismissing any children we have before I am even with child.”
“It is a good thing you are not.”
His declaration shocked her and pierced something right through her. Veronica craved children—she wished to be a mother more than anything. Her best memories were with her mother, and she wanted that connection herself.
“You truly shut down the notion so easily?”
“I warned you of it from the day we were wed.” His voice was low, warning.
“I feel as though you are merely trying to prove you are the same as your father. As if you wish your predetermined opinion of yourself to be right, so you do not give yourself a chance to learn otherwise. If you cannot trust yourself to love, then what will you leave yourself with, Henry?”
“Certainly not you,” he whispered. “For you will not wait around for such a heartless man to love.”
Her chest grew heavy with grief. “You do not mean that as a threat.”
“Are you quite certain?”
“Henry.” His hands bunched in her dress, as if he wanted her even as they argued—as if this fire between them was either going to explode into an inferno or extinguish. “Are you truly so stubborn you will purposefully ruin what we have just to prove yourself correct? Because I believe that is what you are doing.”
“I did not mislead you,” he warned her.
And she knew, then: this would be no inferno. This was about to be a rainfall, dousing the flames of their craving for one another.
“We talked of living separately, did we not? It is better that way, for I will not have children, Veronica, and I will not be swayed on the matter. You cannot force nor convince me.”
Veronica gasped, stinging pain spreading through her.
He is surely not causing such catastrophe… Surely…
She gathered herself, hardening her expression as she had watched him do. “Of course,” she agreed, grateful her voice did not crack and betray her hurt. “After all, our marriage was only a convenient one.”
“Yes, and now that your brother has returned, it has served its purpose.”
Veronica forced herself not to look away from him in hurt. “Indeed, it has.”
He stared back at her, and she wished she could read deeper into his face. His eyes told her nothing but cold removal. Only an hour ago, they rode together in the carriage, and he had told her he was trying to open up. But now all she saw was a hurt boy that had turned into an ice-cold man.
