Page 54 of Earl for the Summer
Edgerton narrowed his eyes as if dubious about that claim. “And yet you benefit from our visit all the same.”
Cassian couldn’t deny it. Seeing Daphne again was a gift he’d neither expected nor felt worthy of.
“Daphne is kind-hearted. My wife would say she’s the sweetest of all her sisters, so we are keen to protect her from ne’er-do-wells.”
Cassian bowed his head, then nodded. “And you fear I may be such a man?”
“Are you?” Edgerton tipped up his chin the slightest bit, and it felt like a dare.
“If you’d known me years ago, you might think so,” Cassian admitted.
“I might think so now.” Edgerton’s expression hardened. “Because, you see, Daphne has also always hoped for a love match. I think all the Bridewell sisters do because their parents’ marriage was such a loving one. They have a shining example to aspire to. I did not. I suspect you may not have either.”
“No. Quite true. Not at all.”
Edgerton’s eyes seemed to lighten a bit, and he merely observed Cassian a moment and said nothing.
“My duchess and I want to see her happy,” he finally said, a bit less sharpness in his tone.
“As do I.”
Edgerton glanced over his shoulder, toward Hillcrest. “She seems quite…taken with you, Captain Rourke.”
Cassian’s throat worked against the lump rising there. He looked away, unable to summon a response that wouldn’t betray too much of what had passed between him and Daphne.
Edgerton’s gaze was unrelenting. “And you? What are your intentions toward my sister-in-law?”
Cassian opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.
The duke didn’t wait for a reply. “One would imagine a man who’d won such a lady’s favor might have already made his offer.”
Cassian snapped his head up. Edgerton’s words echoed Julian’s.
The duke arched a brow. “Yet you have not, Captain. So I’ll ask once more. What do you intend?” The duke drew in a sharp breath and added, “My wife and I are of a mind to continue on to Derbyshire with her sisters.”
“When?” Cassian’s pulse pounded.
“Tomorrow,” Edgerton said, his voice like flint. “So I suggest you either act…” He paused to make sure Cassian looked him square in the eyes. “Or you must let her go.”
With those words, Edgerton mounted his horse, turned the stallion, and headed back toward Hillcrest.
Cassian stood as if thunderstruck, the duke’s words rattling through his mind.
Let her go.
Letting her go would be like giving up on breathing. Some part of him—the shadow that reminded him he was nothing—warned that he was not deserving of her. But then Daphne’s own voice rang in his head.
You have a right to be hopeful, to love and be loved.
If he was going to listen to any voice, it should be hers because she had reminded him who he was—a man with a heart. A heart that belonged to her. And, somehow, in some immense blessing that he’d never expected, she’d offered him hers, if he but had the courage to claim it.
Courage to push away doubts, to have hope greater than his fears.
With her, for her. Could he do that?
He had to, or he’d lose her.
That he could not do.
