Page 63 of The Duke's Last Dance
After all, no man would ask to speak to her father in his study, alone, if they were not positive they wanted to marry her. That was the hallmark of asking for a lady’s hand in marriage. The man was supposed to ask the father of the woman, first and foremost, so it was seen as a proper engagement.
It was not long before her father and the Duke of Hestina walked into the dining hall. Catherine’s heart skipped a beat as the duke approached her.
She could not help but look at his fine eyes and wonder what he was to ask her now. He finally approached her and took her hand, kissing her knuckles softly. She felt her cheeks coloring, but the butterflies had not returned.
“Lady Catherine Radcliffe, ‘tis a pleasure to see you this morning,” he said. “As you may know, I have talked to your father this morning. He has given me his blessings, and now, I ask you: Lady Catherine, will you marry me? I have fallen quite in love with you, and as you seem to have the same feelings for me, I wish to know your answer.”
“Of course, Lord Burton,” Catherine said with a smile.
A round of cheers went up, and she could not believe her luck. It had not even been a full month since they began courting, and here they were, now engaged to be married. The excitement around her blurred the rest of the morning, but she felt… numb to the entire air of excitement, as if there was something she was missing in this entire equation that she could not quite put her finger on.
“Oh, this is wonderful! Simply wonderful,” her mother said at one point that morning. “We must set up an engagement dinner for you and the duke. ‘Twill be the most wonderful dinner we have ever held here for you, you know, Catherine.” Her mother continued to talk excitedly about what would go into the planning and the dinner.
She would spare no expense. She would spend as much as she felt needed to be spent in order to obtain the best for her engagement dinner. There would be fresh flowers, beautiful linens, wonderful food, and even the best silverware they could find.
Catherine only smiled and nodded at her mother.
The lack of butterflies when Lord Burton had taken her hand to kiss her knuckles confused her now. She had only felt that way with one other man, with Nicolas. However, this was a different kind of lack of butterflies. It wasn’t a comfortable lack of butterflies. Instead, it felt as though the love had evaporated from her heart. She felt as though she were sitting in the doldrums, with nowhere to go and no way to get out.
Not even the pending marriage felt as though it would bring her any relief from how she felt or what was going on.
She wondered what was going on, and what she was supposed to do now that there was a lack of butterflies.
“Catherine? Did you hear what I said?” Her mother’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
“No, Mother, I did not. I must have been lost in thought,” she replied, managing a small smile.
“Do you want to let Edward know, or should I?” Her mother repeated the question.
“I would like to let him know, Mother. I have yet to reply to his letter, and he ought to be home tomorrow,” Catherine said. “Thank you.”
“As you like, Catherine,” her mother said. Then, she continued to go on about the different arrangements that would be made. Again, her mother mentioned that she would spare no expense for this day, and there was going to be nothing lacking.
Catherine excused herself from the dining room, and then walked out to the gardens for some fresh air. With the lack of letters from Nicolas and the lack of butterflies from Lord Burton, she was not sure what else she could do. There was something more to what was going on than what she had originally thought, but she did not know what it was.
This lack of butterflies felt more like a disappointment than knowing that she was safe with Lord Burton. It was weird. She had never thought a lack of butterflies would make her disappointed, but it had been the same way before she had realized she thought she loved Nicolas. She was pretty sure she did love Nicolas, but she had no intentions of going through with that now that he had not taken the time to write to her.
She took in a deep breath, hoping that she would be able to figure out what was causing her to feel so… so desperate. Was it her wish to be married and get away from the life her parents had given her, even if it were only to go be a wife and fulfill the same measures that her mother had?
Or was it her wish to have a family of her own, a happy family where there was never a problem with what was going on?
Catherine had known since she was a child that she had wanted to have children, to have that kind of a family life. Her mother had made it known that it was not as easy as one would have thought, to have children and have a family like that.
During their courtship, Lord Burton had never talked about having children. It was not necessarily something to be talked about during courtship, especially when it was so short, but she felt it was something that he needed to know about her before they were married. She also wanted to know how he felt about it, whether he thought having children would be a good idea or not.
There was no easy way to introduce that topic without it feeling like she had introduced it only to frame him for impropriety with her. That was the last thing she wanted to do.
So, she took a walk around the gardens, hoping that the blooming flowers would get her mind off the problems. The roses had finally blossomed, and she took great pleasure in walking through the gardens looking at them.
Perhaps that would be her bouquet, a fresh bouquet of roses. Roses for a wedding sounded lovely. After all, they were meant to be a sign of love and of happiness. It would be one of the best ways she could show that she was excited about what was going on.
But was she really excited? As she thought about the idea of having roses as her bouquet, she quickly realized that she was not as excited as the duke and her parents were for this match. Perhaps if she had never realized she loved Nicolas, she would be that excited, but since she knew in her heart that the duke was not the man she loved… she wondered if she would be truly happy in this marriage. She wondered if, perhaps, she was making a mistake.
She closed her eyes.
It was too late to fix what had already broken. Nicolas had made no effort to reach out to her, and that was the entire reason she had started courting Lord Burton to begin with. She had to let go of the past.
And she knew the best way to do so.
