Page 57 of The Viscount's Promise
It took him a moment to realize she was not kissing him back. She was, in fact, struggling against him. In an instant, he let her go. She fell back, panting, and stepped into a pool of silvery moonlight.
But it was not her refusal of his embrace that stunned him so. No, it was the haunted look in her eyes. She looked desolate, as if she would never be happy again.
Fear speared through him. “Emily, what is it?”
She merely stared up at him, her expression growing darker. He reached for her hand. It lay limp in his, cold to the touch.
He swallowed. Damn it, he should not have stayed away from her so completely this evening. Of course she would be hurt by it. But he had seen no other way.
“Emily,” he began, “about my actions this evening—”
“What is Lady Morley to you?”
His mouth went dry as dust. Her voice, which was usually so sweet, almost musical, sounded harsh in the quiet of the room. “She is my brother’s widow,” he answered carefully.
Finally emotion flooded her face. It was anger, however, that brought the flush to her cheeks. “Shall I reword the question? Very well, whatwasLady Morley to you?”
He swallowed hard. “It matters not. Whatever she was to me, she has effectively destroyed it.”
“Did you love her?”
What could he do but tell her the truth? “Yes.”
She closed her eyes. For a moment he thought she might cry. The next instant, the fury was back, like banked fires in the pale depths of her eyes. “Was it grief for your brother that affected you when you first saw her this afternoon? And please do me the honor of not lying to me.”
Again, he could only answer her truthfully. “No.”
“You made me look a fool, blathering on about honoring the memory of the dead. When all along it was what she once was to you.”
He had never seen her so overcome. Not even when she had learned of the promise he had made to her brother did she lose such control. His heart pounded out a fearful rhythm.
“She is nothing to me now, I swear it.”
Her lower lip trembled. She pressed her lips tight and tucked her chin into her chest. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose,” she mumbled, almost as if to herself. Sounding suddenly defeated.
Panic bloomed, hot and fierce. Taking a step forward, he reached for her.
She threw up her arms, backing away from him.
He could almost hear his heart crack.
“You cannot mean to let her come between us,” he rasped.
“It is not only her, my lord. She was merely the catalyst.” She dragged in a deep breath, as if girding herself for a difficult task. “I think,” she said, the words sounding as if they were being wrung from her, “that perhaps we have been too hasty in our affections, my lord.”
He saw then the inevitable loss of her, like a brilliant gold string slipping from his fingers. The grief of it overwhelmed him, made him snap. “You did not think so this afternoon.” In an instant he regretted the harsh words. “Damn it, Emily. I’m sorry.”
But the dead look had returned to her eyes. “No, you are right. I was free with my affections this afternoon.” Her voice strengthened. “But it will not happen again.”
The breath left his body completely, so much so that she was nearly to the door before he could find voice to speak. “Emily, you don’t mean that. Take the night to think it over, please.”
She stopped, her hand on the knob. “There is nothing to consider. It was all done in such haste, neither of us were prepared. It was badly done of me to encourage you. I should have seen from the beginning we were not matched. We are too different, you and I. We could never be happy together.”
“We could,” he said, desperation making the words come hard and fast. “Our differences don’t matter a bit. We could be happy. Wewillbe happy together.”
An ancient kind of wisdom passed over her face. She gave him a sad smile. “You are fooling yourself. Soon you will be gone to your life in London. And I will remain here with my family. I don’t belong in your world. I never have. It would destroy me. And we would soon hate each other because of it.”
“No—”
