Page 27 of The Duke I Wished For
“You won’t hear any argument from me there,” Adam said mildly. “You should have spoken to her father first.” And then he fell silent.
Which was his way.
Adam and his blasted silences. Blake shifted in his seat as the silence grew. “I know I handled it poorly. But I’ll do right by her in the end.”
“Course you will,” Adam muttered. “And if it helps, I understand why you went to her first.”
“You do?”
Adam shrugged. “If you’d asked her parents, she wouldn’t have much of a choice, now would she?” Adam’s lips curved up in a rueful smile. “One of the perks of being a duke. Everyone forgives you when you break the rules.”
Now it was Blake’s turn to grunt. Adam had the right of it. He had wanted to be sure she liked him well enough before going to her father…
He frowned. No, that wasn’t it. He didn’t want her to just…like him. He wanted her to feel the same way he did when he was around her.
He fell back in his seat with a sigh. “Do I even go to her father when she’s made it clear she doesn’t want to marry me?”
“Did she say that?”
Blake frowned as he recalled her odd response. “No, she…she went on about embroidery.”
Adam’s brows lifted, and for a moment they sat there listening to Clarissa whisper to herself as she played with her dolls.
Adam shifted in his seat, his brows knitting together. “To be clear, you proposed, and she…spoke of embroidery?”
Blake flinched. “I know what she meant,” he said. “The first time I spoke with her, and then again at the tea party with Clarissa, I may have told her about…the list.”
Adam’s eyes widened. “No.”
“Yes.” Blake fought the urge to justify his actions. “So I believe she may have gotten the wrong impression when I suggested she take on the role of duchess?—”
“Just a moment,” Adam interrupted. “Take on the role? Is that what you said? Blake…” His brother leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. “How exactly did you propose marriage?”
Blake hesitated. He’d left out the specifics when he’d told his brother the tale. They were painful to remember and worse to say out loud. Thankfully, he was bought a small reprieve as Clarissa, apparently tired of her dolls, climbed into her uncle’s lap.
Adam wrapped his arms around her as Clarissa curled up and snuggled, and then Adam met Blake’s gaze with an expectant stare.
Blake cleared his throat. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly…romantic.”
Adam’s lips twitched.
“I didn’t want to pressure her,” Blake added.
Adam grunted in acknowledgment. “From the sounds of it, the girl gets enough pressure from that mother of hers.”
“Precisely,” Blake said. His muscles tensed with anger every time he thought of the way her mother spoke to her. Like an errant child, and even then, he’d never push his daughter that way. “I don’t want her to be forced into this.”
Blake frowned. He wanted to marry her. Quite desperately, really. He might not have known her long, but there was a connection there that he’d never even dared to hope for with a wife.
But it wasn’t difficult to see that her mother undermined her and tried to control her… Rage boiled inside him at the memory of their very first meeting. The way she’d hidden behind him to avoid her mother and the man her mother had clearly intended for her to meet.
His hands clenched into fists. “Blast it all, I want to save her from her mother and whatever horrid match she has planned. But how am I to do that if Daff doesn’t want to marry me?”
This outburst was met by two surprised stares. He supposed he had been quiet for a while there, and his voice had been filled with all the anger swelling inside.
Clarissa turned her gaze up to Adam. “Why is Papa mad?”
He pet her hair soothingly. “He wants to marry your new friend, but he’s not sure she’ll say yes, love.”
