Page 71 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“So she told you, then.” He felt himself wince with the shame of it, that dreadful ache in his chest paining him once more.
“Just enough to guess, I think,” Susan said, and she sipped her champagne, shaking her head in disappointment. “Do you know, Lucas, it really is a shame. You could have gotten her honestly.”
No, he couldn’t have. Lizzie, with all her naïveté and her innocenceand her bloodyprincipleswould never have wed him without inducement. “She wants more than I can give her,” he said. But did she, anymore? She’d removed her ring. Said it didn’tfit. He wondered if she’d meant it literally or metaphorically.
Probably a bit of both. Her hand was unadorned, and now it was clasped in another man’s as he led her through a turn.
“Can’t or won’t, Lucas? Because there is quite a difference between the two, and itdoesmatter.” She tipped her head just slightly to indicate Lizzie and her partner. “At least no one will be supposing you’re ashamed of her. You’ve scarcely taken your eyes from her all evening.”
“For God’s sake, I was never ashamed of her! It is only that—” It was just that she had already gotten a bit too close for comfort. She had slid beneath his skin like a splinter, and if he had given her any more than she had already got from him, if he hadn’t forced her to fit into the neat little box he had envisioned for her, then he would—then he would—
Lose himself all over again. Fall victim to that same malady to which he had succumbed once before, with disastrous results. He closed his eyes, willed the choking pressure in his throat to fade. It would not happen. He would notletit happen.
Therehadto be a happy medium betwixt them. A place where he was heart-whole, and there was an accord between them. Where they were friends and lovers, and their marriage was based on mutual respect and admiration and nothing anywhere near as ruinous aslove. Love had been the destruction of more marriages than his.
I can’t weather that madness again.
He hadn’t realized he’d spoken it aloud until Susan touched his arm, her face scrawled over with sympathy. “Oh, Lucas. I really don’t think you have a choice.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
The tension in the carriage was becoming a regular—if tedious—occurrence. Lizzie had never quite seemed to make it out the door before Luke was there, too. Sometimes it felt almost as if he had set a watch for her, to ensure that she never left for the evening without him. She had wondered occasionally whether the coachman would even have departed without him had she managed to make it to the carriage before he had arrived.
Worse still, his mood had been growing increasingly dour as the days had worn on, and for no particular reason that she had been able to discern. This evening he sat with his hands placed upon his knees, and even in the dim lamplight that filtered through the windows from the street outside she could see the tight line of his jaw, so sharp it could have sliced through a block of cheese.
“Are you planning to dance tonight as well?” His fingers flexed, knuckles popping audibly.
“If asked, I suppose.” She managed a light lift of her shoulders. “Itisa ball.”
“A damned lot of them, lately.”
“You did not have to come, my lord.” She wished he hadn’t, in fact. Last evening had only been the opera, and he’d scowled so fiercely through it that he’d inadvertently chased three visitors from their box between acts. His volatile mood unsettled her. If he could only revert back to his prior detachment, then she would know how she was meant to react, butthis—this, she did not know what she was meant to make of.
“Iwantedto come,” he growled, and somehow, despite her discomfort, she laughed.
“You reallydon’t,” she said. “I should think it’s quite clear by now that you would rather be anywhere else.”
His brows lifted in surprise. “What the hell isthatsupposed to mean?”
A soft, weary sigh slid from her lungs, and it sounded every bit as despondent as she felt. Once, she had wished for his company, and now she could not rememberwhy. He was worse than poor company—he was a boor, lingering at the fringes of activity, scowling so severely that she could feel the chill of it even in a ballroom packed with bodies. When they spoke—rarely—it was in sharp, cutting snippets of sentences that felt stiff and disjointed. He thrust; she parried, and it was profoundly uncomfortable for all involved.
How much longer was she meant to bear this?
“Lizzie,” he said insistently, bracing himself with one arm as the carriage made an abrupt turn. “What does thatmean?” As an afterthought he added, “Idowant to come.”
“No, you don’t. You never have before.” Truth to tell,shedidn’t, either. But it was, according to Susan, what onedidin London. He had made her into a marchioness, and that role came with responsibilities. He had thrust a country girl into a role to which she was ill-suited, but by God, she woulddoit. She would do it despite the thinly-veiled cuts from his former lovers, and she would do it despitehim.
“Well, I want to now.”Thrust. His fingers tapped out a chaotic rhythm upon the door.
“I haven’t asked.”Parry. She folded her hands in her lap.
“You did, once.”Thrust. The tip of that volley slipped beneath her guard, tearing open an old wound.
Yes, she had once asked, and once had been quite enough. “I won’t again. You need not feel obligated to attend me. I know better than to make demands of you.”
“I wish you would, at least a little,” he muttered stiffly. “Do you know, there’s three extra people residing within my house presently and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt more alone.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands. “Iamtrying, Lizzie,” he said. “We could have a good marriage.”
Agoodmarriage. Why couldn’t he see that she was trying to give him exactly that? That she hadacceptedit all. That she was only trying to find a measure of peace, things with which to occupy her time since he would have none of it.
