Page 74 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
Affection?Love?
His chest had gone unbearably tight, his ribs threatening to pierce his heart. If only the brandy would clear his head of this miasma of melancholy. But it didn’t, the worthless liquor—it just sat, churning in his stomach. It had never been acure, only a brief reprieve. A crutch he had used to carry himself through the wreck of his life. His eyes closed on a searing wave of pain. There was nothingtocure what ailed him, because he had been the architect of his own destruction all along. He had been treating the symptom, not the disease.Hewas the disease, rotting and putrefied after so many years of stewing in his misery.
And it would spread like a contagion. It had already begun poisoning every good thing in his life. How long until he let it ruin Lizzie?
You might very well turn her intoyou.
God, no. Already she had turned away from him and into herself, treating him—
Treating him much the same as he had treated her. The realization was a sobering slap in the face. This hurt, it was the same one he had given to her every time he had rejected that outstretched hand. Each delicate inquiry tendered with less and less enthusiasm, until at last she had stopped asking. She had known his answer before she had ever asked, after all. What had been the point?
Except—except shehadreached out to him once more. And he had been too blinded by his pain and shame to recognize the bravery in it. He’d cast a worsening succession of cruel words at her and ordered her away.
She’d called himLukefor the first time in weeks. And her lower lip had been trembling even before he had gotten so much as a single word out. She’d been upset even before he had deliberately upset her further, and he had been too selfish to see it.
He glanced at the bottle in his hand and slowly, deliberately, set it down upon the table.Done. It had never helped him. And with that decision, one that felt trulyfinalat last, came another staggering realization.
It didn’tmatterwhether or not he had wanted to love her. It had already happened. So quickly he could not saywhen, precisely. It was just that love, to him, had been so wrapped up in pain and heartache that he did not know how to recognize a love that simplywas. One that fit comfortably, and included small children shouting over the dinner table and bickering with elderly retainers. It was enough to encompassallof the Talbots, but Lizzie—
Lizzie was at the very center of it. Theheartof it.
And he had hurt her. He had worked so hard to convince her to settle for so muchlessthan they might have had. Over and over again, in a desperate, futile bid for self-preservation, because she had represented—
Everything he had ever wanted. Everything he had long surrendered the hope for. Too broken, too craven to trust that hand outstretched to him, offering him a seat at her table, a position within her family. He might have beenhappy.
Was there still that chance left for him?
Awkwardly he shoved himself to his feet, swaying with the magnitude of this realization. She had humbled herself enough to ask for what she wanted of him. Now he would humble himself enough to beg.
Luke slammed his shoulder into the door jamb in his haste to quit the room, stumbling down the hall toward her door. And though he knew it would be locked against him, still he came straight up to it and pounded his fist against the solid wood in a choking desperation.
“Lizzie,” he rasped. “Please. I’m sorry. Please open the door. Please talk to me.” Just—please.
Behind him there was a cough, and he turned to find a footman lingering there in the hallway. Probably he had been on his way up to bed, but had been drawn down the hall by the racket Luke had been making.
“Your pardon, my lord,” the footman said, averting his gaze, “but Lady Ashworth has gone out.”
But she couldn’t have gone out. They’d returned home not half an hour ago. “Where did she go?” he asked.
He gave a slow shake of his head. “I’m afraid she did not say, my lord.”
“She took the carriage?”
“No, my lord. She just—left.” A helpless shrug, as if he had been put in an unbearably awkward position. “My apologies. It’s just that she seemed in quite a state—”
Of course she was in a state. Luke had just torn her to shreds with the sharp side of his tongue and sent her running out into the night.
“—what with the coroner’s visit and her father and all.”
“What?” A frisson of alarm tripped down Luke’s spine, which stiffened to iron rigidity. “What did you say?”
The footman blanched. “My apologies, my lord. I’ve trespassed where I ought not.” With a harried bow, the man turned to go as ifhemight catch the lash of Luke’s anger if he stayed a moment longer.
“No!” Luke demanded, ready to lunge for the man. “No—tell me. For God’s sake,tellme.”
“It’s only that—well, I overheard the coroner telling Lady Ashworth that her father had come to a rather bad end,” the footman said. “That she would need to make arrangements for his body. He suggested she consult with you. I assumed she had.”
She’d tried. She’dtried. Except that he had never let her get the words out.
