touched. “Well, I…although I do find you to be very pleasant, I…” Why couldn’t she focus on saying anything coherent?
Lowering himself to the bench again, he searched her face and said huskily, “Pleasant. I suppose there are worse things I could be.” He hesitated and then tossed out, “Do I interest you? At all? As a man? Or am I overreaching here?”
Blooming heat pulsed against her entire face, sensing this was veering onto a very different path. One she wasn’t prepared for, let alone capable of entertaining. “I am not…looking.”
“You are taking part in the Season, Lady Ascott. Therefore I would say, yes, you are looking.” He cleared his throat. “Your mother called on me last week.”
Dread seized her. “She did?”
“Yes. She, uh…pleaded that I make an offer on you. Apparently she noticed that I have more than a mild interest in you–-which I will admit I do—and insisted that I offer as she intends to have you married by June for reasons she was unable to disclose. Needless to say, her visit has been weighing on me since. She seemed panicked. Very panicked, actually.”
She cringed. Her mother had become pathetically desperate. Though she understood the woman only sought to protect her by removing her out of the care of her father, marriage was not the solution. Finding Nathaniel was.
He leaned in closer and lingered. “Is there something going on within your family that I don’t know about?”
She dragged in a breath, noting how breathtakingly close he was. She always thought him dashing, but never noticed how utterly spectacular he was until that moment. She tried to focus, spacing her words and her thoughts out as best she could. “I will admit that taking part in the Season is but a ploy. If I am to be honest in this, I am merely biding my time without my mother knowing it and ask that you forgive her. She means well.”
“Biding your time?” He lifted a brow. “Until what?”
She had already said too much. Although she desperately wanted to share the burden of her secret plans to flee London, the thought of exposing herself kept her from choking out the words. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “How do I know I can even trust you?”
“You don’t.” He nudged her arm with his own. “You simply have to consider if taking a chance on me is better than taking no chance at all.”
She nervously brought her hands together. “Why do you even want to help? What will you get out of it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a wife.”
She glanced toward him in astonishment, noting his rugged features were, in fact, serious.
His full mouth quirked. “Was that a bit too forward for the cynic?”
Her. His wife. Her chest felt as if it would burst, torn between her duty to her brother and the possible duty to a man whom she had grown to admire and adore from a distance.
Setting aside that she had no intention on marrying given the mess her family was in, New York was waiting. Nathaniel was waiting. “I cannot offer you or any man matrimony.”
He was quiet.
She gestured toward him, trying to push aside the awkwardness that hovered between them. “I have yet to fully understand your interest. After all, you are the duke of Wentworth.”
He stared her down. “I don’t rather like the sound of that. What do you mean?”
She looked away, sensing she had only stupidly made things worse. She had been a touch obsessed following all the gossip pertaining to his life. It was certainly far better than following her own mess of a life. “I will admit that I follow gossip a bit more than I should. London whispers of the sworn oath you made to mourn for your beloved wife for the rest of your days. I will say this apparent interest you have in making me your wife conflicts with everything I have heard about you. And while I am honored to no end, I don’t know what to believe.”
His features tightened. “Given you wish to know, Lady Ascott, I ceased wearing my mourning garments all but last year, shortly before meeting you. It was time. It had been seven years.” His brows came together. “I always felt as if I would be betraying her. So although the whispers were once true, I am, in fact, trying to rise above them. Trying.”
Seven years. Seven years was a very long time to mourn for one’s wife. She doubted her father would mourn at all if her mother were to die.
Her heart squeezed, sensing the truth in his words. This was real. He was real. “You loved her that much.”
He half nodded, but wouldn’t meet her gaze. “We grew up together. She lived with her uncle on the estate next to mine in Essex. We were the same age, actually, and there wasn’t a time I don’t remember her not being part of my life. She was eight and twenty when she succumbed to illness. It wasn’t her time and I most certainly wasn’t ready to see her go. She wanted children. We both did. Sadly we… It never happened.”
Augustine touched his knee gently, wishing she could comfort him and make him forget the pain. The pain of loss was one she could relate to all too well.
He glanced toward her hand, which rested on his knee.
She drew it away, knowing it wasn’t by any means appropriate. “I know how great a burden it is to lose someone you love. ’Tis unfathomable. You cannot touch them, you cannot hold them, and you cannot comfort them or yourself. It is as if they never existed, yet cruel as life is, everything around you reminds you that they did. I still miss my brother every day. He was my only friend in a house full of strangers. I could trust him to anything. And I haven’t been able to say that about anyone else since.” She blinked back tears, trying not to make a mess of her face.
The duke leaned in close, his large shoulder grazing hers, and murmured ever so softly, “You can say that about me.”
“Can I?” she whispered back.
He held her gaze. “I relate to the sadness you cling to. Believe me. I have noticed it at every turn. It lingers in your voice and in your eyes and haunts me. Everything about you haunts me. Whenever I see you or talk to you, I feel this need to…” His voice trailed off.
She swallowed. Perhaps it was best left unsaid.
He paused and tilted his head, edging his mouth closer to hers, the heat of his skin pulsing toward hers. “Might I…?”
She leaned toward that masculine mouth, achingly drawn into wanting to know what it would be like to kiss him. But as he edged in closer, and his hand drifted toward her waist, to pull her closer, she realized a kiss would only invite him to think that she was his. She jerked back, her heart jumping to her throat. “I cannot.”
He paused, leaned away and cleared his throat. He glanced at her. “You think me too old. Is that it?”
Bless his heart. He just didn’t know what he was up against. She leaned toward him and confided, “Your age has no bearing on my feelings. If my life were anything but what it is, Your Grace, I would marry you. Gladly. For you are all things handsome and kind, but you deserve a far happier soul than the one I have to give. I will admit that I barely belong to myself since the disappearance of my brother. A part of me, the one that used to play and dance at a mere word, will never return.
