Henry’s cheeks flushed again, but before he could speak, Lucien continued, “You say that you’re sorry I was the one who always had to make sacrifices for the family, but then, when I asked you to finally do something for the sake of your sisters, to marry the woman our parents picked out for you, a lady with a sizable dowry that will help save the duchy from financial ruin after they spent every last penny, you still didn’t do it. You couldn’t sacrifice your desires for the good of the people you are supposed to love. Which tells me that you aren’t really sorry.”
“I am really sorry,” Henry said, and he took a step toward Lucien, his eyes pleading. “Lucien, you have to listen to me. I am sorry for what happened. I should have ended the engagement in a more respectable way, so that you weren’t forced to propose to Lady Emery and she wasn’t left in a position where she couldn’t refuse you. I will regret that for the rest of my days. But she and I both realized something before the wedding, and I think you ought to realize it, too: that we deserve to be happy. You deserve to be happy, too. Everyone does.”
Lucien turned away. He couldn’t hear any more of this simplistic, saccharine nonsense. “I shouldn’t have been surprised that Emery was sheltered and naive,” he said, as he stared out the windows of the parlor and out at the sea, which he could just glimpse in the distance. “But I thought you, a man of the world, who has travelled throughout Europe, would know better. I guess I was wrong.”
He sighed heavily and turned back to his brother. “I will not stop you from marrying the woman you want,ifshe is an acceptable match in terms of family and dowry. But I hope that while you enjoy the happiness you so think you deserve, that youremember that through your actions, you have condemned not only me, but your former fiancée, to live without it.”
Henry’s expression was frozen in horror, but Lucien couldn’t feel anything but sadness as he turned away from his brother. Because until this moment, he hadn’t even realized how unhappy he was with this wedding.
I do not desire to have a traditional marital relationship with you and would have refused had you come here with that expectation.
The words returned to him and seemed to cut like a knife through his chest. They had hurt in the moment, but now, the full weight of them fell on him, crushing him. He had married a woman who despised him; a woman with whom he would never be able to have even a warm, kind relationship with. And while he had thought he didn’t care, since he had never planned to marry in the first place, he was realizing now that he did care.
And it was far more painful than he had thought it would be.
Chapter Nine
“Are you sure this is safe?” Leah asked as she looked down into the crystal-clear blue waters of the lake. “I’m not exactly a great swimmer.”
Leah was standing on the edge of the lakeshore in just her bathing gown, her toes sinking into the mud, while Emery, Celeste, and Eve sat on the rocks behind her, stripping off their shoes and stockings.
“Don’t worry, we’re just going to wade in the shallow end,” Emery said as she peeled her stockings down her leg. She’d promised the girls a swim, after all, and she wasn’t about to renege on her word. But as she glanced at the sky, she couldn’t help but worry that it might start to rain.It won’t exactly be pleasant to go swimming in the rain.
“But what if there is a fearsome creature down there that will drag us to our deaths?” Eve asked, standing and going to thelake’s edge as well, which she stared down into with wide, fearful eyes.
Leah, Celeste, and Emery all laughed at this. “There’s nothing in there, silly,” Leah said, shaking her head and wrapping an arm around her sister. “It’s not Loch Ness!”
“Anyway, if there was anything dangerous, Lucien would have shot it years ago,” Celeste reassured her younger sister. “You know he is determined to never let anything bad happen to us.”
Emery raised her eyebrows.Except, of course, when he is the bad thing that is happening to you by being overprotective and keeping you from enjoying your lives.
But she didn’t say this. She was trying to heed Leah’s advice that she not judge the duke too harshly, not knowing, after all, what had happened to him in this life to make him so overprotective. It was difficult, though.
The man had now been gone for three days and hadn’t even told any of them where he was going.How am I supposed to get to know him and discover what has made him so overprotective if he isn’t even here?
It did, however, allow her time to take the girls on adventures she knew he otherwise would have forbidden, like this excursion to the lake.
“Okay, you’re right,” Eve was saying, a determined look coming over her face. “I’m not scared.”
“That’s right,” Leah said, smiling at her. “It’s just a bit of water.” But she also looked dubious as she hitched up her skirts and stepped out into the lake. “Oh, my goodness!” she cried. “It’s freezing!”
“What were you expecting?” Emery said, laughing. “It’s water!”
“I wasn’t expecting it to bethiscold.”
“I suppose swimming isn’t for the faint of heart,” Celeste said lightly, and Leah narrowed her eyes.
“Who said I was faint of heart?”
Celeste shrugged. “You’re the one screaming over a little cold water.”
Leah puffed out her chest indignantly. “I bet I can go deeper than you!”
“Oh yeah?” Celeste’s eyes twinkled. “I take that bet.”
“Just don’t go too deep--” Emery shouted after them as the two sisters began to race each other into the water. However, her cry of warning soon became a snort of laughter as both sisters started to screech at the cold.
They were up their shins, then their knees, then their thighs, howling and flapping their arms, all dignity forgotten. Then Leah got it into her head to splash water on Celeste, and before Emery could stop them, the two of them were splashing each other back and forth, screaming with delight as the water touched their bare arms.
