“You must have been angry with them,” she said quietly. “And I’m sure it was confusing to be angry at the people you were also grieving.”
His eyes slid to her, full of surprise. “Yes,” he said. “It was very confusing. I felt like a horrible son for being angry at the people who had died. I felt…”
“Guilty.”
This time, he didn’t speak. He just nodded, and she nodded as well. They had both stopped dancing, she realized. They were standing across from one another, just looking at each other. He looked haggard, she thought. His shoulders were slumped, and there was pain and anger on his face like she’d never seen before.
“You had nothing to feel guilty about,” she said at last. “Your anger was normal. They’d bankrupted the estate, and you were far too young to have had to deal with that.”
“But it wasn’t their fault they died,” he said, shaking his head.
“Of course not.” She reached out and took his hand. To her surprise, he didn’t pull away. “But it’s still natural for you to be angry. In my experience, humans can hold many complex and even contradictory emotions at once. We can mourn people and miss them terribly when they’ve passed, but also be mad at them for leaving us their debt and disorder. We can feel thankful for all they did to raise us, and still feel anger at them for locking us away from the world for years. And we can be furious at them for marrying us against their will, but still have sympathy and care for them once we realize everything they’ve been through.”
He smiled at this. “Is this your way of telling me that you have started to forgive me?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said lightly, “but I do feel that the more I understand you, the more I feel you are not the worst husband a woman could have ended up with.”
“A great compliment indeed,” he said dryly, and she laughed. “Perhaps you are the one who has to learn how to pay a sincere compliment. I had to learn, after all.”
“That’s true.” She pretended to look as if she were contemplating this very seriously. “I told you how selfless I find you--”
“You said I wassurprisingly selfless. It wasn’t exactly the most effusive compliment.”
“--so now you must pay me one,” he went on doggedly, and she laughed at the stubborn look on his face.
“Can mine also be backhanded?” she asked with a slight smile, and he rolled his eyes but nodded.
“I suppose it can.”
She thought for a moment, but she didn’t really need to think about it. She knew what she admired about the Duke. “I think you are a very good older brother,” she said. “I didn’t always understand your methods, but now that I know you better, I can see that you are strict because you love your family.”
The Duke said nothing. In fact, he was silent for so long that she started to worry her words had offended him. But at last, he spoke.
“After my parents died, the only way I thought I could save our family was by following all the rules: spending money thriftily,saving as much as possible, raising my younger siblings to be paragons of Society. My parents’ waywardness had nearly ruined us, so I thought that being the opposite was the way to keep everything from falling apart.”
“And you were just a child,” she murmured. “You were overwhelmed. Of course you thought you had to follow all the rules of Society. No one else was helping you or giving you advice, and by following the rules, you had a rulebook, in a way, to follow.”
“I suppose so,” he said, nodding slowly. “By following the rules passionately, my siblings became easier to manage, and the estate slowly started to become solvent again. Everything was working, and after many years, they even began to work smoothly and efficiently, without as much effort on my part. And now that most of our money problems have disappeared, I can anticipate a time when I won’t have to worry all the time about keeping the estate together.”
These words sank into her slowly, comprehension dawning. “Ahh, you mean my dowry? That has helped fix your money problems?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “That was part of it.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t marry sooner, then,” she said, smiling softly. “If it would have solved your money problems.”
He didn’t respond to this, but the way his jaw tightened told her she had hit a nerve.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said. “I only meant that it would have fit into your life philosophy: follow the rules, do one’s duty, save the estate with a large dowry. Marrying is a duke’s duty, isn’t it?”
“You haven’t upset me,” he said. “But now that you know more about my parents, I hope you can understand why I made a pledge never to marry. I knew I didn’t want a love match, and I didn’t want a woman who desired one to find herself in a situation where she was married to a man who couldn’t love her.”
Emery took a long moment to contemplate this. That is why he didn’t want to marry me and part of why he was so furious at Henry. It all made sense now: it wasn’t just that he was angry about being forced to marry a woman he didn’t know or love; part of his anger came from the noble idea that he couldn’t do that to a lady. This realization made her like him more, and she looked up at him with renewed admiration.
Something in her look must have softened him, because he gave her a small smile. “Despite my pledge not to marry, I am glad you are my wife,” he said, and the words were so intimate and so tender that Emery felt her heart flutter.
“Really?” she asked, her throat dry.
He nodded. “And not just because of the dowry, if that’s what you were thinking.”
