“Just come with me,” he said, displaying some of his old impatience and commanding energy that made him such a formidable duke. Taking her arm, he led her away, out of the entrance hall, and down the corridor to the music room. Opening the door, he pulled her inside, then shut the door with a snap behind her.
The room was dark, and Emery immediately moved away from her husband, looking around. Her heart was thumping painfully in her chest now. She didn’t know why Lucien was acting so strangely, but she had a bad feeling it would only lead to more heartbreak.
“What is it?” she asked, turning back around to face him. He was still near the door, his face half in shadow, and she felt goosebumps prickle up her arms.He cannot stop staring at me.
“We should discuss the wedding breakfast,” he said after a moment. “It would be improper for us not to attend it together and thank our guests properly.”
“What are you talking about?” she snapped. “We already are attending the wedding breakfast together. We’re hosting it! You’re the one who is currently taking us away from it by dragging me in here.”
Lucien didn’t answer for a moment. Then he took a step toward her, and she felt herself shrink back. She wasn’t sure why exactly, except that being near him was so painful that she felt an instinctive urge to protect herself from his nearness.
“Fine,” he murmured after a moment. “That’s not the reason I wanted to talk to you.”
“Then what is?” she demanded. “Because you haven’t spoken to me in days, and now you’re pulling me into empty rooms demanding to speak to me at the worst possible moment, and it’s very confusing!”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to confuse you.”
“Don’t mean to confuse me?” she repeated, incredulous. “That is all you have ever meant to do!”
He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean--” and suddenly Emery couldn’t hold it in anymore. Suddenly she was raging at him, tears streaming down her cheeks at the same time, and she didn’t even care if errant guests heard her. All the pain she had held inside came crashing out, and she didn’t even try to stop herself. “I mean that you have spun my head in every direction! You forced me to marry you, then you told me you didn’t want a traditional marriage. And I accepted that, even though I knew it meant a lifetime of living without love or children! I was furious and hurt, but I forced myself to accept it! And just as I was getting used to that, you began to make me feel as if you had feelings for me! You courtedme! You even kissed me--twice! You got my hopes up that perhaps I was going to have everything I wanted, a real husband, a loving husband, and a family of my own. But then you took that away as well! All because of this idiotic notion that if you let yourself love me you will no longer take care of your family! As if you could ever stop caring for them even if you tried. As if it’s not who you are, at your most fundamental, to care for those you love!”
She was fully sobbing now, the tears hot and sticky on her face, but she didn’t care. Lucien had an arrested look on his face, and it made her even more angry to see it.
“I know you’ll probably tell me to stop acting like a child, that it’s unladylike and not the duchess way to behave to make a scene like this. But I don’t care! You have jerked me around, confused me, and hurt me to my very core.”
“Emery,” the duke began, and there was an urgency to his voice that made her breath catch in her throat. “I need to tell you something. I--”
“You made me love you!” she shouted, all dignity forgotten. “And then you took that away! And I will never, ever forgive you for it!”
“Please forgive me for it,” Lucien said, and suddenly he was standing in front of her, both his hands on her arms, and there were tears filling his eyes. She’d never seen him like this before, his face crumbling, his lip quivering, and then tears running down his face. “Please, Emery, you have to forgive me,” he saidagain, his fingers digging into her arms. “Because it was the biggest mistake of my life, and I will never, ever forgive myself for hurting you, but I will spend every day for the rest of my life trying to earn you back, even if it takes my entire life. Please, Emery, please… I have been a fool.”
She was so shocked that she stopped crying, and some of the anger melted away as she gazed up at him.
“What are you saying?” she whispered, barely daring to hope.
“I’m saying that I love you and that I made a mistake. A terrible mistake.” His eyes blazed with that familiar intensity, and she felt a pulse of longing for him go through her.
“You l-love me?” she whispered, the word thrilling through her like an electric shock.
“Of course I love you,” he murmured back, a small smile breaking across his lips. “But you were right about me: I was scared to let you love me; scared of becoming my parents; and most of all scared of losing everyone I loved by behaving selfishly and thoughtlessly.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought love would make me weak. But seeing my brother and his wife--and being around you--I realize it’s the opposite. Love is what makes us strong.”
“Of course love is what makes us strong,” she said. “It’s what motivates us to get up every day, even when life is hard: to keep showing up for those we care about. Sometimes it felt, when I was terribly lonely with my parents, that my love for Georginaand you brother--as a friend--were the only things getting me through it all.”
“I realize that now,” he said, nodding. “And I realize I’m not going to abandon my family or my duty to them because I love you. In fact, I’m going to be an even better brother to them because I have the best and strongest woman by my side. You make me stronger; you make me better. And I would do anything on this earth to win you back, Emery. Anything.”
“You just have to kiss me,” she murmured, unable to hold back her smile any longer. “And promise me that you will never again abandon me for duty.”
“I will never, ever abandon you for duty,” he whispered. “That is a promise.”
His right hand released her arm and came to her chin, and for a moment, he stroked the line of her jaw. His thumb was soft and gentle, and it sent another jolt of longing through her. The memory of all their past kisses flooded her, and she shuddered.
“I really do love you,” he said. “I want to have a real marriage with you and a family of our own. Do you still think you want that?”
“I want that with all my heart,” she whispered. “And I have no doubt that our love for each other will make us better parents, not worse ones. We will shower our children with all the love and affection we feel for one another.”
“Yes,” he murmured, and he lowered his lips to hers. “We will.” And then he kissed her, and Emery felt as if the rest of the world had melted away, leaving just the two of them in the most perfect moment she could ever imagine. And, while it probably wasn’t very ladylike, she couldn’t help herself: she wrapped her arms all the way around her husband and pulled him closer, kissing him even harder, and vowed to herself that she would never, ever let him go again.
