“Don’t call it romantic,” Leah said, casting a warning glance at her sister. “I expected better from you, Celeste. Eve, yes, she will find it all romantic, like something out of a novel. But I need your clear-sightedness right now.”
“You’re right,” Celeste said, looking properly chastened. “I will not romanticize it.”
“But what she’s saying has some truth,” Vivian said. “Hedidsacrifice his own desires in order to wed you. That shows that he is a selfless person who will put the needs of his family first. That is an excellent quality in a husband.”
“But you’re missing the point!” Leah cried, staring from one to the other in the mirror.Can’t they hear it?“He didn’t want to marry me! He is only doing so out of a sense of duty, or self-sacrifice, or wanting to play the hero. He got my hopes up that I could find a man who actually wanted to marry me, and then he took that away! It isn’t romantic, it isn’t self-sacrificing, and it isn’t heroic. It’s cruel!”
There was a short silence after this, during which Leah saw her friend and sister exchange a look. Even themodistehad a funny look on her face, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t dare.
“What?” Leah said, looking from Vivian to Celeste.
“Well, it’s just…” Celeste hesitated. “I suppose it makes me wonder if the Duke does, in fact,wantto marry you.”
“He was sabotaging your other suitors,” Vivian said quietly. “He was aggressive toward them and never thought anyone was good enough. And then he proposed marriage before he was obligated to do so. It does beg the question…”
“No,” Leah said flatly, her eyes fixing once more on her own reflection, not meeting her friend’s or her sister’s. The Duke’s words from their conversation in her kitchen were echoing through her mind, as clear as if he were in the room and speaking them to her.
I have no interest in marriage. My relationships with women are more satisfactory when I do not feel legally bound to them for the rest of my life.
“No,” she said heavily, “I know for a fact that the Duke doesn’t want to marry me. He is just intent on playing the part of the hero. But he has no desire to marry. He is doing this out of a sense of responsibility, and while I understand that is better than the alternative, it is still condemning me to a life with a man who doesn’t want to martyr me and who didn’t respect me enough to ask me to be his wife--who sabotaged better options because it was fun for him to toy with me, to play with my future, then went to my brother instead of me when he realized there was no other way. I am not going to be grateful for this marriage, and I am not going to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
There was another long silence, and when Leah glanced at Vivian and Celeste, neither of them were sharing meaningful looks. They were both looking down, as if the sadness of the situation were really hitting them.
At last, Vivian looked up, her expression hardened and resigned. “I understand everything you’re saying, Leah, but the truth is, you are going to have to learn to look on the bright side of this. You don’t have any other choice. And I believe there is a bright side. You are going to be getting the family you want. Think of it! You and the Duke will have children, and even if you feel disappointment in your marriage, your children will give you more than enough happiness and contentment. And at least you will not be having children with the horrible Lord Dubois.”
Children… In all the hustle and bustle of preparing for the wedding, in all her shock over getting married, Leah had not thought about that. She was going to have children now. The Duke might not have wanted to get married, but now that he was, he would want heirs. And she could have the large family she had always dreamed of.
For a moment, her heart soared, and she felt a surge of hope. She was going to have children! And if they looked anything like the Duke, then they would be the most adorable children she had ever laid eyes on…
She looked back at Vivian and was surprised to see her friend smiling.
“That cheered you up, didn’t it?” she asked gently, and Leah couldn’t help but give her a small smile in return.
“I’m still angry,” she said, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin defiantly. “But I suppose it does cheer me up. A very little bit.”
This time, Vivian and Celestedidexchange a knowing glance.
Chapter Eleven
“Dorian, if you were going to be such a spoilsport, I wish you hadn’t even come on this hunt,” Lucien said crossly as Dorian finally pulled his horse up next to him. “I have been waiting for you for the past five minutes. We are far behind the rest of the hunting party now!”
“I’m sorry,” Dorian grumbled, although he didn’t feel particularly sorry. “I’m not exactly in a hunting mood, am I?”
“Precisely why you should have stayed home then, old sport,” their friend Anthony, Duke of Cresswell, said, clapping Dorian on the back and chuckling to himself. “You have been morose all day. This hunt is in your honor, to celebrate your upcoming nuptials! You should be overjoyed.”
Dorian didn’t say anything to this. Anthony didn’t know all the particularities of his engagement to Lady Leah, nor was he about to share them. Lucien, however, gave Dorian a sad, sympatheticlook. He at least understood a little bit of what Dorian was going through.
Anthony frowned at him. “Or is the fact you’re marrying tomorrow part of the reason for your moroseness? Are you like so many gentlemen of our acquaintance who dread the shackles of marriage? I wouldn’t be surprised, in your case, but seeing as how your bride’s brother is with us, I would think you’d try harder to pretend to be pleased.”
“Don’t listen to Anthony,” Lucien said, putting a bracing hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “I know that you are pleased to be marrying Leah… on some level.”
“It’s not that she isn’t lovely beyond measure,” Dorian said, shaking his head. “Anyone would be lucky to marry her. Which is part of why all of this is so bizarre.Someoneshould have offered for her, considering all her excellent qualities. But I know I won’t make her happy. She deserves so much more than what I can offer her…”
And I am condemning her to a life of misery.
He didn’t say this last part out loud, but from his tone, he was sure his friends understood.
“Are you referring to your rakish ways?” Lucien asked, an alarmed look on his face. “Because if you mean to be disloyal to my sister, then--”
