“Because I don’t know how to be a duchess,” she said, as if this were very obvious. “I have never known how to fit in with theton, how to be proper and perfect, and now you have discovered it.”
“What did I tell you, all those months ago?” he murmured, looking deeply into her eyes. “Women like you are not meant to fit in. They are meant to stand out.”
“But you are sending me away!” She cried, pounding her fist against his chest. “Why are you doing that if you are not ashamed of me?”
“Because--” Dorian tried to force the words out, but they wouldn’t come. “Because--”
He couldn’t speak. The words were too dangerous, too scary. All he could do was show her. And so he did. He kissed her.
This second kiss, he realized, as he wrapped his arms around her, was so different from the first. The first time, she had surprised him. And while it had been a good kiss, even bordering on passionate, the passion had been born from its illicitness. This time, the passion came from the fact that this was his wife, the woman who had captured his heart, and that he would do anything--even die--to keep her safe. He couldn’t say any of that, the words failed him, and so he tried to tell her all of it in his kiss.
It started slowly, his lips soft on hers, moving gently, his hands softening on her arms and moving to her neck. And then it became deeper, stronger, and his hand was on her lower back, the other on her neck, drawing her in closer so that he could kissher even more deeply; so that he could show her how much he longed for her; how much she washis.
She let out a soft moan as he pulled her in tighter, and it drove him wild. His hand was caught up in her hair now, pulling out the pins that kept it in place. He didn’t care if it made her look disheveled. H ewantedher to look disheveled. He wanted everyone who saw her to know that she was his wife, and that he and he alone was allowed to kiss her, to make her moan like that.
At last, they broke apart. Leah’s face was flushed, and she had a dazed expression that made him want to laugh. Her eyes, however, were sparkling, and when he smiled down at her, she smiled back at him, tentative but sweet.
“I’m not trying to punish you,” he murmured, letting his hand come to her jaw and cup it. “I’m trying to punish myself, not you.”
“Yourself?” she breathed. “Why?”
“Because I’m sick with jealousy every time a man even speaks to you,” he said, laughing with surprise at his own confession. “I couldn’t bear it at the ball when Lord Eaton tried to dance with you.”
“That’swhy you stopped him from dancing with me?” she gaped at him.
“Of course that’s why,” Dorian said, smiling broadly. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, stop dreaming about you… Whenever you’re in danger I feel as if I am going mad. Like I would do anything to protect you, to keep you safe. When you went in the river, and I thought you were drowning yourself, I cannot tell you the torment I felt. Or when Lord Dubois spoke to us yesterday…” He sighed. “I have felt, every time you were in danger, that I was losing my mind.”
She was beaming up at him, her smile so radiant that he felt as if he were staring into the sun.
“I feel the same way about you,” she whispered. “Well, not so much afraid that you are in danger, but I also cannot stop thinking about you. I dream about you every night. You are my everything, Dorian. My best friend and now my husband, and there is nothing that I want more than a life with you.”
She reached out her own hand and touched his cheek. “You don’t have to hold back from me anymore, Dorian. We can be happy together. We can have a real marriage.” She laughed giddily, as if she couldn’t quite believe her own words. “I know you’ve kept yourself from happiness all these years, but you don’t have to anymore. Our life can be full of all the children and all the joy that we deserve.” Her eyes were filled with intensity as they gazed deeply into his. “Don’t pull away from me, Dorian. Tell me you want it, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
Tell me you want it too.
Of course it was what Dorian wanted. He wanted a real marriage with her more than anything else in the world.
Or at least, he wanted it more thanalmostanything else in the world. And as he gazed down into his wife’s eyes, he realized, with a hollow thud, that he could not give her what she wanted.
He tensed, and he knew she felt it right away. She blinked, and her thumb tightened against his cheek. She shook her head slightly, as if to say,Don’t do this,but it was too late. Liliana’s face blazed in front of him. All the ways he had failed her. His father’s face was next. All the promises he had made. He couldn’t renege on those now; not when he was finally and truly being tested.
Dorian moved away from his wife, releasing his hand from her jaw and pulling out of her grasp. His whole body had gone stiff,and he knew his expression had darkened; that he had become as remote and imposing as the mountains of Europe .
“I can’t,” he said stiffly, not quite meeting her eyes. “That is the problem. I cannot have a family. I cannot have children.”
“What are you talking about?” Leah asked, her lips parting slightly as she stared at him.
“I cannot have children,” he repeated gruffly.
“I know you have said in the past that you do not want children,” she said slowly, shaking her head as if she didn’t understand. “But that was when you didn’t believe in love or in marriage! But Dorian, we are clearly in--”
“This is not about you or our feelings for one another,” Dorian said, cutting her off. He couldn’t bear to hear her make any romantic declarations. Not now. “It is about a vow I made a long time ago.”
Leah stared at her, her mouth fully agape now. “What isheaven’s nameare you talking about?” she demanded at last, her tone suddenly as cold as his own. “What vow? To whom?”
“To…” Dorian glanced up at the portrait above him, then back at her. “To my father.”
