“Whose fault is that?”
He sent her a flat stare.
She blinked innocently and turned her gaze back to the ballroom. “Skis, eh? Was it terrifying?”
“Yes,” he replied. “And the most amusing afternoon I ever had... Until it wasn’t.”
“Mm.” She made a moue. “Mother says you narrowly avoided leg-shackling yourself to a mortifying hoyden.”
Said like that, it sounded horrid.
Said like that, Mother’s words resembled Alexander’s speech to Cynthia Louise.
“I asked,” he told his sister. “She declined.”
Belle raised her brows. “Didyou ask? Or did you imperiously inform her of your ducal decision?”
He glared at her. “What’s the difference?”
Belle’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “If you have to ask, then I have my answer.”
“We don’t suit,” he said.
Belle’s expression was suspiciously blank. “Mm-hm.”
“The weight of this title almost crushed me. I cannot ask Cynthia Louise to voluntarily subject herself to the same fate.”
“You definitely didn’t ask,” Belle murmured. “From the sounds of it.”
“She doesn’t have to be a duchess,” he told his sister. “Cynthia can be and do anything she pleases.”
Belle nodded. “Like marry a man who appreciates her just as she is.”
Jealousy roared through Alexander’s veins, hot and thick and itchy. He could not stand the thought of some other man with Cynthia Louise. Juggling chestnuts with her, sliding down mountains with her,lovingher.
It was Alexander who—
“Oh,bollocks,” he muttered.
He loved her.
That was thereasonhe’d gone sliding down a mountain, the first time as well as the second.
It wasn’t the skis.
It was Cynthia.
Belle brightened considerably. “Something wrong, dear brother?”
He closed his eyes and leaned the back of his head against the wall. “The doctor’s diagnosis was right.”
Alexander had fallen in love.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
“If I could be so bold,” Belle began.
“Please don’t,” he growled.
