CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Heavens, he thought.How could I have ever thought that you would betray me?
They were words he should have said aloud but they would not push past his lips. Instead, he could only keep his focus on her, his hand cupped to Amelia’s face, as he moved closer. Around them, the library held its breath, as though the walls were sentient, and watched another set of lovers, caught in a moment of deciding.
Graham’s mind was conflicted, yet his body knew what to do. He leaned in close to her, his lips parted, ready to take hers beneath his own in a kiss. Nerves fluttered through him but he swallowed them back. Faces inches apart, he could not help but look at the green and brown flecks in her eyes. Had they ever been so close?
Her eyes were wide, fixed on his, and she did not pull away yet he could not figure out what she thought, what she felt. A beat of paranoia passed through him—who would want to be desired by the beastly duke?—until he saw her lift her face slightly more towards his. Her pulse fluttered at her neck, and he yearned to press his thumb to it, to feel if her heart raced as fast as his own did.
He lowered his mouth to hers. Their lips were a mere breath apart—
—only for his sister’s cheerful voice to ring out, forcing them apart.
“Graham! Brother, whereareyou? You are not still brooding are you?”
He jerked away from Amelia, and felt a twinge of disappointment dropping through him. A look flickered in his wife’s eyes as he quickly moved away. For a moment, he was back in the maze with her, trying to protect her reputation. It was as though, now that she was his wife, he still had to be careful. As if he wished to protect her from being physically wanted by a man like him, scarred and ruined.
Clearing his throat, he moved to pick up a random book. “This one is rather tragic, if you wish to read such a book—ah, Daphne.”
His sister rounded into the doorway, immediately grinning at the sight of them together. “Well, well,” she said. “I am happy for your reconciliation after this morning’s outburst.” She cut a meaningful glare at Graham, and he cringed. “I do not believe you have ever come around so fast.”
“And I do not believe you were blessed with a mouth that knowswhen to quieten down,” he answered sharply.
“Amelia, are you quite all right?” Daphne pressed. “You look rather flushed. Itispeculiarly warm in here. Graham, do you believe she looks flushed?”
He took the opportunity to look at Amelia in full appreciation. Her cheeks flushed with pink, and her lips still lifted in a small pout as if awaiting her kiss. Her chest heaved slightly as if she could not quite catch her breath. It hit him with a great force: she had truly wanted to kiss him.
I believe she looks beautiful, he thought.
Out loud, he said, “rather flushed, indeed.”
“I must have someone bring you lemonade, Amelia,” Daphne still said. “We still have much to discuss regarding the ball. It is a mere week away! Have you invited your family? It will be lovely to see them again. Oh, and we cannot forget the Fairfax family. I did not realise Graham’s friend, Lord Owen, and your friend, Lady Eleanor, have a courtship! Oh, howwonderful! I do love when friends may connect through others.”
“They are not courting,” Graham said quickly, his voice too hard. Both of the women turned to look at him sharply. He cleared his throat, unsure why he was so defensive. Perhaps he envied his friend for being able to take his time through his attraction to Lady Eleanor. “All I mean is that I know he has affections for her but he has not yet acted on them so pointedly.”
“Well he must do soon! The ton has often speculated with how many suitors Lady Eleanor has danced with yet none has offered her a courtship.”
For some reason, that wounded Graham. He watched as Amelia’s head dipped, as if in a moment of sadness and… regret? She had deserved a courtship. It ached him to know he had not been able to give her that.
“Amelia,” he said quietly but she only smiled brightly—perhaps too bright—and hugged herself.
“I am well,” she told him. “And I am sure if Lord Owen’s affections are strong he will ask her soon.”
Look at how you wound her,his thoughts raged.Look at how saddened you have made her. Your wife must now pretend in order to please you. Look at what you have damned her to—an eternity of only ever settling in this marriage, never knowing a true, slow courtship of love that blossoms over time.
A peculiar nauseous feeling overtook him, and he stumbled back. All he did was bring hurt and pain, and even if she had tried to comfort him otherwise, he knew it to be true. The red curtains in the library blurred in his vision, and when he looked, he swore his hands were stained with thesame color. He made a strangled noise in his throat.
“I am sure,” he said, his voice hard, changed. He could feel himself retreating into a place that kept him safe, that kept Amelia at arms’ length. “I am sure it will be perfect and our friends shall receive the mostperfectcourtship. It will all beperfect.” The last part was all but growled as he stormed past her. “Excuse me.”
Ignoring his sister’s cry of dismay, Graham shouldered past them both, and stopped halfway down the hallway, gasping for breath. How had he gone from such tenderness in one moment, to only existing in thorns and barbs in the next? If Daphne had not interrupted would he have clung onto that gentleness he had found with Amelia? The curse had taken over, reminding him that he could only ever bring her misery, even if she claimed otherwise. He only ever brought pain and suffering. He had seen it on Daphne’s face, Felicity’s, and now he was growing to know it on Amelia’s.
He braced himself on a hallway side table that held an ornament his father had brought his mother. His breaths came out in staggered gasps. He heard voices from the library as if far away, yet he knew they got closer.
“... think he is all right?”
That was Amelia’s, but the sound of her concerned voice only brought more tightness to his chest. Pressing his forehead into his upper arm, he clenched his jaw, trying to work some sense into himself. He was there, in Blackthorn, and he was a duke, for Heavens’ sake. It was true—he could see it now. She had never, ever tricked him, for a woman who had schemed her way into being his wife would never look so miserable at being married to him. He had hurt her by doing this. In saving her he had only made everything worse.
“Stop it,” he told himself through clenched teeth. “Stop this nonsense.”
