“You are right,” he said simply. “Everything you know of me…” A shake of the head. “You have every reason not to trust me. Although, I cannot help but think you do not know me as well as you think.”
“But I do,” she said, her voice pleading. “And that is the problem.”
“No, you do not.” Slowly, he started towards her. “What you think you know is that I am a rake and a scoundrel. That I abhor marriage because I covet my life as a bachelor. You think I am the worst of people.”
“I know you are not,” she said. “But I know too that you want people to think that about you.”
“Did you ever stop to ask why that is?”
She started, confusion passing behind her eyes. “I just assumed… that is who you are.”
He reached her and where he wanted to take her hands, he resisted the urge. Rather, he just looked down at her. Gone was the confidence. Gone was the arrogance. He made her look behind his walls, through his shell, and to the true him.
“I was never meant to be a duke,” he said. “That was for my older brother, and I never once begrudged him for it. But when he died…” A pang of guilt stabbed his chest. “When he died, I inherited what I did not want. Worse than that, I inherited my family’s debts.”
“I had no idea.”
“I never wanted to be what my father was, having seen what that does to a man.” He chuckled bitterly. “Nor did I want to pretend. I was raised in a home where marriage was little more than a contract, an expectation, the type that so long as others saw you one way, then the truth did not matter. What is more, I hated that you could be the worst of people, but if thetonsaw you playing your role, then they did not care. As if marriage was all which mattered.”
Her brow was furrowed, her expression was tight, but he saw hope pass behind her eyes. She wanted to believe him…
“So, I made a decision,” he continued. “I would not play their games. In fact, I would be the best man I could be, while pretending to be the worst.” He laughed. “A tad immature,I must admit, but it brought me solitude and it brought me peace.”
“What changed?” she asked.
“Isn’t that obvious?” He took her hands and she did not resist. He held them tight, standing before her, looking down at her with absolute truth in his eyes. “You are right, Celestine, I do not love you, and I will not lie.”
A smirk touched her lips. “Now that, I do believe.”
“But after our engagement ended, I came to realize that all I had done and all that I was, it had not made me happy. If anything, it turned me into a different sort of version to my father. I was bitter and resentful, and while I hated how thetonsaw me, I feared showing myself to be any different. I was lonely,” he said. “And it wasn’t until after you left that I realized how much I was.”
“So, I am just a cure to your loneliness?” she asked the question with a smirk, as if daring him to agree.
He chuckled. “You say that you do not know me, but you know me more than most. With you, I was more myself than I had been with anyone before. Yes, when I saw Lord Grundon dancing with you, I was jealous, I will not deny it. But I was also miserable because I realized that I had become my own worst enemy.”
“But what happens next?” she pressed. “What happens when you realize that you were happier alone?”
“Do you really think that will happen?”
“I do not know,” she said truthfully. “What I do know is that men say one thing but do another. I want to trust you, Edward, but I do not know if I can.”
“Trust?” He frowned but paired it with a playful smile. “Celestine, you should know that I am the only person who you can trust.”
“And why is that?”
“Because…” He squeezed her hands and allowed his eyes to roam her. “Because you have seen me at my weakest and most vulnerable. I’ve had two days to consider what we are doing, and do you want to know what I came to realize in that time?”
“Tell me.” Her cheeks colored slightly as she caught his eyes roaming her.
“How about I show you?”
“What do you –”
Before she could finish, Edward pulled her forward and planted a kiss on her lips.
It clearly caught her by surprise, and he thought that she was going to pull away. But as the kiss settled, Celestine let it take her, and then she gave herself to him completely.
Had Edward any doubts about this marriage, that kiss put them fully to bed. He felt that same fire erupt that he had imagined now for two whole days. He felt that same hunger engulf him. He held her hands, he kissed her on the lips, and he let that kiss show just how much he wanted their marriage.
