She wasn’t sure how to feel about his answer.
“I’m not surprised.” She knew what he’d expected. He’d expected the same, biddable young lady who had allowed him to ruin her for the sake of distraction.
For the sake of a dance.
She’d expected that lady, too.
He smiled wryly. “I should have known a lady who’d propose marriage to a gentleman must be made of stern stuff.”
“Stern stuff?” She queried. “Do you mean to compliment or insult me?”
“To compliment you, of course. You’ve a strong will.”
Did she?
She studied his face.
Millie had taken to calling herself and her sisters the Willful Wainwrights, after an offhand comment made by Cassie’s godmother. Cassie, however, rarely initiated any “willful” schemes. Even the girlish games she indulged in as a child had been thought up by Eliza or Millie. And unlike her two most outspoken sisters, she had always measured her worth by approval.
But she had taken one major risk. She’d gone after what she wanted—Harbury.
Right now, she was glad for the approval shining in his eyes, but his approval, she realized, was no longer enough. She wanted him to want her, too.
He brushed a loose lock of hair out of her face. “Areyousorry we wed?”
Sorry.
To be sorry would be to regret the leap she’d taken when she’dproposed. To deny the desire of her heart—both then, and even more so now.
The secret she’d kept—even from her own consciousness—shook fully free.
She hadn’t been “forced” into anything. She’d known what she was doing when she’d seized the chance and bound him in marriage. She’d wanted him ever since she’d first locked eyes with him across the room at Almack’s. On her wedding night, she’d been furious, not at him, but at her own folly.
She’d wanted him badly and against her better reason.
Her anger on the first night of their marriage was because intimacy had made her see half of him would never be enough. So no, she could not be sorry she’d gone after what she wanted for the first time in her life, even if her need made her angry, and even if her desire was in vain.
“I’m not sorry,” she answered him.
She walked on before he could ask her to elaborate, passing beneath the remains of an ancient arch and into what had once clearly been a chapel. Even though the space was open to the elements, a sacred feeling remained. Or, perhaps, the sense of sanctity was present because nothing stood between the chapel columns and the heavens.
She wandered through a series of half-walls and approached a spiral stair that now led only to the sky. She climbed up a few stairs to a spot in the shadow of what remained of the outer wall, then gathered her skirts and sat down.
He passed her and took a seat a step above.
She heard the rustle of fabric and craned her neck to see what he was doing. He’d loosened his cravat, letting the sides of his collar fall open. Although he’d likely done so only for relief from the afternoon’s growing warmth, now he looked even more devastatingly handsome.
“Not sorry,” he repeated. “Neither of us. Good to know.”
And that wasallshe was going to let him know. She had no intentionof revealing the extent of his hold on her heart.
She wrapped her arms around her legs. “You may not be sorry, but I feel like I am a disappointment to you.”
“Are you serious?” He snorted in disbelief. “I know the pressure of high expectation too well to ever lord disappointment over anyone, let alone you. Besides, you haven’t disappointed me at all.”
“Not even on our wedding night?” She covered her mouth and looked away.
She had not intended for the question to slip out. She blamed those eyes of his, so solidly brown. So deceptively trustworthy.
