Page 74 of The Duke of Deceit

Because of everything.“I’ve learned my lesson from all that. I need you to keep me on the straight and narrow, happily strolling down the path of secret goodness.”

An instant change in her caused his gut to tighten. A stiffening in her back, a slight sag of her shoulders, a hardening…

“Secretgoodness?” she repeated slowly, as if she couldn’t fathom the words. “That’s what you want—to keep pretending you’re a blackguard and a rakehell?”

“Not a rakehell, certainly, once we’re married,” he teased. “Just a gambler, scapegrace, and drunk.”

Her eyes turned cold. “That’s not funny.”

He straightened away, all ideas about teasing her further vanishing as instantly as her smile.

“No, I suppose not,” he mumbled. “But I have to keep everyone away, and it’s the best method I know. I can’t let anyone discover the truth about Phillip and the dukedom. It would destroy all our lives, including yours after we’re married.”

Sadness darkened her face as she whispered, so softly he could barely hear her, “Then I can’t marry you.”

Confusion made him narrow his eyes as he searched her face. “You’re refusing me because of a reputation that isn’t even true?”

“No.” She carefully folded the paper, hiding his heart within. “I’m refusing…because of me.”

“You’ll make a fine duchess, and we’ll be true partners in our marriage in every way.”

“But I wouldn’t be a duchess, would I? I’d only be pretending, just as you are.” She blinked hard, but her eyes became more watery with every passing moment. “Please understand—I don’t care about being a duchess. In fact, that life seems filled with more trouble than it’s worth.” Her voice came soft but determined. “It’s the lies I can’t live with, Lucien, and all those secrets… Marriage will be difficult enough as it is. It shouldn’t also be saddled with being built upon a foundation of lies and pretenses.”

She held out the folded paper to give it back to him.

He stared at it. If she’d reached inside his chest and ripped out his real heart, she couldn’t have wounded him more.

He refused to accept it. “Last night you said you loved me.”

“I do. More than you realize—more than I ever thought possible.” She placed her hand against his cheek, and he shivered beneath the tenderness of her touch. “I want nothing more than to create a future with you. I truly want that.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “But I can’t live a life in which I will worry constantly about being found out, a life in which I will doubt all aspects of my marriage. Iwon’tlive that life.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek. He was the reason she was in pain, and the sight of it broke him.

He pulled her into his arms and rocked her against him as she cried. He had no words to comfort her. All he could do was murmur soft nonsense and hold her close, but her pain became his. Every soft sob pierced him like an arrow, made all the worse because she fought so hard to stop crying but couldn’t.

He was losing her, even as his skin still smelled of hers and the musky scent of making love, even with her wrapped in his arms. For the first time in his life, he felt panicked. Not evencharging into battle had felt this uncertain. He couldn’t lose this fight.

Defeat would simply destroy him.

He rested his lips against her temple and tightened his arms around her. “What can I do to make you change your mind?”

She shook her head. Her anguish trembled through each word as she murmured against his shoulder, “You would have to do the impossible.”

Dread settled on his chest with the weight of a cannonball. “Which is?”

“You’d have to change your spots,” she answered enigmatically, so much sadness in her voice that he had to squeeze his eyes shut to bear it. “But not even the fiercest leopard in Africa is capable of doing that.” She choked back fresh tears. “You would have to let everyone know exactly how good you are at heart, all the good deeds you’ve done.” Her hold on him tightened. “And you would have to confess everything about the dukedom and your father.”

“I can’t do that,” he rasped out. “I have to protect Phillip.”

“I know, and I would never ask you to do anything that would place him into harm, including that,” she whispered barely loud enough for him to hear. “That’s why it’s an impossible situation for us.” A sob escaped her, so filled with desolate anguish, that she shook in his arms. “And that’s why I can never marry you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jess watched throughtear-blurred eyes from inside the hackney as Lucien turned his saddle horse onto Park Lane toward Brixton House and rode away, leaving her to travel on alone down Oxford Street toward home. He had followed behind her all the way from Ealing to make certain she traveled safely, yet now he had to leave her so she could arrive alone.

“Because a handsome, muscular, and brooding rake escorting home an unmarried miss with tear-reddened eyes couldn’t be ignored,” she mumbled to herself as she collapsed back against the squabs. “Not even by Aunt Matilda and Amanda.”

Although what excuse she would give her aunt and sister for being out all night, and then arriving home in such a sorry state, she had absolutely no idea. The truth certainly wouldn’t do.