Page 66 of Distracting the Duke

There are things about me you don’t know.

Another secret, another skeleton in the closet, worse even than Lord Tinniswood’s treatment of her? He had to know what it was.

He was not a gambling man. But now it struck him forcibly that he must gamble if he were to win this prize. He must back away from her. She’d just said his suit had been too sudden, too physical, too intense. He’d allowed his feelings and desires to cloud his judgment.

Slowly, he got to his feet and said, in a voice devoid of emotion, “I can see my words fall on deaf ears and my feelings are not perceived as genuine. I won’t withdraw my offer, but I shall withdraw myself. I shall leave for London in the morning, as I have business there which is overdue my attention. Wroxham I leave at the disposal of yourself and your family. Please enjoy it for as long as you wish. I can’t say when our next meeting will be, but I wish you well, and pray to find you in a more open frame of mind when next we meet. Good-bye, Clara.”

Stopping only to collect his crop, he strode to the door. He refused to look back at her as he closed it behind him with a loud click and marched off in search of Philip Weston.

He was going to have a very serious conversation with that gentleman before he departed for London. He could only hope Weston was prepared to tell him what he needed to know.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Marcus had gone.

It had been only a handful of hours, and Clara already missed him. She really wished he’d stayed. There was so much more to say. She hadn’t realized, until that moment in her chamber when he was kneeling before her, just how serious he’d been about marriage.

His sincerity had completely flustered her, and elated her, and depressed her all at the same time.

Her mind had been thrown into such a chaos of longing for what she couldn’t have that she hadn’t managed to utter the one truth she knew would change his feelings forever.

Better he thought she was an unfeeling, heartless termagant than know of her deficiency and be forced to choose between her and his future children.

It wouldn’t be fair to him.

It was a rather depleted party who sat down to dinner that night, for Lord Stranraer had also absented himself to attend to some business in Oxford.

Sarah said, “How very odd for our host to abandon us at such short notice. Begging your pardon, Lord Snettisham, as I know he is your dearest friend.”

“Don’t worry on my account, Mrs. Weston,” proclaimed Snettisham, waving a hand expansively. “Marcus has always been a bit of a dark horse. I tried to get him to explain what urgent business might take him to London at this time of year, but he said he’d be damned if he’d tell me. Just said we might all stay here as his guests as long as we wished and that I should play the part of host in his absence.”

“You’re very quiet, Philip,” Clara said. “I’d have thought you’d be the first to condemn his lack of manners.”

Her brother stirred a spoon thoughtfully through his consommé, not meeting her gaze. “Well, actually, I won’t condemn him. I’ve come to rather admire the fellow,” he replied.

“I say, that’s splendid!” announced Snettisham, clapping his hands. “I definitely don’t want to have to stand as his second.”

“Could we please forget about that?” Philip said with a grimace. “I’m aware the fault in that quarrel was entirely mine. The duke is a capital fellow. It just took me a while to realize.”

Clara gave her brother a questioning look. What was going on?

“Not that his character would be to everyone’s taste,” added Snettisham, his gaze straying to Ellie. “He’s a bit toplofty for some.”

“As a duke, I imagine that is bred into him from an early age,” Clara suggested.

“What is?” asked Ellie.

Irritation flashed through her. “An assumption that everyone will sing to his tune.”

Snettisham exclaimed, “Oh, I say, not quite the same thing, Lady Tinniswood. Not at all the same thing. He knows what’s what, does Marcus. Sees more than you’d imagine. Good listener, too. And prepared to change his mind. He—”

Snettisham skidded to a halt and looked at Ellie, a hint of color stealing across his cheeks.

“Universally well liked, then?” queried Clara, raising an eyebrow. Poor Lord Snettisham—he was so refreshingly obvious in his feelings.

Almost the total opposite of the duke.

And Clara owned, it gave her a great deal of relief on Ellie’s behalf.