Page 51 of The Duke’s Defiant Love

"Yes."

Julian closed his book. "And Amelia?"

Sebastian looked at him.

"She agreed."

Tristan frowned.

"That doesn't sound like good news."

"It isn't."

Nathaniel leaned forward.

"What did you say to her?"

"That I would marry her." Sebastian took the glass and did not drink from it, turning it instead between his fingers.

"Only that?"

Sebastian was silent.

Tristan groaned.

"Sebastian."

"I told her it was the honorable thing to do."

All three men stared at him.

Finally, Tristan said,

"You absolute idiot."

Sebastian glared. "I took responsibility, and I…I protected her."

"You did."

"I ensured her reputation would be protected. Then what exactly have I done wrong? She would not even look at me the entire ride to the clerk’s office. Not properly. Not the way she used to."

"You did propose to her the morning after a public scandal," Nathaniel observed, settling into the chair opposite with his usual measured calm. "I would not expect enthusiasm, under those particular circumstances."

"I proposed because it was the right thing to do."

"No one doubts that it was the right thing to do." Nathaniel's tone stayed even, though something in it carried real weight. "Duty rarely comforts an injured heart, Sebastian. It settles the ledger. It does not heal what the scandal actually cost her."

"I told her I was not marrying her only from duty."

"Did you tell her before or after she had already decided you were?" Julian asked quietly, from his place near the window, and Sebastian felt the question land exactly where it was aimed.

"After."

"Then it landed as an argument, not a comfort." Julian turned from the window, his expression carrying none of Tristan's teasing or Nathaniel's precision, only a quiet, careful sympathy that somehow cut deeper than either. "She did not want to be rescued, Sebastian. She wanted to be chosen. There is a considerable difference, and I suspect she has spent every hour since waiting to discover which one she actually received."

"I chose her."

"Did you say so. Plainly. Before the scandal made the choice for you?"