Page 77 of The Duke’s Matchmaker

Nathaniel cleared his throat. “Dorothy,” he said quietly. “It’s…it’s about my proposal.”

“My answer hasn’t changed,” she told him quickly. “It isn’t going to change. I meant what I said. I don’t want to marry you.”

“All right,” he said, much to her surprise. “But may I ask you a question?”

“I…suppose.”

“Is it that you don’t wish to marry me?” he asked. “Or is it that you don’t wish to marry at all?”

It wasn’t the question she’d expected. But what harm could it do to answer it? She could do him this kindness. “Of course it isn’t you,” she whispered. “You know how I’ve enjoyed the time you and I have spent together, Nathaniel.”

“So, if you were to marry,” he pressed.

“If I wanted to marry, I would accept your proposal,” she told him, hoping that this wasn’t going too far. “But I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to marry, not ever. So, you shouldn’t wait around in hopes that my mind is going to change, because it isn’t. You have my answer.”

“Dorothy…is it because of your sisters?”

The words shook her to her core. She had never confided this in anyone besides Agnes and Violet, and she was sure they wouldn’t have told. “I don’t know what you mean,” she whispered.

He took her by the arm and led her to the settee. She was so shaken by the question he’d asked that she didn’t resist and took a seat beside him.

“It’s because your sisters lost their husbands, isn’t it?” he asked her gently. “You must be frightened after seeing them both go through something like that. I think that if it was me, I might start to feel that my family had nothing but bad luck, and that the same bad luck was due to find me.”

No one had ever captured it so clearly. That was exactly how she felt. And yet, hearing it put into words like that, it seemed foolish in the extreme. “You must think I’m so silly,” she managed, blushing furiously.

His fingertips came to rest on her cheek. “I don’t think you’re foolish,” he said. “I think you’ve seen heartache and loss, and you want to avoid seeing any more of it.”

“If I married you…” She closed her eyes. “If you were my husband, and if something were to happen to you, I just don’t know what I would do. I don’t know how I would manage the pain of that loss. And I know that I’m losing you anyway, by refusing your proposal, but…I think I can live with it. Knowing that you’re still out there in the world somewhere and that you just don’t belong to me…that makes me sad, but I can bear it. But if I thought you simply weren’t anywhere at all, I don’t know what I would do. And if I allowed myself to build my whole life around you only to lose you, that would just be the saddest thing of all.”

“I can understand that,” Nathaniel said. “But, Dorothy…you know that us getting married doesn’t make it any more likely that something will happen to me. You do know that.”

She looked away. He was right, of course, except that sometimes that didn’t feel right. It was a difficult thing to put faith in.

“You know that’s not how the world works,” Nathaniel murmured, taking her hand.

“What if it is?” she whispered. “What if there is a curse on my family somehow, and the thing that causes people to die is getting involved with us?”

“No,” he said softly. “Your sisters lost their husbands because they were ill, Dorothy, that’s what happened. It wasn’t a curse. And that would have happened to those men whether they were married or not.”

Her eyes filled with tears. He was right, of course, but it was so difficult to allow herself to believe it.”

“People get sick,” he said. “People die. And I won’t lie to you—it could happen to me. It could happen to anyone at all. But today, I am young and strong and healthy.” Now he lifted her hand and placed it on his chest, and she could feel the pounding of his heart. It seemed to be in perfect time with hers. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m going to live a long life.”

“You can’t know that,” she whispered.

“No one can know anything. I believe it. And I have good reason to believe it,” he said. “Look at me. Do I look as if a bout of illness would take me down?”

She shook her head slowly. He did look stronger than her sisters’ husbands ever had.

“Don’t you recall the way you reassured me when it was Colin who faced illness?” he asked. “Do you remember telling me that everything would be all right? That’s still the case. Colin got through it, and so would I…if only to return to the side of the woman I love so deeply. I have too much in this world to risk going out of it.”

She trembled with fear and longing. How she wanted to say yes! But the risk was still there. Everything she had always been afraid of was still true. “I don’t know, Nathaniel.”

“I’m not more likely to lose my life if we marry,” he said softly. “And if I had only one more day to live, Dorothy, I would want to spend it with you. That’s what I’d choose every single time. What would you choose, if you knew one of us was going to die tomorrow? What would you want to do today?”

She closed her eyes. A certainty filled her. As frightening as it was, she did know the answer to that question.

“I would want to be with you,” she murmured. “I would want to spend all the time we could together, while we still had the chance. I would want to love you, and for you to love me.”