Page 13 of The Mistletoe Duke

What?

“Am I happy?” She gaped at him. “Of course I’m happy. Whatever do you mean?”

“When I told you that Mother was planning to find you a husband, you seemed aghast. Do you not want a husband? Are you happy as a companion?”

Oh dear. How to answer this?

She stared down at her lap for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “There was a time when my fate was to marry.”

“Technically, that is not an answer, just a statement of fact.” Blast. She’d never been able to cousin him. “What do you want, Meg?”

“I…”

“Is it so hard a question to answer?”

Another sip was in order. It was going down much more smoothly.

“Meg?”

“No. Jonathan, it’s not a difficult question to answer. But no one’s ever asked it of me before. And for the past two years, since George died, it was a moot point. What I’ve wanted since then was to have food to eat and a roof over my head. Am I happy with those things? Yes.”

“But you want more?”

Oh, did she.

She tried to look away, but couldn’t. He’d captured her in his warm brown gaze. They shared a moment, one simple moment, where she didn’t hide anything, where she let him see exactly the truth.

“I want more, yes. I want a husband to love me. A home that is more than a mere house. I want to belong somewhere. I want choices. Options.” Annoying tears pricked at her lids. Oh, bollocks. She’d had too much whisky. She set the glass down on the table, a little too hard, as it happened.

“And children?”

Blast him for seeing her so clearly. His gentle query triggered the waterworks she was so sure she could hold back. It dredged up the deepest pain, her greatest loss in all this. She angrily swiped at her cheeks.

“Meg.” He sighed her name, which was painful in itself, but then he—the bastard—stood, took her hand, and pulled her into his arms. He was in shirtsleeves and his chest was firm against hers. He wrapped himself around her and held her. Just held her there, in that warm haven, bolstering her with his strength as she wept. His scent, tantalizingly male, wrapped around her as well. “We’ll get you a husband,” he whispered into her hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll find someone.”

To which she had to rear back and wail, “I don’t want just any husband.”

Yes. That was the crux of it all, wasn’t it? She didn’t want just any husband.

She wanted him.

And she could never tell him that, because it would thrust a wedge between them that would destroy their friendship. It would make things awkward.

Not that they weren’t awkward now.

Especially when, from the doorway, Susana chuckled. “What is this?” she asked in a far too theatrical lilt.

Naturally, Jonathan and Meg leaped apart and whirled to face her.

“Nothing,” they both said at the same time, which only made her smirk.

“We were just talking about life,” Jonathan said in a defensive tone.

“And marriage,” Meg added.

Susana looked them up and down. “And Meg started crying? And you gave her a hug?”

“Exactly!” Jonathan crowed.