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‘Don’t you dare try to put some distance between us again,’ he growled. ‘Not again.’
‘This can go nowhere, Morgan,’ Sissy whispered. ‘You need to marry someone who is wealthy. Your equal. I cannot and will not be your mistress.’
‘What about love? Does that not count?’
Sissy huffed a cynical laugh. ‘But you don’t love me,’ she whispered. ‘It is preposterous to even consider it.’
‘Preposterous,’ Morgan repeated blankly. ‘Why?’
Sissy shook her head and raked him with a look. ‘Look at you. You are sitting here on a seat in the middle of a maze that is at least triple the size of the house I rent. You are dressed in clothing that probably cost as much as I get annually from my allowance. You have nobody to answer to but yourself because you are the lord of the manor. People daren’t offend you. In contrast, my feelings and opinions don’t really matter. People don’t care how much they upset me because I am not wealthy, titled, or well connected like you. We couldn’t be any further apart if we lived on opposite sides of the country.’
Morgan, struggling to find a way to argue against the facts she was throwing at him, began to lose his temper. ‘So why did you kiss me then? Not just once but twice? Why did you accept my invitation to dine if you knew it was wiser to keep your distance?’
Because I love you.
Sissy didn’t have the courage to say the words hovering in the back of her mind, no matter how tempting it was. They would be her downfall if she did utter them. She had run away from the sneering crowd earlier but seeing as she had been stuck in the maze hadn’t put enough distance between them before Morgan had launched into his tirade. Despite her upset, she had heard every word he had said, including his declaration that they were engaged.
‘I told Norma about your invitation to dine because I knew your mother would mention it to her. Norma would be upset with me if she missed the opportunity to dine with your mother and you if I kept your invitation to myself and declined it without discussing it with her,’ Sissy replied.
Morgan stood up and moved toward her. She backed away but soon found that there was nowhere she could go. When her back touched the privet hedge, Sissy tipped her head up, at first defiantly, but she was too miserable to maintain it. Tears welled until he became a blur.
Morgan cupped her chin and tipped her head up when she would have looked away. ‘Don’t ever be ashamed of who you are. Don’t allow the weight of other people’s contempt to curb what you want. You will regret it. I know you think it is easier for you, but I have to still face people like that as well. It isn’t just you they will talk openly about.’
‘Just go and speak to Mariette. Tell her that you used the fiancé business as an excuse. That what happened was a mistake she interrupted. Please, Morgan,’ Sissy cried when Morgan began to shake his head.
‘Mariette has got her own problems to contend with. I am not going to seek Mariette’s help with anything at the present moment. Her friends can think what they like. What I want you to understand is that I am not going to make any apology to anybody for what we have shared, even you.’
‘I didn’t ask you to apologise for what happened,’ Sissy countered. ‘But you have to understand that being connected to someone like me is going to affect your mother and Mariette as well.’
‘If other people’s judgement is to have such an impact on my decisions then I would much rather have no further part in this life of mine,’ Morgan snapped.
‘This is your life, Morgan. It is what you were born into, born to be. You cannot walk away from it. What about the servants? Your tenants? Your sister and your mother? They need you. All of them.’
‘You need me too,’ he whispered.
‘I have my aunt. We even have the house we live in now, thanks to you,’ she countered sadly. ‘It has to stay that way. I can no longer be a part of your world as you can be a part of mine. You belong here. I don’t. It is foolish to have people thinking you are engaged. Your friends will not be pleased when they realise who I am. It isn’t right.’ Sissy was oblivious to the tears that coursed down her face as she whispered the heartfelt words. They were torn from her soul because they shattered her world, crushed her dreams, and ruined her future, but they had to be said. She loved him too
much not to say them.
‘So you are saying that it is wrong to be happy, are you? That I have to live my life by everyone else’s dictates, is that it?’ Morgan demanded in a voice that was loud enough to be heard several feet away. ‘Well, I refuse. I don’t care what anybody else thinks, wants, likes or dislikes. This is about me, my happiness. I am expected to pay for everyone else’s lifestyle and put roofs over everyone else’s head. What about mine? Who is going to provide for my happiness? Does anybody else give a damn?’
Not for the first time in his life, Morgan felt constrained by the life he had been born to. Some would consider him well off and look at him with awe. They would scoff and scorn if he dare raise issue with any part of his gilded life, but he knew his life was more of a cage than anybody really understood.
‘My life is as restrictive as yours really, Sissy. I am free but to do what? I have responsibilities here, like you have just said. I haven’t chosen to have them. I have been born into them, with the expectation that I will spend the rest of my life running them, looking after others. I have no choice but to do as other people expect. The one thing, the only thing, I would expect to have a choice in is who I take to wife. If I cannot have that choice then I would prefer never to marry. I would prefer a cousin I hardly know to inherit this place and either run it or ruin it. In reality, I don’t care what happens to the damned hole. It is nothing more than a luxurious prison cell.’
Sissy stared at him in shock but also with an incredible sadness. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. He immediately captured her chilled fingers and pressed them against his warm flesh but only after pressing a loving kiss into her palm.
‘I am not going out there now to tell them that you are not my fiancé, that I have lied. I know this is the wrong way to do things, and believe me I really wish that Mariette hadn’t come along when she did, but we have known each other for what seems like our entire lives. We know each other well, Sissy. I know your background. I know where you grew up, what happened to your father, and where you have been living. I know you are well mannered, polite, and can hold your own with the dragons in the ballrooms, but if you choose not to socialise then I am more than happy to content myself with staying here and raising our family. The gossips and connections don’t matter to me. I thought they did. At one time in my life they did matter because they were my family’s associations and friends. But now I know that they are not important to the running of my estate. It doesn’t matter if most of them sever ties with me. At least I won’t be expected to hold any kind of social function in the future and feel duty bound to invite them.’
She had no further energy to argue with him. Besides, she could hear the gentle murmurs of her aunt and Morgan’s mother heading toward them.
‘Let’s just spend some time together. You can come and visit, maybe dine again with your aunt. We can take walks around the garden. Just give us a chance,’ he pleaded softly.
Sissy was prevented from answering by the arrival of Alicia and Norma. Morgan reluctantly stepped away from Sissy if only so he didn’t upset her anymore. He had no choice but to accept her silence as agreement. She didn’t outrightly tell him that she wouldn’t or didn’t want to. He could only take hope from that and pray that a little time together would assure her that people would gossip for a while but would eventually move on to other people’s news and activities. It would die down.
‘I was just telling Sissy that on occasions like Mariette faced just now a person can find out who their friends are,’ Morgan said. ‘It is quite telling that none of her supposed friends were prepared to accommodate her.’
‘I don’t know what has gotten into her,’ Alicia grumbled. She looked at Sissy. ‘Please accept my apologies for her rudeness. It was completely reprehensible.’
