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CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Ash jerked the saddle’s strap a great deal harder than was necessary and his horse gave him a nudging protest.
“Sorry, old chap,” he muttered, patting the animal’s neck. It wasn’t the gelding’s fault that Lily had rejected him.
She’d couched her rejection in all sorts of pretty words, but it had been a dismissal all the same. She had her own path.
He ought to be grateful.
He could commence living on his own, thumbing his nose at his father and his father’s title, allowing the earldom to go to hell with some distant relative.
But that future now lacked its former luster. He no longer cared about the Den of Sins or the life he’d led in London. Instead, he wished for a soft woman to fill his bed and his life with her warmth. Lily. He’d devote his life to caring for her. Couldn’t she see that? Perhaps she could and she simply didn’t want any man—or just him—to fill that role.
Hadn’t she said she wanted to learn to trust herself? Find her own future? Was he trying to take her own search from her?
“You’re quiet,” Clubs said as he approached, brushing back his sandy hair.
Ash stared. Clubs hardly spoke. Ever. “That’s saying something, coming from you.”
Edge approached, laughing. “Too true. But he’s right. You’ve been unusually quiet today.”
He shook his head. “I’ve avoided marriage my entire adult life. Deep down I knew—” He stopped. He wasn’t about to tell a group of men that he’d always known he was unlovable. That somehow, he’d forgotten that fact for a moment and had been willing to try.
“That it would never work?” Edge asked.
“Something like that.”
Edge nodded as he reached for his own horse’s reins. “I was pretty sure of that myself. I had a bad marriage under my belt to reaffirm those feelings.”
Ash turned to Arabella’s husband, surprise making his voice rise in question. “Really?”
Edge nodded. “I didn’t think any woman would actually love me, because my first wife did not. And let’s be honest, life hadn’t been kind. Why would anything good be coming to me?”
“What does Lily say?” Clubs asked. “Have you asked her about marriage?”
Ash nodded. “She says that she’s been barely existing for so long she needs some time to figure out what she wants after her basic needs are met.”
“Smart,” Clubs said, nodding.
Ash grimaced, kind of hating that Clubs agreed with her. “That doesn’t help me.”
“It does,” Edge said with a small smile. “When she chooses you, you’ll know that she did so because she truly wants you. Not just what you provide.”
That thought made him rock back on his heels. Why hadn’t he thought of it like that?
He turned back to find Lily still by the rock, watching him, Arabella at her side.
At his glance, Arabella hooked her arm through Lily’s and tugged Lily toward him.
Unable to resist, he dropped his horse’s reins and started forward, closing the distance between them in long strides.
What did he say?
But as he met them and Arabella let go of Lily’s arm, continuing past him to join her husband, Lily spoke first. “Can I ride with you bit? I’m dead tired of sitting in that carriage.”
He gave a quick nod, wishing he could pull her into his arms. Kiss her lips.
Staring down at her, he realized that even if she didn’t choose him, even if she went back to her old life, he felt different than he had before he’d met her.
