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Demeter exhaled slowly and set the untouched drink on the nearby lamp table then shrugged the blanket off. “Do you mean it? That you do not feel the need to hunt Michael down?”
“Honestly, I am ready for this to be over. If I can ensure Aunt Iris’s money is distributed well, I do not see the need. What can the man do now he has no wealth or connections? Not much, I would wager.”
She smiled. “I would not take that wager.”
“That would make a change.” He unfolded his arms and curled his hands around the edge of the desk, then hesitated and folded his arms again. “I’m fairly certain he cared for you, in a strange way.”
“I think so too, though not in a good way.”
“No.” His jaw tightened. “Or else he would have aided you in your time of need. He is most certainly a coward.”
“A greedy coward.”
He nodded. “I do not know the circumstances under why my aunt cut him off but I can only imagine he had been spending excessively. I saw evidence of it only the other day. Aunt Iris was a fair woman who would never abandon her child unless she thought it for the best.”
“He must have been out of control,” Demeter agreed.
She too could not imagine Iris ever cutting off her illegitimate child so the circumstances behind the decision must have been grave. But only Mr. Foster could answer that for certain, and from what he had told Blake on their way to rescue her, he was bitter indeed over the circumstances.
“Enough talk of my cousin, anyway. I am weary of him.” He pressed up from his position against the desk and moved in front of her. “Now, for once in your life you are going to listen to me.” He thrust a firm finger her way and Demeter lifted a brow and eyed the end of his digit.
“Blake?”
“I know this engagement was borne out of false circumstances...”
“Yes, but—”
“And you do not think that a rake and wallflower can be together.”
“Well—”
“But if you think about it, you said yes. Your instincts told you to, and one should never ignore one’s instincts.”
“Blake...”
“Really, it would make sense for us to wed. We work brilliantly together, we can tell each other anything, and do not forget how excellent we are in the marriage bed.”
“Blake,” she hissed, swinging a glance at the closed door, and praying none of her family were listening.
“Well, technically it was not the marriage bed but I fully intend to rectify that.”
She rose, shoving the blanket fully from her, and pressed a finger to his lip, preventing him from whatever it was he wanted to say next. “Blake, I have loved you for a long time.” His eyes widened. She dropped her finger. “Years in fact. Almost a decade.”
“Oh.”
“But I was wrong.”
“Oh.” He scowled.
“I was in love with a man I did not know and in fact, I w-was guilty of cowardice. I ensured you never, ever saw me for fear of making a fool of myself.”
“You could never make a fool of yourself to me.”
She offered a tilted smile. “I already did really, by wasting so many years and not allowing myself to truly get to know the man I believed I loved.”
“I think perhaps I needed those years. I too was a coward. I feared marriage and children would turn me into my father. But with you, sweeting, I do not see how that would be possible.”
Taking his hands in hers, she let her smile expand. “I was wrong to love you because I did not know you. But now I do.”
