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“No.”
“I am newly betrothed, Viscount Farleigh, to the Earl of Kerridge, heir to the Duke of Aylesham. The marriage settlements are nearly completed, and then the formal announcement will be made. For me to cry off at this point would seem to lack honor as well, would it not?”
“That is for you to decide,” he said.
She leaned forward slightly in her chair. “It doesn’t bother you that you are, in essence, stealing the bride of someone who will become one of the highest peers in England?”
“No.”
She tried another approach. “Perhaps you would be better off finding a bride who hasn’t given her heart to another.”
That got a reaction from him. She saw a muscle in his cheek twitch ever so slightly. “Are you telling me that you have already given your heart to Lord Kerridge? So easily?” he asked. “How long have you known him?”
“Two weeks, nearly three.” Her answer must surely sound foolish. After a two-weeks’ acquaintance, had she given her heart to Lord Kerridge? Had she fallen in love in so short a time? Undoubtedly the man before her thought not. “Whom I choose to give my heart to is my concern, not yours, my lord, and shall remain that way.”
His questions got her thinking though. She rose and walked over to the window again. Clouds were beginning to gather—gray cumulus clouds that meant it would soon rain—and for a moment, she was reminded of the teasing she’d taken from her brothers a mere week earlier.
She was attached to Lord Kerridge, certainly, and had enjoyed his kisses, and . . . well, she had assumed love—deep, abiding love—would grow over time, as it had with her parents. “Love doesn’t necessarily follow a timetable. It can take years or merely a glance. Who is to say one way is better than another?”
He had followed her to the window, stopping mere inches away; she could sense him standing behind her and found his nearness disconcerting, but she refused to turn and look at him. This man, with his dark-brown eyes and his plain, neat clothes and his level voice and unsmiling mouth was impossible to understand.
“Two weeks—even nearly three—is not so very long,” he said in that low, even tone of his. “Perhaps after two or three weeks, you will find yourself attached to me instead, more so than you are now to him.”
“I doubt it,” she whispered. For some reason, she could hardly catch her breath.
“You may be right, yet I sincerely hope not, for both our sakes.” He laid his hand gently on her shoulder in a reassuring gesture that made her tremble nonetheless. “For you see, Lady Louisa, I refuse to withdraw my claim on the vowel. But I give you my word that I will do all in my power to make your life a happy one.”
She turned to face him, incensed rather than reassured by his words. “How can you possibly promise me that when you are giving me no choice in the matter? I shall marry you, and you shall make me happy, you say. I do not know you at all, my lord. I know nothing of your character or your intentions, beyond forcing me to atone for my grandfather’s selfish actions.”
“Nobody is more aware than I that I can offer you nothing but my good intentions at present. We both seem to be in the unwelcome and uncomfortable position of making things right for the sake of our families’ honor.”
“Honor,” she spat. “I am growing sick of the term. I do not understand the sort of honor you claim gives you the right to hold an innocent person accountable for something she did not do. It makes no sense to me, and I resent it.”
Lord Farleigh said nothing in reply. He simply stood there in front of her, his hands at his sides. She remembered the feel of his hand on her shoulder just a few moments earlier. An attempt at support, she supposed—or perhaps a subtle move to win her over. She didn’t know. She didn’t trust him.
She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “Why are you doing this?” she asked again. “You yourself just said this is as uncomfortable and unwelcome to you as it is to me. If that is true, then don’t do it. You have the power to free us both.”
He remained silent and unmoving, holding her eyes with his own. They gave nothing away, those eyes of his. No emotion whatsoever.
How could she marry a man like that?
Perhaps she should shake him, if only to see if there was a man of feeling buried somewhere beneath his wooden exterior.
“You are truly not going to change your mind in this matter, are you?” she said, an awful resignation settling about her like a cheerless gray fog.
“No.”
She turned back to stare out the window, at the gathering clouds that matched her mood. It had been apparent to Louisa that Papa had been horribly distressed by his father’s actions. There was no more honorable man than her father, and the vowel had created a moral dilemma for him that offered no reasonable solution.
How could she back away from duty and honor simply because the choice wasn’t her preference? How could she, the noble daughter of the Marquess and Marchioness of Ashworth, look honor in the eye and then shrug it off as though it meant nothing when she knew of its importance to her family?
The answer was she couldn’t. Her very being wanted to push the viscount aside and run away and pretend that nothing had happened this afternoon. But she couldn’t. And with that reluctant acknowledgment, she knew what she must do.
She would be as honorable as Papa, heaven help her.
She sighed. “Very well. It would seem that honor requires I make good on the debt, my lord.”
Lord Farleigh bowed in acknowledgment of what amounted to her acceptance of marriage to him. “Let us rejoin the others, then, and inform them that we are in accord and the marriage will proceed.” He offered her his arm, and she laid her hand upon it, tacitly saying goodbye to her romantic dreams and expectations. There had been no suitor on bended knee asking for her hand this time, no kiss that hinted of romance and passion in her future, nothing but mutual agreement upon the resolution of a debt.
