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Chapter Nineteen
Antony’s first knock on Lady Hermione’s door wasn’t answered though he could hear someone maneuvering about inside.
“Lady Hermione?” he called to her, letting her know it was him. This time, the door handle moved. As the door was pulled open, the face of Lady Hermione was revealed in the moonlight that shone through her chamber windows. She had stopped crying, though her face was still red, blotchy, and tear stained. He ached to see she had been crying so. Part of him wanted to lift his hands to her cheeks and wipe those tears away, but he couldn’t. Not now.
“Your Grace, I think it best you are not here,” she said tightly, looking down at the floor and the door threshold between them.
She is no longer calling me Antony.It cut surprisingly deep, not that he could be surprised by it.
“I need to speak to you. Now,” he said, gesturing for her to let him in. She didn’t look comfortable at the idea, but nevertheless, she let him in. She retreated from the door and crossed the room, stopping by the window at the far side of the chamber, so she was lit completely by the moon. The silvery light made her hair so pale, it almost looked white, and her dress shimmered. She was ethereal.
He closed the door behind himself and took a few uncertain steps into the room as he built up the courage to speak. He had made his decision on what to do, but it would not be easy to accomplish this, especially to say it and bear the pain on her face that he would no doubt cause.
He thought of all sorts of convoluted and complicated ways to say it, but in the end, he went for the simplest option. “I will marry you.” His words startled her so much that she leaned on the window behind her, placing her hands there as if to use it to keep her standing.
“You will? Why?” she asked.
“Because I have wrecked your reputation now–”
“That is not the reason.” Though her voice was quiet, the words were spoken with so much strength that she cut across him. He fell quiet for a second and placed his hands on his hips, feeling the discomfort between them radiate. It was so different to the thrill and the heat they had shared in the library. “A few minutes ago, you were prepared to throw my reputation as good as over the clifftops that are beyond this house, just to keep your vow not to marry. Why have you changed your mind?”
“It is difficult to explain. Complicated,” he said, looking away from her. He couldn’t keep looking at her. If he did, he was likely to get caught up in his desire for her again and pull her down to the bed that wasn’t far from them.
“I may not be the brightest individual, but neither am I devoid of intelligence. I am sure I could understand the reason,” she said tartly. Her spirit tempted him to smile, but he clamped down on it, thankful he was turned away so that she would not see any trace of the smile.
“This will be a marriage of convenience, Lady Hermione.” As he said the words, he found strength with them and turned back to look at her. He straightened his spine and kept his expression stern, keen for her to see his conviction.
“Convenience? Why?” she asked, stepping away from the window. “What just happened hardly seemedconvenientto me. In fact, ever since you and I met, there has been something between us. Why can’t our marriage be about that?” He kept his face as stern as possible.
“Because it cannot,” he said, his voice so sharp that she reeled away from him, backing up toward the window. “This will be a marriage of convenience to avoid any damage to your name and your family’s; it will be nothing more. You will expect no kind of devotion from me as I will expect none from you.”
It hurt to say the words. He could all too easily think of the way Lady Hermione had looked up at him as he pleasured her, enraptured with him. He wished to take her to the bed beside him, pleasure her again until she looked at him with adoration. Maybe this time he would please her with his tongue instead, until she was mad for him.That can never be.
“No devotion?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting high. “You wish to ignore everything that has happened between us up to this point? Forget it ever happened–”
“That is exactly what I wish to do.”
“But… why?” she asked, stepping away from the window again. As she walked toward him, he moved away, fearful that if she touched him, he would capitulate to her. “You just said in the library that you had feelings for me, that you were falling–”
“Pray, do not repeat what I said.” He turned his back on her as though he could turn his back on the entire situation.
“Why? Tell me why?” she said insistently, walking round him until he was forced to look her in the eye. “Why must we forget it all?”
“Because I vowed never to marry for two reasons.” The explanation came from him surprisingly easily. Perhaps it was the port making his tongue looser or a desire to make her stop looking at him with such hope; either way, the explanation came. “One, so that my brother would someday be Duke instead. Two, because I fell in love and was to marry once before. That ended so cataclysmically that I know what love is worth in this world.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that love is worth nothing!” he said so strongly that she took a step back from him. “It is merely an idea, an illusion, limerence that we all get caught up in. We run around like drunken fools when we think we’re in love, yet the headache the next day is heartache instead. It lasts longer, and it leaves scars too. I will not have another scar placed on my heart. Not for anyone.”
For a second, silence followed his words. He could see there were tears in Lady Hermione’s eyes again. She was blinking, evidently trying to stop them from falling. Part of him wanted to envelop her in his arms and promise her that he would care for her. He already did care for her after all, but it was better to do this now, rather than suffer such tragedy again in the future.
“Caring for someone only brings heartache, Hermione,” he said, losing her title for the first time. “So, I will not let myself do that with you.”
“It seems my heart has not learned the same lesson, because it is aching now,” she said, not lifting her eyes to him but levelling them somewhere in his chest instead.
“That is whythis,”he gestured between the two of them, “will be a marriage of convenience only. No care, no love, no…” he motioned toward the bed, struggling for the word to describe what they had shared in the library.
“Passion?” she offered. It didn’t feel a good enough word to his mind. Yes, there had been passion there, but the intensity of it had been different to something that could so simply be described.
