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“—and since there’s to be no Duchess of Clevedon in the immediate future, I’ll have to make up for it with lesser mortals.”
“I was thinking,” he said, “that you ought to be the Duchess of Clevedon.”
She stood for a moment, speechless for once in her life, though she’d sensed trouble coming. Even so, as fine-tuned as her instincts were, she couldn’t take it in. She thought her ears must be playing tricks. Or he was playing tricks.
She was tired. It had been a long, very busy day, after a sleepless, wretched night—after hearing the news from Sophy and not knowing whether to laugh with relief or weep with despair, for all her plans and all she’d borne. All for nothing. She’d done her best, and she’d paid a price higher than she’d ever imagined. Then, when Sophy came home and told them what had happened, Marcelline had looked around at all her hopes and dreams for their future, smashed to pieces.
She took a steadying breath. Breathing wasn’t enough. She needed to sit down. She needed a strong drink.
She said, “Have you lost your mind?”
He said, “I don’t know about my mind. My heart, yes.”
She scrambled for her wits. “I know what this is. You had a shock to your sensibilities. There was that beautiful girl, the one you’ve loved all your life—”
“Like a sister. She was right. You were right.”
“You’re still in shock,” she said. “Angry, I dare say. She humiliated you. In front of everybody. People applauded her, I understand.”
“Did Miss Sophia tell you that? I deduced, from today’s Morning Spectacle, that she’d been there. Her style is unmistakable.”
She couldn’t let him distract her. “The point is, you’re striking back.”
“At Clara? Don’t be absurd. She was absolutely right. She knew my heart wasn’t in it. She knew I was acting. I followed your instructions to the letter. Exactly as one follows instructions. That isn’t how it ought to be. It ought to happen of itself, because nothing else is bearable.”
“Stop,” she said. “Stop right now.” She needed to run far away, the way her forebears ran from difficulties. She needed to run because with every fiber of her being she longed to say yes. And that was a quick route to self-destruction.
“When I left that party, I was shaking,” he said. He looked down at his hands, at the beautiful tan gloves. He set them on the counter. Her hands, still braced on the counter, were not so very far away. She had only to reach a very little way to touch him. She kept her hands where they were.
“I realized it was because I’d been on the brink of the worst mistake of my life,” he said. “A mistake that would have ruined two lives. I realized that Clara had spared me. She’d saved us both. She was right. I could never be the husband she deserves. For me there can’t be anyone but you.”
Don’t do this don’t do this don’t do this.
There was a weight on her chest. It hurt to breathe. “Don’t be an idiot,” she said.
“Listen to me,” he said.
“No, because you’re not thinking.”
“I’ve done nothing but think,” he said. “Last night, all this day, while I wandered up and down St. James’s Street, waiting for the mobs to leave, so that I could talk to you. I’ve had plenty of time for second thoughts, and I haven’t any. The opposite, in fact. The more time I’ve had, the surer I’ve felt. I love you, Marcelline.” He paused. “You said you loved me.”
He wasn’t going to stop. He wasn’t going to give up. He was obstinate. Hadn’t she already learned that, over and over again? When he wanted something, he went after it, single-mindedly, and he was not over-scrupulous in his methods.
He was like her, in other words.
The irony was too rich.
She slid her hands from the counter and folded her arms, protecting herself. “I told you that doesn’t matter,” she said. “You can’t marry me. I’m a shopkeeper. You can’t marry a shopkeeper.”
“Noblemen have married courtesans,” he said. “They’ve married their housekeepers and their dairymaids.”
“And it never turns out well,” she said. When gentlemen married far beneath them, their wives and children paid for it. They became outcasts. They lived in limbo, unable to return to their old world and shunned in their new one. “I can’t believe you think this is sane.”
“You know it’s the only sane thing,” he said. “I love you. I want to give you everything. I want to give Lucie everything she needs—not merely dolls and fine clothes and schooling, but a father. I lost a family, and I know how precious it is. I want you and I want your family and I want to be part of your lives.”
She heard the desperation in his voice, the urgency, and she wanted to weep.
“I know the shop is your passion,” he said, “and it would kill you to give it up—but you don’t have to. I thought about that, too. In fact, I’ve been thinking about your shop for weeks.”
