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Mr. Demarest took her hand and led her to the chair she’d sat in last night. “You’re in fine looks this morning, my dear.”
Antonia bit back a wry laugh. She looked like a hag. Sleeplessness and anxiety left her pale and drawn. The eyes she’d met in the mirror were dull and sunken, and a pounding headache took up residence in her temples.
They both sat down. Although she’d requested this meeting, she found it impossible to mention the subject of his proposal. She’d never before experienced an awkward silence with her cousin. She hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come. Although of course, if she accepted him, mostly she’d manage the Somerset estate alone, just as she had during the last ten years.
How ironic that she now contemplated marriage with a man who shared so many of her first lover’s failings. Like Johnny, Demarest wasn’t deliberately evil. He was just selfish and unwilling to consider the repercussions of what he did. She should view him as abhorrent, but in the end, she couldn’t hate him. He was a spoiled child, just as Johnny was.
“Have you thought about what I said?” he asked eventually.
She linked her hands in her lap and stared down at them. They were surprisingly steady. Despite what she knew about Demarest and Eloise Challoner, she’d made her choice. The only choice she could make. She’d live with it.
“Of course.”
He must have sensed hesitation because his voice deepened into kindness. The same kindness she’d heard when he discovered her on the ship from France. It reminded her just what she owed this man, whatever his sins. “I realize my offer isn’t at all romantical.”
She smiled without meeting his eyes. “You and I have moved beyond the age of being romantical.”
The traitorous memory of how romantical she’d felt in Ranelaw’s arms swelled like a tidal wave. The effort of damming it back into the darkness where it belonged made her release a shuddering breath not far from a sob. Her armor of calm threatened to disintegrate. But she must do this. She had no alternative.
She felt Demarest studying her. “You’ve reached a decision?”
Her hands clung to each other so tightly that her fingers set white marks on the flesh. She must speak, but no matter how she tried, the words wouldn’t emerge.
Courage, Antonia. Courage.
She raised her head and stared at him, this man she didn’t love but who offered hope for her future. He’d committed transgressions just as heinous as those Ranelaw or Johnny Benton had committed, but to her he’d always been kind and generous. She should scorn him for ruining Eloise, but her desperation for a roof over her head was too pressing for her to be overfastidious.
“Mr. Demarest . . .” she began in a faltering voice.
“Godfrey, please, Antonia.” He touched her poor tortured hands in silent reproof. “I’ve asked you so often to use my Christian name. You are, after all, family. Now I hope . . . I pray . . . you’ll be more.”
She studied his face and realized he wasn’t doing this totally to save her from poverty and servitude. His eyes held a light that she couldn’t help reading as genuine fondness, and his grip on her hand was eager. This marriage would be no hardship to Godfrey Demarest.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “Godfrey . . .”
There was a scratch at the door, and the butler entered bearing a card on a tray. “Lord Aveson to see you, sir.”
Demarest’s head rose sharply and he jerked his hand from hers. “Damn it, Eames. I said I wasn’t to be disturbed. By anyone.” Then he frowned. “Who?”
Lord Aveson. . .
Antonia grabbed the arms of her chair as shock ripped through her and sent her heart crashing against her ribs. Unlike Demarest, she didn’t need to question the name. She’d heard perfectly clearly.
Her brother was here.
Ten years and no word. Now he appeared without warning. After the tumult of the last few days, she couldn’t muster strength to confront Henry. It was too much. She felt as though she shattered like glass.
The butler remained oblivious to his explosive announcement. “Lord Aveson, sir. I know you requested privacy but he is most insistent that he see you.”
Antonia rose on trembling legs. Dread iced her veins. Flight seemed her only choice. “He can’t find me.”
“Antonia, you’re in my house. No harm will come to you.” As Demarest stood, the compassion in his face made her want to accept his marriage proposal in a trice. Before she could speak, he glanced at the impassive butler. “Send him in, Eames.”
“Yes, sir.” The butler bowed and left.
Suffocating shame closed Antonia’s throat. The years vanished and she was once again the humiliated seventeen-year-old her father condemned as a whore. “I can’t . . .”
“Yes, you can.” Demarest caught her arm to stop her darting toward the door. He used the same voice that had reassured a distraught girl fleeing Italy.
