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She’d thought she’d been unrealistic but perhaps she hadn’t been so after all. He just wasn’t the man who understood her needs and how to meet them.
And she deserved better.
* * *
Chase walked down the hall, squelching the unsettling feeling that something was amiss. Despite the size of the home, which was large, he’d already grown accustomed to hearing women wherever he went in the house.
They giggled, they argued, they played music, and they danced throughout the day and into the night. But this morning the house held an eerie sort of quiet that he didn’t like at all. He stopped. He and Ophelia would have to have a gaggle of children. Years of living alone had made him hungry for the sort of noise a family made.
He turned into the music room, hoping to find Ophelia. He hadn’t seen her yet this morning and after all that had transpired last night, he wanted to talk with her, touch her cheek, and feel her velvety skin under his fingertips.
As he entered the room, he immediately knew something was very wrong. Ophelia wasn’t there but her sisters sat silently inside. Bianca had her hands folded in her lap while Cordelia sat on the bench of the pianoforte without touching the keys.
Adrianna paced back and forth, her head shaking as her blonde hair swished over the back. Juliet stared out the window, her hand resting on the frame.
“Is something amiss?” he asked the room at large, not bothering with the niceties. They wouldn’t be able to attend them anyway.
Juliet’s head snapped about to look at him and she lifted her skirts, half running across the room toward him. “It’s Ophelia.”
Fear seized his muscles and he straightened, ready to spring into action. “What’s happened. Is she hurt?”
Juliet pulled the one hand she’d fisted into her skirts and waved it in the air. “No. Nothing like that. She’s just… well she’s…” Juliet stopped walking and talking as she glanced up at the ceiling as though searching for the words.
His skin crawled with nervous anticipation.
“She’s miserable,” Adrianna filled in, taking a few steps toward him. “And you are to blame.”
He rocked back on his heels. “What?”
Bianca rose from her seat, wringing her hands. “We are to blame as much as he is. We’ve asked so much of her and she never wishes for anything in return.”
Adrianna pivoted toward her sister. “You’ve got me there.”
Cordelia rose from the bench. “I still don’t understand why father told us that His Grace and Ophelia would marry if Ophelia had yet to consent.”
Adrianna fluttered her hand. “He’s terrible at secrets. We all are. Me in particular.”
Pricks of heat dotted his cheeks. Hell and damnation, was he blushing? He hadn’t done so in years, not since he was a boy. But explaining to four innocent women all the indecent deeds he’d performed on their sister…
Juliet waved a hand toward him once again. Well, flapped might have been the better word, he thought, as a hand came decidedly close to his face. “Isn’t it obvious? Papa discovered that he’d compromised our sister.”
He swallowed, shifting on his feet. “I…”
“Oh.” Bianca covered her cheeks. “Papa found out about the kiss.”
“But how?” Cordelia asked, then pointed toward her sisters. “Which one of you told him?”
The room fell blessedly silent. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t allow them to blame themselves. “He caught us, or rather me, leaving the library last night but he knew Ophelia had been there too.”
“See,” Adrianna said, lifting her chin higher. “It is his fault.”
“But he promised me time to properly woo Ophelia. She needs the excitement of being courted that Seabridge Gate has never provided,” Chase said. “I thought your father and I had agreed to give that to her.”
“How sweet,” Bianca sighed, her hands dropping from her face.
Juliet cleared her throat. “Oh dear. Papa did say that we should leave the two of you be because you had a marriage to work out.” Juliet looked at Cordelia who had lowered her head.
“We got rather excited at the word marriage.” Bianca stepped forward, taking Juliet’s hand. “So it’s partly our fault after all.”
