Page 84 of Duke with a Deception
Her dead beau, a man whose name he didn’t even want to think.
He tensed. “What manner of letters?”
“I’m not sure,” Verity said hesitantly. “But apparently they were sent to me from an old suitor.”
He clenched his hands at his sides, longing to tear the box from her grasp and throw it into the nearest fireplace. But he couldn’t do that, even if he hated the unwanted intrusion of the past.
Tell her, the voice inside him urged.Now is the time to tell the truth.
“I see,” he said.
“I haven’t read them,” she told him. “I’m not even certain why I kept them or why Sybil thought I would want a box of old letters. She did say something about perhaps, if I read them, I would understand.”
He’d always liked Sybil. But apparently, she was as meddlesome as her husband. He loathed the feeling that others were trying to come between him and Verity, damn it. He wanted to tell her the truth in his own time, in his own way.
But not here in the hall whilst she clasped the heartfelt letters of another man in her hand.
Not ever, said the most selfish part of him.
“Do you intend to read them, then?” he asked stiffly, the very notion filling him with dread.
A picture flashed in his mind, of Verity in tears at Riverdale’s ball for his duchess, hiding away in an alcove in mourning weeds, that blasted golden locket at her throat. So much love, and none of it had been his.
He was a thief, taking what didn’t belong to him. But the time he’d had with her had been worth being consigned to hell, should that be his fate. He would do it all again, just for a minute of knowing Verity’s love.
Verity shook her head. “I don’t want to read them. I have no wish to cling to the past. This is part of the old me, who I was before. I’m the new me, and I know it has been difficult for my family to accept, but I like this new me. I am happy just as I am.”
Relief dispelled some of the weight from his chest, though not all.
He could breathe again.
King nodded. “I am glad you are happy just as you are, angel.”
“I should not have brought the letters home.” She worried her lower lip. “I hope you aren’t vexed with me. I didn’t want to leave them, since Sybil had brought the box to me. But I didn’t truly want them either.”
“I could never be vexed with you, my love.” He cupped her cheek and lowered his head, stealing a kiss because he couldn’tresist and he didn’t give a damn if the servants were wandering about and saw.
She kissed him back, sweet and welcoming as always, his wonderful Verity with the soul of an angel.HisVerity, damn it. Not anyone else’s. He knew he had to tell her the truth so that their love wasn’t built on a foundation of deception, but there had to be a moment better than this one.
Reluctantly, he lifted his head, breaking the seal of their lips as he put a respectable distance between them once more. “Did you and the duchess finish your plans for the ball?”
He couldn’t very well ravish Verity here in the hall after all, even if he longed for nothing more. He was not a complete beast. King was capable of treating her as she deserved.
She blinked, looking adorably flustered. “We did, yes. Are you still certain we should host? You have taken on a great deal recently, and all because of me.”
“I would host a ball every day for you if it made you happy,” he said, and he meant that, despite his own profound hatred of such monstrous societal events.
He was proud of his wife and her accomplishments, proud of her devotion to the orphans and her determination to see that a bigger and better building was erected for them, one that would ostensibly lead to greater education and, thus, opportunities for the children. He’d host a ball and dance a bloody quadrille and smile at dowagers and do anything she asked of him.
“I don’t need a ball every day to make me happy, silly man,” she said fondly. “All I need is you.”
“Fortunately, you have me.” He winked. “I am yours, to do with as you like.”
“As I like, hmm?” A saucy smile curved her lips, one he recognized well by now.
He wished she weren’t holding that damned box of letters. And he wished he had been the one to know her ten years ago,to pen those letters to her and win her heart. He wished the love burning in her heart was all for him.
But he couldn’t have any of that, so he would settle for what hecouldhave, which was his charming, kindhearted, gorgeous wife in his bed.
