Page 70 of The Lion Duke's Proposal
She had told herself, on multiple occasions and in very firm language, that this was the arrangement and she had agreed to it. She had been very convincing. She was no longer convinced. She stood in the doorway of her empty room, watching his retreating shoulders, and she realized she was done.
She marched into her bedchamber and stripped out of the heavy ballgown with frantic, impatient movements, changing into her silk dressing gown.
She sat on the edge of the mattress, her hands gripped tight in her lap. She sat there for four minutes, her eyes locked on the rhythmic ticking of the mantel clock, before she stood up, walked back out into the dark corridor, and knocked firmly on his door.
A tense pause followed. "Come in."
She pushed the door open.
He was sitting at his desk in his white shirt sleeves, his dark coat thrown carelessly over the back of the chair. A heavy book sat open in front of him, but his hands were resting on the wood, the pages clearly unread.
He looked up at her, his dark eyes widening slightly as she crossed the threshold. His expression did not falter, but something deep behind his eyes flared to life.
"I cannot do this," she said.
She didn't lower her voice, nor did she attempt to perform her usual proper composure. She was far too tired for it, and she was standing in his private quarters in her dressing gown with her hair loose over her shoulders; the occasion had moved beyond polite decorum by several steps.
"The hot and the cold, Leander. I cannot manage it. The ball tonight, the way you held me, and then a detached goodnight at the door. I cannot live without knowing what to expect from you from one day to the next."
He remained entirely still, his hands flat against the mahogany desk.
"I am not asking you to invent a feeling you do not possess," she said, her voice steady as she stepped closer, grateful that herbreath was not failing her. "I am asking you to be honest with me. What do you actually want from this marriage?"
The clock on his mantelpiece marked the heavy silence, each tick loud against the quiet room.
"You have become more important to me," he said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, "than I anticipated."
"That is a statement, Leander. It is not the same as an answer."
"No." He stood up slowly, towering over the desk, his chest broad beneath the white linen of his shirt. "It is not."
"Then how am I supposed to trust you?" She tucked her arms across her chest, her fingers digging into the silk of her sleeves. "You told me at the dinner table exactly what this arrangement was. You made the boundaries clear. And then there was the kiss in the study, and tonight on the dance floor, and now this. I do not know which version of you is the real one."
He looked at her across the room with an expression she had never fully seen on his face before. The rigid composure was gone, and beneath it lay the very thing he had been working entirely too hard to keep buried—a raw, dangerous frustration.
"I have not spoken to Cuthbert in four days," he said.
Julia stopped, her breath catching in her throat. She waited.
"About your father. I have not been in contact regarding the legal case against him for four days." He turned slightly, his gaze dropping to the floor before snapping back to her face. "I think about Henry. About what was owed to his memory, and it is still there, Julia. It has not vanished. But I think about it less. I am..." He cut himself off, his throat working. "I am thinking about other things."
She stared at him, the distance between them suddenly feeling small. "Do you blame me for that?"
"No." His jaw tightened until a muscle ticked violently beneath his ear. "Yes." He shook his head, a rare look of total vulnerability breaking through his features. "I don't know, Julia."
"That is honest, at least."
"I have been trying to be honest." He crossed the room with long, heavy strides, stopping merely inches from where she stood. "I have been trying to be honest since the dinner table, and honesty is what made a disaster of everything between us."
"You made a disaster of everything," she countered, looking up into his dark eyes, her chin defiant. "The rules made a disaster of everything."
"I know that."
"You were protecting yourself."
"I was protecting you," he said, his voice dropping into that fierce, protective rumble that made her pulse race. "From a version of this marriage that promised more than I knew I was capable of giving."
She looked up at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin, the scent of amber and fine brandy enveloping her. "And now?"
