He let her go.
“Nick,” she started, and then seemed to stop herself. Her shoulders slumped as she took a deep breath and let it drain from her body in an audible sigh. “Don’t you want to be happy?”
Lancaster frowned down at her. That was her question? What kind of nonsense was that? “Of course I want to be happy. Doesn’t everyone?”
Cynthia very deliberately put her hands on her hips and met his gaze. “If that’s true, then why would you marry a woman who doesn’t even like you?”
“I need money. Badly.”
“Don’t try to tell me you couldn’t find an heiress who’d at least enjoy your company. For God’s sake, Nick, you’re charming and handsome and…” She waved a hand in disgust.
He could tell her. He wanted to tell someone. Here was a woman, a friend, asking him for the truth, and the story burned in his gut like a coal.
When he spied a flat boulder not two feet from Cynthia’s skirts, Lancaster headed for it and dropped
to the hard surface. The sea was calm today, nearly as smooth as glass. A flat, dark span of a hidden world.
“You want to know the truth?” he asked and saw Cyn nod out of the corner of his eye. “When I inherited the title of viscount from my father, it came with a cruel revelation. My family was hovering on the brink of ruin. My father had never said a word, never curbed our spending. It was shocking to say the least. And there was no doubt of what my duty was. It only took a few months for the whole ton to realize that I needed an heiress. But I was only twenty-three, and I resisted for almost a whole year.” He laughed quietly.
“But resistance was futile. I met Imogene last year. She was lovely. Smart and beautiful. Independent and witty. And her father wanted a connection to a title. I’m not…” He rubbed the back of his neck and tried to think how to phrase this. I’m not choosy. Not quite the thing to say to a woman you’d almost made love with.
Cynthia turned toward the water and waited.
“I like people, as you said yourself. I thought Imogene and I would get on just fine. I thought—Ha! I thought we could be friends. As you and I are friends.”
She darted a glance in his direction before looking back to the sea.
“I spoke to her father. I proposed, and she accepted. But then the threads of our connection slowly unraveled. I thought the idea of marriage made her shy. I thought it was charming. But in the end, she wanted me to know the truth, I think.”
“What truth?” Arms wrapped around herself, Cynthia finally faced him.
“That she’s in love with someone else.”
Her expression of obvious disbelief soothed his painfully wounded pride. “Who?”
Lancaster stretched his legs out and leaned back against the rough face of the cliff. “A man she can’t have. Her father’s man of affairs. He seems a decent enough fellow.”
“She told you this?”
“Ah, no. I walked in on the two of them in a rather intimate embrace.”
“Oh!” Cynthia’s eyes widened in horror. “That’s terrible.”
“I admit to an acute case of bruised pride.”
A sudden gust of wind blew Cynthia’s skirts up in a bell, and she angrily slapped them down. “Well, you can’t marry her now, Nick. No one would expect you to.”
A pleasant kernel of warmth bloomed inside his chest. The truth was that everyone would expect him to marry Imogene regardless. Everyone except Cynthia. “I’m afraid that’s not true. This isn’t about love or even affection. It’s about money and power.”
“So find a nice heiress to marry! Don’t marry her.”
He closed his eyes and breathed in the green salt smell of the ocean. The waves only lapped today, instead of crashing, and suddenly it was summer and he was fourteen and the world was so damned simple. The gulls screamed and the sun shone and Cyn stood over him with her fists on her hips, outraged about something. As usual, he could only smile at her. She was always so cute when she stomped her little foot and growled.
“Nick!” she grouched, and he opened his eyes.
No, he wasn’t fourteen, and Cynthia wasn’t a child. And the world might be simple, but it wasn’t the least bit kind. “It doesn’t matter, Cyn.”
“Of course it matters. You’re not happy. I want you to be happy.”