“He wanted to gift his famil—gift me—noble status. He wanted our own coat of arms. I believed money and good business were enough. If I had known it was so important to him, I could have approached you. I could have asked for your help with the Earl Marshall. But I never came back.”
“Why did you stay away?”
Will looked at her then as if he was looking straight through her. The vacuum between them contained everything she imagined they both wanted to say but couldn’t.
I couldn’t face you.
I couldn’t bear to see you.
I was married.
You didn’t marry me. You left me. You broke us. I hate you.
I know. I love you.
“I may not have been able to help anyway,” Rose said, knowing she had prayed on Ambrose’s generosity enough.
“Why?” Will’s head whipped back. “Because we weren’t deserving enough? Not of the right stock.” Will spat the words out like weapons.
“No!” Rose’s head snapped up too. “No, Will,” more softly this time.
“You didn’t think twice about doing it for your sister’s husband! You used all your newfound power and influence to get them what they wanted. You would do anything for them. You would do anything for yourself.”
You have no idea,Rose thought but never said.
“We could have had a good life. I would have taken care of you after your parents died. I was a commoner, but we were not poor. I am richer now than most of the ton. You just didn’t think twice about us! You chose him.” His contempt was palpable.
No. I didn’t think twice,she thought to herself.I thought a thousand, a million, times about us—every single day. Every night, alone or in another man’s bed, I conjured up your eyes, mouth, and smile.I lived two lives—my carefully-crafted outward, calm, noble demeanor and this crazy, lost, frantic, hopeless inner creature that could not live without your touch; was only existing and barely.
“Did you love him?” Will asked suddenly, shaking her from her reverie.
“Will?!”
“Did you? Did you fall in love with him? With him and his fancy castle and his carriages and racehorses? Did you dance in the rain with him? For him?”
“This is not seemly Will. The Duke is dead.”
“Are you the grieving Duchess?”
She averted her eyes. How could she tell him she felt no more for Ambrose Barrington than for a stranger in the churchyard? What did that make her, except a scheming opportunist? What would he think of her? She felt it was better he thought she had fallen in love with the Duke and married him because she wanted him, not because she wanted the power of his title and status.
“Will you marry the brother?”
Rose reeled. “How do you know about that?”
“So it is true then? It is all over town. He is telling everyone how you will be destitute without him; how you have been begging him to marry you so you can remain a duchess.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is irrelevant to me, even if it is,” he scoffed and turned his face away from her. “You will do what you will do; you always have. But you do know if anyone protested, it could be voided.”
So, he had looked into it too, Rose thought. Would he protest if she agreed to marry Ernest? Would he crash the wedding, tell everyone he forbade it, and whisk her away with him? But before she could enjoy even a moment of that childish fantasy, he dashed it.
“Of course, if you married him, you would once again be married to the Earl Marshall. You could get him to issue me with a coat of arms and make my father rest easy in his grave.”
Rose gasped. “You would see me married to the odious Ernest Barrington just so you can get noble status?”
Will suddenly rose to his feet and beckoned his horse to him. “Why not?Youthrewmeover for a title.” He stroked the stallion’s neck and then in one fluid movement, swung himself up onto his back and looked down on her wet, bedraggled form. “Don’t you think you owe me? The only difference is this time, you would be doing it for someone else rather than yourself.”