Callum cocked his head to the side and said slowly, enunciating each word with care, “Are you going to protect her for the rest of her life? Are you going to ensure that she never has a keeper who harms her? Are you going to ensure that no one is able to harm her in a ballroom somewhere, because you know it can happen. She is choosing a position in which she will be continually putting herself at risk.”
“Ladies do the same thing,” he pointed out, though he felt shaken by Callum’s correct assessment of his own thoughts and concerns.
Thoughts and concerns which had taken up hours of his days lately.
“You’re absolutely correct that ladies do,” Callum agreed. “But generally, ladies choose one person who will either treat them well or hurt them for the rest of their life. Lady Catherine is taking the opportunity of choosing someone who is either good or bad many times over. There are powerful points in that. I take my hat off to her, frankly. I admire her sort of wish for honesty, her wish to live life truthfully and fully. But you know as well as I that there is a danger in it, and that is why you are afraid to let her go.”
“I’m not afraid to let her go,” Garret protested with such vehemence that it was clearly a lie.
“Yes, you are. Here, have another drink.” Callum poured out more whiskey into each glass. “Come on, one and done.”
They both lifted their glasses, clinked them, and drank.
Garret began to feel the slightest bit of fuzziness around his edges. He wanted to feel nothing. He wanted to be obliterated. He wanted to stop the jealousy, the fear that was coursing through him, the wild voice that wanted to yell,She is mine, and I claim her for my own.
“You could just make her your mistress forever, you know,” Callum offered. “It’s not an unthinkable thing. People do it all the time. There have been several lords who—”
“No,” he bit out. “I’ll not be that sort of man.”
Callum nodded and let out a sigh. “Och, I think you must get rid of her quickly then. It is very clear that you are attached to her, and if you do not do something soon, then there will be only one thing to do,” he stated.
“She does not wish to marry,” Garret blurted.
Argyle drew in a breath. “You have contemplated marrying her, haven’t you?”
He stilled. “Yes, I have.”
“My God, man. Then just do it,” his friend all but roared. “You’re a bloody duke.Tellher you’re getting married. I doubt that she’ll argue.”
“She will,” he countered exhaustedly, for this felt very much like the arguments he’d had with himself in the last days. “She made it absolutely plain the night she came to me that she had no intention of linking herself to a man in marriage. She wants independence, she wants freedom, and she knows she can’t have that as a wife.”
“My God.” Argyle threw back his head and laughed again, a dark sound. “As your wife, as a duchess, she’ll have far more freedom than she ever would as a courtesan. Have you explained this to her? Have you told her the truth, that if you are her husband, if you are the one at her side, she could rule a good portion of England?”
He stared at his friend for several moments before he admitted, “I thought she would understand that.”
Argyle snorted. “Do not be ridiculous. She does not understand the kind of freedom that you can give her if you wish it, the document that you could write that states the amount of money that she’d have every year. Or if she does understand, she doesn’t think you’d do it. Would you? Would you give her that kind of freedom?”
“Yes,” he said, “I would.”
“Then what are you doing sitting in my house? Go and ask her to wed you.”
“What if she says no?” he asked, hardly believing he was asking such a thing.
“Ah, I see.” Argyle clapped a hand along his thigh. “That’s why you’re afraid. That she might not want you in turn.”
“You have to understand, Argyle,” he defended swiftly. “I do not want to be in love again. I don’t want toloseagain. I do not even truly want to have children again, because the statistics say that I will likelylosethem. Maybe one or two of them will survive if I am lucky. But the truth is, not even a man, a duke, a king can stop the reaper’s hand, and I do not want to face that again. I do not want to feel anything for her. I wish I could cut this feeling out of my heart and burn it, but I can’t. I’ve tried.”
“Try harder,” Argyle growled. “Kick her out of your house. Give her to someone, and then you’ll be done.”
“Give her to someone like she’s chattel?” he rasped.
“Isn’t that what you were thinking of doing?” Argyle asked. “That’s how you’re talking about her right now, as if you can eradicate her from your heart and soul and person. As if you can maneuver her about like a piece on a chess board and keep your king safe, your heart. Isn’t that what you’re saying to me?”
“I suppose,” he allowed, a wave of self-disgust crashing over him. “But I just—”
“Go ask her,” Callum ordered. “Ask her to wed you and see what happens.”
“I do not think that she will say yes. I think nothing could cause her to say yes after what happened with her brother.”