Callum peered at him coolly. “I dinnae think you wish to marry the lass. I think you are having a little fantasy right now. The idea that you could marry someone who means something to you. She clearly does. You like her better than anyone.”
Callum shook his head. “No, you won’t marry her. You will cast her off in a moment and you will watch her for the rest of her life. You will make certain that no one hurts her, and you will feel good about yourself. You shall pretend that you’re going to marry some lamb of a girl from the ton, and you’ll swear you shall breed her and get a bunch of children, enough to ensure that the reaper doesn’t get all of them so that you can do your duty. But you never will, Garret. For you’ll never risk your heart—”
He launched out of his chair, grabbed Argyle by the lapels, and shook him hard. “You would dare say such a thing to me?”
“I would dare say such a thing to anyone if it would but wake them up from the hell they have themselves in,” he bit out without relent. “Can you not see what you’re doing? You’re throwing away your one chance at happiness.”
He threw his friend back into the chair, his chest pumping up and down as the truth of Callum’s words traced like poison through his veins. “I don’t believe in chances at happiness anymore.”
“Then you think that your friends’ marriages will all fail, that tragedy will befall them?” Callum challenged.
“Yes,” he said, looking away, his heart tightening into a hard rock of pain. “I do.”
Callum blew out a harsh breath. “Then why did you let them marry? Why did you help Tom Courtney?”
He gazed up at the ceiling, stuffing the ornate plaster. “Because Iwanthim to be happy for as long as it’s possible, and he dared to try it.”
“Then you are a coward,” Callum said softly. “Why won’t you let yourself have happiness, even if for a little while like Courtney?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, lowering his gaze to Callum’s tortured face. “The truth is, I know that the loss of happiness is far crueler when one has known joy. If I allow myself to have her, totrulyhave her… and she’s taken from me in any way. The agony of it—I do not know if I could survive it.”
Callum stared at him for a long moment, his gaze heavy with regret. “You are not the man I thought you were.”
“Perhaps not,” Garret allowed, and he grabbed the decanter from his friend and drank deeply. “Do you wish me to go, coward that I am?”
“No,” Argyle countered kindly. “I want you to get drunk with me, and we’ll drink to the world. We’ll drink to our fears because I am as afraid as you. And I would not be such a fool to deny it.”
Chapter 12
Catherine could not raise her head off her pillow that morning.
She was exhausted.
The last month, they had been out almost every night.
She could tell the duke did not particularly like being out at all hours every day.
Much to her amazement, he preferred to be at home with books and brandy or his hot chocolate, going over papers and scouring the latest scientific findings.
She had read about him in the gossip sheets before, and he had seemed to be a man about town. But she’d realized over the last few weeks that his greatest pleasure was spent before the crackling fire at work.
And while he did go out with her to many balls, to the theater, to listen to music, the company of all those places seemed to wear on him rather than enthrall him.
When they were together alone, he seemed to come alive, their private conversations filling him with delight as he shared his own interesting ideas about the world and how he thought it should be.
She loved those interchanges. The discussions of history, of the Tudor reign, of the Wars of the Roses, of the various ideas about how to cope with after effects and fears of the riots that had occurred after Catholics had been given more rights years ago.
Even years later, the fear of revolution drifted through St. James’ Palace and even Parliament.
Matching him in merry debate was her chief joy these days, but this morning she felt unable to face it.
She’d been feeling a bit run down the last few days, if she was honest. She was also dreading the fact that no doubt he was going to tell her soon that she needed to find a keeper of her own.
The worst of it was, though she had longed for independence, she did not long for the day when she would no longer live in his house. She adored being with Everson and the other staff. She adored being with the duke, and though she had her own room, she had yet to spend a night alone in it. She had been astonished that he had kept her with him at all times when the sun went down.
They had been entwined the last weeks with only the rare night apart, like the night previously when he had gone to see a friend.
The truth was, she had reveled in every moment together. She loved being with him.