Page 71 of A Bride for the Devilish Duke

“Then why the sudden and urgent need to marry my sister?” Rosie asked. “She is clearly not with child, and your relationship is just as clearly not based on love.”

“Rosie!” Emma gasped in horror.

“My relationship is not your business,” Damien said coldly.

“Mysisteris my business, Your Grace. I appreciate that it was you who spoke up for Sir Thomas and that it was your money that meant we are free of our debtors at long last. But I have seen my sister as happy as anything in your company, and I have seen her equally as miserable. Do not deny it, Emma.”

Emma listened, open-mouthed. She glanced at Damien. He looked irritated, but there was something else in his face—in the aversion of his eyes and the twitches of his stony expression.

Was that… guilt?

“I shall go inside. Myperceptiontells me you are more suited to each other than Sir Thomas and Josie. If you would both open your eyes to it,” Rosie grumbled.

She walked away, dabbing at her eyes. Emma looked at Damien, who glowered after Rosie. Then he looked at Emma.

“Do you think there is truth in what my sister says?” Emma asked.

“I think she sees a mutual attraction between us. That has been there since the beginning, but it is not enough. We are both driven by motives that had nothing to do with love,” Damien replied.

“Does it not? Is it purely physical, do you think?”

Of course, it is. He is attractive, but he only sought me out because of the rumors I had been foolish enough to spread. He needed a wife from a respectable family, not because he wanted me in particular and certainly not because he was in love with me.

She told herself she was being pragmatic but was saddened by it. Part of her wanted him to deny that there was no love between them and could never be.

“It is, and, of course, a transaction. A business arrangement. You have gained the financial independence of your family and I have gained the respectable wife that I needed. It is an arrangement of mutual benefit.”

She wanted to tell him that such beginnings to marriage did not preclude the development of love. It did not need to be present initially but could come later if allowed. But she sensed it would be futile.

“You are right that there is a mutual attraction. A deep-seated one. I have felt it since the beginning, but I have denied its reality because I was so affronted at being forced into marriage and...”

“And because you are ashamed of your own body,” Damien said quietly.

Emma looked around quickly, but the others had gone into the house.

“Shall we walk?” she asked, wanting to be sure of no eavesdroppers, “I know the Eastwick Woods like the back of my hand.”

Damien offered his arm, but Emma hesitated to take it.

“Should I pretend when there is none to see me do it?”

“Pretend?” Damien asked.

“That we are a husband and wife. We are in the eyes of the law, but not in the eyes of God, and certainly not in the eyes of each other.”

“He sees the truth in our hearts. Our reasons,” Damien muttered, “and if he does not, then he can go hang,”

Emma made to roll her eyes, but he took her hand and threaded it through his arm with purpose.

“So yes, you should, because I enjoy having you close to me.”

Emma took a shallow breath, unable to contain the genuine smile that this enigmatic man seemed to so simply draw from her—at the strangest of times.

They promenaded around the house, following a gravel path that moss had invaded. The borders were equally as wild, flowers mixed with those seeded themselves. Beyond was a gate set into a stone fence and then trees, which reached over the walls to almost brush the house's exterior.

“I am ashamed of my deformity,” Emma admitted candidly.

“There is no need—” Damien began, but the sincerity in her eyes gave him pause. He fell silent and let her speak her mind.