Page 104 of Claiming his Cursed Duchess

Adam stalked across the room, lowering onto the bed beside her a gripping her hands.

“Do not speak of such things. I cannot bear it.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “You cannot bear it? Why? I left the townhouse in London, and you told me to ‘do as I must’, Adam. Do you know what that was like?”

“I am sorry.”

“I do not need your apologies. I do not need you at all.”

She snatched her hands away, her face red and angry as she glowered at him. Adam leaned back, settling himself more comfortably upon the bed.

If my duchess thinks I will be deterred that easily, she is in for a surprise.

“I came to find you tonight, to beg you to return to London with me. You will not believe me, perhaps, but I have recognized howmuch of a fool I have been. My family and my friends have taken pains to remind me at every step.”

He edged closer as she gave him a warning look.

“Rosaline, I love you. I would walk through fire a thousand times over if you would come back with me and be my duchess. I have made some grave mistakes, and treated you abominably—I know that. But this marriage is so much more than a mere convenience to me.”

Her eyes were filling with tears now, but the stubborn set of her jaw did not change.

“I have been an independent man all of my life. I have had to be. I have lost people who I loved more than anything in the world. I was afraid of allowing you to be one of them. I told myself that holding you at arm’s length would protect me from the pain of losing you.

“But I know now, that we must face life’s challenges together, not apart. Please forgive me. I will do everything I can to atone for how I treated you.”

He waited, his breath held for a frozen moment. Rosaline did not look at him, staring off into the middle distance, her expression impossible to read.

Slowly, a tear ran down her cheek and he gently brushed it away, his heart clenching with fear that she would turn away from him after all he had said.

Why would she trust me now?

“Rosaline?” he whispered. “Please say something.”

Rosaline’s mind was a whirl of indecision.

Hearing Adam say that he loved her had made her heart sing. She had known her own feelings for some time, but it was thrilling to hear them from his lips.

But still her mind was filled with doubts.

He had looked at her outside the inn as though she was the most precious jewel in his possession.

But can I trust it?

She sighed, rubbing a hand over her face, forgetting the throbbing lump on her head.

She winced, glancing back at Adam, who was looking at the site of it with a familiar expression of rage.

“You hurt me,” Rosaline confessed. “You dismissed me, and told me I was worthless to you?—”

“I know. I am sorry. I wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me fromwhat?” she asked. “And do not lie to me again.”

Adam’s gaze met hers and her pulse quickened as she saw his eyes turn sad as he finally began to speak.

“Claridge had a letter in his possession. A letter that implicated Henry in something very serious. My brother is not a perfect man, but he made a decision for the greater good of the men in his regiment. However, if the truth got out, his superior officers would not see it that way—if Claridge had leaked the contents of that letter, Henry could have hanged.”

Rosaline’s lips thinned. “And that was why you married me?”