Page 20 of Daring with a Duke (The Jennings Family #2)

20

Felicity

“A h, there’s a bit of vulgar language,” Felicity teased with a smile, a warmth like the heat from a roaring hearth settling over her.

It was as though being sidled up next to him was exactly where she belonged. Perhaps it was just the magic of this place. Perhaps they truly had ventured into another world when he’d carried her through the willow’s branches. Whatever the cause, she was loath to break the spell.

His hands casually ran over her ankle and calf, and she was confident he wasn’t aware he was still touching her. She was sure if he knew, he’d stop immediately. But it was as if they had done this a thousand times before. His hands naturally traced over her without thought. Habitual. Comfortable. Second nature.

His lips curled up in an answering smile.

When he had laughed, she had feared her heart had given out, at seeing the small glimpse of the man he kept so rigidly restrained. And she wanted to find out more about that man, about the man before her. Find out why he didn’t laugh, didn’t allow himself to laugh.

“Would you tell me about your marriage?” she blurted.

His smile disappeared, and she felt the loss like cozy bed linens ripped from her on a cool morning.

“What would you like to know?” His eyes searched hers, guarded.

She almost regretted asking. But she was desperate to know more about him.

“Was it a love match? Were you happy? Do you miss her?” She inwardly winced. Way to throw the bloody gambit at him, Fliss.

He opened his mouth, paused, and then shut it. He leaned back against the tree and stared up into the curtain of willow branches surrounding them, seeming to weigh his words.

“Those are quite heavy questions.”

She studied him, her gaze gravitating to the line of his jaw, traveling down his exposed throat just above his cravat. “I think that response is telling.”

His chin dropped, and he met her gaze again. “I suppose they should be easy questions, if the answers were in the affirmative. But my marriage with my late wife was…complicated.”

“If you are willing,” she said softly, absently running her hand up his chest and fingering his cravat. She couldn’t not touch him. It would be like forcing herself to stop breathing. “I would like to hear why.”

He stared at her but said nothing.

“Please,” she whispered.

And as if he couldn’t deny her, he glanced away, blew out a breath, and started speaking. “We were forced to marry and marry young. My father had just passed, and I had no brothers, no uncles. My grandfather wanted me to secure our line without delay. Winifred and I were thrown together and ordered to produce an heir.”

He looked back at her, his blue eyes tormented. “I was eighteen, and she was sixteen. She got with child immediately, birthing Colborn before she even turned seventeen.”

Felicity sucked in a breath, her fingers digging into his chest. “You were children.”

He gave her a sad smile. “We were. Children raising children. Playing at marriage. Her pregnancy was rough, and afterwards she suffered bouts of extreme melancholy. I had no idea what I was doing. But Colborn seemed to make her happy, and I…didn’t.

“So, I kept my distance and left the child-rearing to her and the servants. The first few years we seemed more like strangers living in the same castle than anything. So, no, we were not a love match, and we did not grow to love each other.”

She dug her teeth into the inside of her bottom lip. How terrible, empty, joyless. Stuck in a marriage, longing for love, and always denied. A future that wasn’t his choice. Pressure closed around her, thickening the air, each breath requiring more and more effort.

“Did you grow…to be friends?” There was a hopeful lilt to her voice even though she feared she already knew the answer.

“Not exactly,” he said slowly. “We learned to co-exist well enough. Especially as Colborn grew older and more children were added to our life. Her children were the one thing in life that made her happy. But we…we were civil. There was always something between us, I’m not quite sure how to explain it. A discomfort? I do not think she disliked me; she just didn’t feel anything for me at all. She wanted nothing to do with me.”

“That sounds like a very lonely marriage.” The suffocating pressure grew worse, a sharp ache piercing through her lungs like the burn of remaining underwater too long—lungs screaming for oxygen. Because of the man nodding and deflating on a weighty breath beneath her palm. Because this conversation of his past was starting to sound too close to her future.

She had a feeling, because she had learned quite a bit about this man in four short days, that he hadn’t sought love outside his marriage like her parents had.

“You were faithful to her.”

She hadn’t said it like a question, but he nodded, his blue eyes trained on hers. “Of course I was.”

Instantly a sting built deep behind her nose, an agonizing burning behind her eyes. She quickly covered her mouth as a dry sob burst from her. Of course he had been faithful. In a world where commitment meant nothing. In a loveless marriage, probably as desperate as she was right now to find love, feel love. The unfairness of it all…

He swiftly rearranged her, so she was straddling him, pulling her closer, their faces inches apart. “Easy, easy now. Breathe. What’s wrong, Felicity?” His eyes searched hers, his soft brown eyebrows furrowed tight.

Oh, God. Her hand caught another half-sob. She shook her head, refusing, unable to speak. She was a heartbeat from falling apart. The water was closing over her. She was underneath the ice of a frozen-over pond, and she couldn’t find the hole she’d fallen through. She gripped his waistcoat, fingers digging into his chest, as though she could hold off the impending breakdown.

But she couldn’t.

Everything came barreling forward at a speed too fast to stop.

The heartbreak of learning that her parents’ marriage was a lie. All her dreams crushed, based on a belief in something that didn’t exist.

A lonely existence looming, a life full of infidelity, her main purpose a showpiece and a body to house an heir.

The Plan failing; coming here and having her small chance of a different future being ripped from her with every passing day.

But it wasn’t just that.

Because all of that couldn’t compare to being tortured each day with a man who she was starting to see was everything she could ever ask for as a partner in life. But couldn’t ever be hers. Never hers.

It was all too much.

And after she broke from the weight of it all, she greatly feared who she would resurface as.

He gently pulled her hand away from her mouth and cradled her face in his palms, strong and reassuring. Ruinous.

“Talk to me, Felicity.” His voice was soft and soothing, and it shattered her.

“I… All I ever wanted was love. Love with the loyalty and faithfulness you gave your wife. But I am destined for so much less that it’s laughable.” A shuddering laugh escaped her, her voice taking on a high pitch, a panicked pitch.

“Sometimes I feel as though when people hear that I’ll gain the title of duchess, they forget that I’ll also become the man’s property. That I am completely and utterly at his mercy. I’ll have to entrust my welfare, my children’s welfare, to that man’s hands.”

She stared down at her own hands in her lap, spreading her fingers and studying her palms. “Somehow I am looked at as odd, as ungrateful, because I would rather find a man I can trust to hold my heart and not crush it, hold my body and not abuse it, hold my children and not neglect them.”

She leaned away from him and threw her arms out wide, a trembling breath rattling through her chest. “How could I ever complain about being a duchess and all the riches and power that will bring me?”

She dropped her arms and gripped his lapels, her knuckles white. She tugged sharply, as if that would somehow convince him, convince the world. Her words took on a pleading quality, “I do not seek nor need riches and power. All I want is happiness, a husband to laugh with, share worries and wishes with.”

Her voice trembled as something tight and uncontrollable spiraled inside of her. “That is not my future. I started to come to terms with it, thought maybe I could put fidelity aside if I could have something like what my parents had—friendship with love found elsewhere. But I cannot sit at home living a lonely existence, trapped as your son’s prisoner while he parades around with lover after lover and forgets I even exist except to bear his babes.”

Oh, God. She couldn’t let that be her future. It wasn’t a future. It was a sentence, imprisonment. Her breaths erupted rough and ragged, her chest vibrating with repressed sobs.

“I cannot live that life.”

She closed her eyes tight, but it only made the tears build faster, her breathing more erratic, made her feel more out of control. White rage ripped through her. At the injustice of it all. At her loss of control.

“I cannot—will not—live that life. It will destroy me.” Her voice came out low, tortured even to her own ears. “I will not be subject to ridicule and pitying whispers as Colborn has affair after affair, littering the country with his bastards, while I am forced to sit at home inside my gilt cage, while I am forced to endure his attentions, his wants, his desires, while mine will never see the light of day.”

He watched her, studied her, hands gripping her waist. But he remained silent.

“I pity the fool who underestimates me.” She slammed her palms against the trunk on either side of his head, bringing their faces inches apart again. “I. Will. Not.”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t look away, his eyes unreadable.

“Colborn will rue that day four years ago when he chose me as his possession. I will make his life unbearable, and he will never see it coming. I will silently slice away at him, small, calculated cuts that accumulate over time. He needs an heir? There are countless ways to prevent pregnancy. He forbids me from taking a lover? Thwarts my attempts? Then he better not hire any male staff. Dear God, I will turn into a bloody monster. I won’t even be able to look at myself. I…I…”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, sticky and itchy against her skin, and she couldn’t seem to draw in air. The Duke tucked her to his chest, and the sobs finally came, uncontrolled and ugly, wrenched from her.

“I don’t want to turn into that person,” she choked out. But she knew she would. She felt the cynicism creeping in now, building, taking over.

She shook in his arms, and he held her silently, forearms digging into her back, nose buried in her hair, surrounding her. Feeling so unfairly like safety. Like home.

Eventually her sobs quieted to soft shudders, her tears slowed and began to dry. She leaned back and met his unreadable gaze. His knuckles gently brushed away the remaining tears from her cheeks, his gaze locked on the movement.

“Your Grace, I…” Remorse, embarrassment, and bone-deep exhaustion fell over her.

He looked up at her, his eyes turbulent blue waters. And then he spoke, low and barely more than a rumble, “Ash. Call me, Ash.”

“Ash,” she said in a weak whisper, and the minute his name left her lips, her heart stumbled. “Are you—are you not angry at me? For saying such things about your son.”

His grip on her waist tightened. “I would never fault you for protecting yourself, fighting for yourself, when no one else will. When the one person in the world who is supposed to protect you fails in that regard. When he is the one who causes you pain.”

Her lips trembled. “I don’t want to face a future alone.”

He nodded, murmuring, “I know,” then pushed back the locks of hair on either side of her face that had fallen free at some point during her tirade. “I understand all too well.”

His hands never fell away, instead sliding to frame her face.

“You are trapped,” he whispered. “Backed into a corner. At some point, everyone reaches their limit.”

His gaze dipped to her mouth, and her pulse took off.

Her gaze locked on Ash’s lips as they curled around his soft words.

“There is only so much a person can withstand. Until they finally break.”

His thumb brushed over her bottom lip, and her eyes fluttered shut.

His breath coasted over her lips.

“I believe I have found mine.”

His lips met hers.