Page 35 of Daring with a Duke (The Jennings Family #2)

35

Felicity

A knock sounded on Felicity’s bedchamber door. She blew out a breath. That was most likely Felix, probably on a mission to berate her for her rude—and deuced odd—behavior in the Duke’s study.

“Come in, Felix,” she called as she placed another pin in her coiffure staring at her reflection in the looking glass on her dressing table.

Footsteps thudded on the rug and then paused. A throat cleared, and she wasn’t sure how she knew from that small noise, but she did—it wasn’t Felix. It was Ash.

Her eyes slid shut briefly, and she pushed down the hurt running rampant in her chest. Shoved back the frustration clawing its way up her throat. Donned an armor of indifference.

She plastered a deliberately bored expression on her face and turned to face him. “Your Grace,” she drawled, arching a brow. “I do not recall granting you entry.”

Ash faltered in his steps toward her and stopped two strides away, blue gaze trapping hers to the point she couldn’t look away even if she wanted to. “Felicity… There are things I think we should discuss.”

She blinked rapidly. “Oh, do you now? That’s odd, because if I’m not mistaken, you just made all my decisions for me a few moments ago. What could there possibly be to discuss?”

Well, her indifference hadn’t lasted very long, had it? Eh, sarcasm was more diverting anyhow.

“Oh! I know—” She smacked her palm to her forehead. “Let me guess. You have made some more decisions on my behalf, perhaps even selected some suitors for me that fit the criteria you believe is fitting for me. Yes, that must be it.”

He grimaced. “I owe you an apology.” He inhaled a deep breath. “I made quite a few assumptions back there. And not only that, I made a decision regarding your future that I had no right to make. I…I was trying to do the right thing; what’s best for you.”

She ground her teeth, a feral noise coming from deep in her throat. She was probably, maybe, most definitely going. To. Kill. Him.

“Let me just make sure I understand this all clearly…” She paused and let him twitch under her gaze for a moment.

“Now, correct me if I have anything wrong here…” She held up a finger. “I am currently free to marry whomever I wish.” She ticked off her fingers as she went. “No one will ever compare to dancing with me. You have never desired anything more in life than me.” She looked pointedly at him after that one. “We shared an incendiary night together, to which we not only clearly have incredible physical compatibility, but you spouted some blasted poetry of how we went from two separate beings to one, to us.” She paused and tilted her head. “Following so far? Do I have all of that correct?”

He opened his mouth, but promptly shut it and nodded.

“Perfect. That’s very bloody excellent. So, I think we can agree you have some strong feelings for me. Now let us move on to moi . I’m sure I have said quite a few things that have expressed how I feel about you, but for the sake of clarity…” She spread her arms wide. “I am in love you.”

His eyes sank shut, and his features tightened.

God damn it. This was not supposed to be distressing news. It was a declaration of bloody love. She loved him. He loved her. At least she was almost completely certain he did. They were both free to marry who they wished. The answer was quite simple. Even a numpty could figure it out.

“Felicity… I won’t deny anything you said. And hearing those words from your lips… They’re the most painfully beautiful words I have ever heard—”

“I have a question for you then,” Felicity interrupted. “If you put all your insecurities, all your reservations aside, what would you want?”

“I…” He opened and closed his mouth, struggling and saying absolutely nothing.

“Damn it, Ash. Stop thinking. Ignore that convoluted mind of yours. Just answer the blasted question. When it comes to us, what would you want?”

“I want you,” he said hoarsely.

He said it like a man giving a confession, admitting to a crime. Why was it a crime to love her? She wanted to throw her pile of hairpins at him. She was always fighting. For herself. For her and Ash. Would anyone ever fight for her? Was that so much to ask?

He stood there, his hands fisted at his sides. Unmoving. As though he was holding on to invisible chains rooting him to the spot, not allowing himself closer. “For the rest of my days, I want you, Felicity. But even with the betrothal no longer an issue, there are still so many things that stand between us.”

Clearly, it was too much to ask. Fine. She’d won enough spats with her brothers growing up… What was one more? She stood and leaned back against her dressing table, crossing her arms over her chest.

“All right, let’s tackle them one by one then.”

“Pardon?”

She waved her hand in a on with it motion. “List them. Let us go through all of your reasons, hesitations, qualms, what-have-you, and I will refute each and every blasted one.”

His shoulders lifted and deflated on a sigh. “The scandal… It doesn’t matter that you are no longer betrothed to Colborn. You would still be moving on to the man’s father. Society will tear you apart. You will be given the cut direct, shunned—”

She flicked her hand dismissively. “You are already a recluse. I have no qualms joining you in your reclusivity. All I need is you. Not to mention, gossip fades with time. So, that is a non-issue.”

He frowned, his mouth opening and closing. “I… I don’t believe reclusivity is a word.”

That is what he took away from what she just said? She rolled her eyes. “Next reason, Duke.”

His eyes shot to hers, intense, dark, all frustration evaporating for a heartbeat. Her lips curved in a smug smile. He really liked when she called him Duke.

He shook his head, and she let out a breathy snort as he struggled to bring himself back to the argument at hand. Something he wouldn’t have to do…if he just allowed himself to be with her. But men were lobcocks. Yet they ran the world. Lunacy. Blaspheme. Idiocy.

“Our age difference,” he said gruffly. “Eighteen years, Felicity. That is not a trivial difference.”

She bobbed one shoulder. “My parents were fifteen years apart. They were blessedly happy.” Granted, that was as friends, but Ash needn’t know that little tidbit.

“Is that not exactly my point?” he was saying. “Your father left your mother a widow much too young. Do you want that for yourself as well?”

Felicity jutted out her chin. “That is my decision, Ash. That is not your decision to make.”

He looked heavenward and swore, “Fuck, Felicity. Do you not see what that means, though?” He locked gazes with her again, blue eyes beseeching and beautiful. “I will be over fifty a decade from now. If you’re not mourning my death, you’ll end up caring for me as I age and become your invalid husband. You should be with someone closer to your age, who has longevity on their side.”

All the fight fled her person, and her heart constricted. Oh, Ash, you bloody thoughtful fool. She understood where he was coming from, she truly did, but it was still a daft argument.

“I want you to know I say this with the utmost care, with no intent for harm.” She took a deep breath and dredged up Ash’s painful past. “But your late wife passed young. She was close to my age, was she not?”

Ash’s body froze. His chest stopped rising and falling. His eyes stopped blinking. His hands stopped fisting his trousers. And then he let out a small breath. And another. As though he forcibly had to make himself work the breath in and out of his lungs.

“Yes,” he managed roughly. “She was eight-and-twenty when she passed.”

“Life is unpredictable, Ash,” Felicity said softly. “No one truly knows when their time on this earth will come to an end. Would you not want to take advantage of every moment you have left and spend it with the one you love? Would you truly rather cut our time short on your own accord? To watch me marry another, watch me live in an empty, lonely marriage instead? How is that the better option?” She stepped up to him and slid her hands to cup his jaw. “Because even if the fates decided to take you away from me tomorrow, I would still choose to love you for every minute up until then,” she whispered.

A small muscle above his eye ticked. He held so much back, so much trapped inside. He pressed his lips together, locked his jaw, and swallowed hard. Like he believed he could swallow away the emotion, choke it down until it wasn’t present anymore.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered back. “I have sinned too much in this life.”

She squeezed his jaw, fingers digging into his skin as she gently shook him. “No,” she said firmly. “No, Ash. You continue to come up with reasons that do not exist to deny yourself happiness because you believe you don’t deserve it. But Ash, you deserve happiness more than any man I know. You have lived a life constantly punishing yourself. For things that were. Not. Your. Fault.”

She loosened her hold on him, fingers brushing softly over his brow and pushing back his short brown hair, tracing over the distinguished silver at his temple. “You have turned yourself into a version of Sisyphus. But the boulder you repeatedly push up the mountain doesn’t roll down on its own. You push it back down, just so you have to push it back up again. Leave it at the top of the mountain, Ash. Stop punishing yourself. Let yourself be happy. I am standing right here. Yours for the taking. Happiness.”

He stared at her in silence, seconds ticking by loud and lumbering and seemingly lasting forever.

She dropped her hand and gave him the time he needed. Not pushing. Just patience.

Finally, his mouth opened. He struggled for a moment before the words came. “It-It is not… an easy thing for me to do. I was never the husband I should have been for my previous wife. And I was not the father my children needed either, even if I hope that part is changing for the better. Winnifred and I were together for twelve years and I didn’t inspire her to love me.” He took a step back and looked up at the ceiling as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Twelve years, Felicity. I couldn’t inspire her to even want my touch.”

His gaze fell to hers, exhaustion and defeat etched on his features. “She subjected herself to my visits; she endured them. That should never be the case, but I was never able to inspire anything more in her. And in the end, not only could I not give her love or intimacy, but I couldn’t keep her alive either. Nor my daughter.” His voice broke. “I feel as if I have failed in every way possible in this life,” he whispered. “I do not know how to move past that.”

Felicity’s heart left her and went straight to him. She knew Ash felt responsible for his wife’s and daughter’s deaths. She knew he felt as though he had failed his children. But she had never realized that underneath it all lay the insecurity of a man who not only believed he was unworthy and undeserving of love, but believed he was not loveable at all.

Unlovable .

She would prove to him that he was.

Loved. Desired. Worthy.

She would show him how to move on. That he could. That it was possible.

“You cannot create love where it does not exist, Ash. Just as you cannot take it away when it has taken root. You can tell me all you want that you are undeserving, and I should not love you, and I should save my love for someone else. But it doesn’t work that way. I love you. Only you. Forever you.”

She stepped up to him, her hands reaching for his cravat, and she hurriedly worked to undo it.

“Do you not think that a marriage where there is love even before it has begun has a much better outlook than your previous one?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. She trailed her fingers over his newly exposed skin, and he shivered.

“Let me help you move past this,” she whispered. “Let me be strong for you. I want to be that person.”

She moved to his shirt, pulling it from his trousers, and he helped her lift it over his head. Then she gave him a soft push on his chest and walked him backward until he bumped into her mattress. He leaned against it, and she dropped to her knees.

“You inspire so much feeling in me, Ash. I can hardly bear it.”