Page 20 of On the Ropes of Scandal (With Love in Their Corner #3)

“Why not?” Duncan shrugged, and hated that his mother watched them like a hawk. “If I’m to marry you tomorrow, I damn well need to know who you really are.”

“For shame, Duncan. Where are your manners?” his mother chided.

“I apologize.” He nodded. “Phoebe, would you like to accompany me on a drive? Perhaps a walk in Hyde Park if the weather holds?”

“Yes, thank you.”

His mother patted her arm. “I sent your pelisse to the butler. He’ll help you into it in the entryway.”

And then he escorted his fiancé out of the drawing room. There was no going back now.

*

Hyde Park

Mayfair

Unfortunately, she was quiet on the drive to Hyde Park.

Though it hadn’t started raining, the air had the feel of that happening quite soon.

To be fair, Duncan hadn’t a clue how to begin the conversation.

How did one manage a polite talk with a woman who’d basically kidnapped him and pretended that he was her husband, a woman who’d manipulated his emotions?

They more or less vanished into their own thoughts until arriving at the park.

After he assisted her out of the carriage, he instructed the driver to wait for them, that they shouldn’t be out for more than an hour, then he tucked Phoebe’s hand into the crook of his arm and began their walk.

In silence.

No sooner than they reached a spot deep in the park than a steady, cold rain began.

“Shit.” Duncan grabbed hold of her hand.

“There!” He pointed to a small stone structure that had a crumbling roof.

The whole thing resembled an old Roman temple, no doubt a folly for decoration.

Hadn’t Alex told him about this spot in the park and how he’d made use of it with his wife when he’d been courting her?

“It’s the only shelter in the immediate area, and quite frankly, I don’t fancy being cold and wet just now. ”

“Neither do I,” Phoebe said as she hitched up her skirts and ran beside him until they reached the folly. Then she laughed, but there was only a trace of mirth in the sound. “That about sums up our lives for the past week or so, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” The chill in the air was exacerbated by the rain.

“Please, sit.” He gestured at a stone bench.

“We might be here a while.” Once she did, he frowned at her.

There was no reason to delay this conversation.

“Why did you do it, Phoebe?” Despite wishing to remain nonchalant about it, emotion graveled his voice.

“Do what?”

He huffed. “You know what.”

“I have no excuse.” She shrugged as she focused her gaze outside their makeshift shelter as she clasped her gloved hands in her lap. “Other than what I’ve already told you; I was lonely.”

“So you decided to make up a whole life and reel me into it?” Merely saying she was lonely wasn’t enough to justify the emotional gambit she’d put him through. “What the hell?”

She flinched as if he’d hit her, and he told himself to moderate his tone when next he spoke.

“You have no idea how difficult it is to be one of the sole survivors of your family.” Not once did she look at him.

“Because you still have your mother and your brothers, you haven’t experienced the sort of loneliness or emptiness that I constantly struggle with, that grief that attacks with no warning.

” A long-suffering sigh escaped her. “Add to that the loss of two fiancés, and there aren’t many things to look forward to. ”

The words humbled him and took the edge off his annoyance. “I’m sorry for the deaths you have had in your circle, but—”

“No.” Phoebe shook her head. She raised her gaze and found his.

Sadness and guilt warred for dominance in those depths.

“Without my Aunt Bess, I don’t know what would have become of me, for I long ago grew tired of grieving, and I am sick of having people leave me.

” Then she narrowed her eyes while a trace of determination went through her expression.

He admired her for that. “When you came along, I saw that as an opportunity to grasp at a bit of happiness for myself after all the struggles. I’d hoped your memories might stay missing so that we could enjoy a life together. ”

“Well, some of them are coming back the more I heal. Having familiar surroundings and people about is helping.”

“I see.” She nodded. “I’m glad for you, then. Clearly, this is the world in which you belong and where you thrive.”

There was so much dejection in the statement that his chest tightened.

God, I’ve been a cad. To be fair, he’d been taken advantage of, and had gone along with the story because he hadn’t known better.

Did everyone assume he was a pushover and could be trifled with?

“Answer me another question?” When she nodded, he continued. “Why did you say you were pregnant?”

“I was afraid you might leave anyway after my aunt questioned you. I needed a way to make you stay, for I was just beginning to acclimate to having you in my life, to… care for you.”

And now all of that was gone, smashed due to her lies. Still, his heart ached. “Oddly, I wanted that child.” It was a difficult admission for him because he wasn’t a family man.

“Again, I apologize. I didn’t give thought to the fact my lies would hurt so many people.” Her eyes welled with tears. “I couldn’t stop once I started, yet I also couldn’t just turn you out into the night and wish you well.”

“While I understand that, you could have at least told the truth, that I was a stranger who’d lost his memories.”

“Would you have stayed?”

For the space of a few heartbeats, he remained silent. “I don’t know.” It seemed he wasn’t certain of anything these days. With a shrug, he sighed and steeled himself against her tears. Were they even genuine? “Regardless, I’m sorry for your losses.”

Her shrug only lifted one shoulder. “It is life.”

Not wanting to be sucked into another emotional quagmire, he temporarily glanced away from her. “Now you’ll have the husband you always wanted.” Unfortunately, there was much bitterness in his tone that he couldn’t tame.

“Quite frankly, I don’t want that.” When she stood, Phoebe went to the edge of the folly with her back to him.

“I lost the man you were before, the man I was going to build a life with; because of what I’ve done, things between us will never be the same, regardless that we’re being forced to wed.

” When she turned to face him, the tears in her eyes fell to her cheeks and she sniffled.

“I didn’t want any of this to happen. It’s pathetic, I know, and sounds horrid when said aloud.

I just wanted someone by my side, someone who needed me for me. ”

Shit, shit, shit.

Pain radiated around Duncan’s heart, but he ignored it the best he could. Neither of them were the same people they’d been last week. Everything had changed, and now he couldn’t trust her. “I don’t want to be domesticated, never have. I want to return to my old life.”

“Of being nothing?” One of her blonde eyebrows rose in question, and the backbone she showed impressed him, for it appeared she would rally.

To fight, and that he understood. “Of always waiting to see if the debt collectors will catch you up? Or perhaps it’s to return to chasing skirts and finding your next mistress? ”

“What the devil are you on about?” The sound of the heavy rain dulled the rising tones of their voices.

“Your mother told me the sort of man you truly are, told me about all the scandals, the women, the gambling, the pockets always to let, the way you skirt responsibility. I couldn’t believe it at first, for the man I’d known in Surrey was exactly the opposite.

” She took a few steps toward him over the small expanse of stone floor.

“And now I see that it was true all along, and I was the fool for thinking you could be anything else.”

How the devil she’d managed to turn the blame of the conversation onto him he would never know, but he didn’t like it.

Hot ire rose in his chest. “You let me bed you, thinking we’d already done that multiple times during a false marriage.

” When he shoved a hand through his hair, he knocked his top hat off.

It fell to the stone floor with a dull thud.

“And you an innocent the whole time! Hell, how did you know I would have consented to any of that?”

“You were quite interested.” Color stained her cheeks. “Things happened far too quickly. I was swept away, but I don’t regret any of that. At least I won’t die an old maid.”

There were no signs of malicious intent in her expression, and those damned tears just kept falling, dragging him down into an emotional pit again.

For a long time, Duncan stared at her, and to be honest, he struggled with how he felt about the whole thing.

It was one thing for him to seduce a woman and then leave her the next day, but it was quite another to have the same scenario done to him.

Yet what she’d done was worse. She’d lied to him, told him they’d been married, that they were expecting a baby, all so she could manipulate him into staying with her due to loneliness.

An empty feeling grew within his chest. Yet again, he’d only been wanted for something he could give to someone.

“Well, bully for you. At least you got what you wanted from me, huh?” It would seem he would forever be testy around everyone in his life.

“That’s not all of it. What you and I had for a week…” Her swallow was audible. “I’ll never forget, for it was the best time in my life.”

“Yet we will truly be wed tomorrow.” Why was this so confusing? And more to the point, why the devil did he care?

“It won’t be the same, and you’ll go into it with no intentions of being a faithful husband.” There was so much desperation in her voice that the urge to cast up his accounts grew strong.

“Perhaps, but you don’t have the right to make that—or any—decisions for me.

” Yes, he was angry—livid, in fact—for what she’d done to him, and yes, he felt empathy for her reasoning, but none of that meant he should be forced into something he didn’t want.

Did he? While enjoying the fake marriage, there had been a decided feeling of belonging, as if he’d finally found his place in the world.

All that had been yanked away, and it left him at sixes and sevens.

Was it because he was grieving what had happened to him, or was he still longing for something he obviously didn’t have?

“I understand that. I do, but once again, I will be alone, except this time I’ll be trapped in a world where I don’t belong.”

Well, damn.

His heart squeezed, for that butted up against what he’d just thought.

Emotions came at him from all sides, and he didn’t wish to relive any of them, for he’d been a fool in Surrey because he’d thought himself in love with her.

Well, that won’t happen again. Tamping down tight on those feelings, he looked at her again as she stood there with tears rolling down her cheeks, and as it turned out, he wasn’t as strong as he thought.

How was it that he could fight men in a boxing ring, yet the sight of a woman’s tears left him wilting?

“Come here.” Duncan reeled her into his arms, and though she fought against him, eventually, she went pliant with a soft sob and melted into his hold.

“I wish this hadn’t happened? It’s hurt us both, just like my aunt warned me it would. Frankly, this is worse than feeling lonely,” she said, and her words were muffled by his cravat.

“Agreed, but as you said, it is life. We must endure it, mistakes, triumphs, all of it. Sometimes our reckoning comes, and there is naught we can do except meet it.” Despite his confusion, he put a curled finger beneath her chin, lifted her head, and then gently fitted his lips to hers in a gentle kiss designed to offer comfort.

And the embrace was as contenting and exciting as he remembered, damn it all to hell.

There was history between them, more than what he usually had with a mistress, and there was something… comforting in that.

But he didn’t want a wife, especially a woman who’d already fed him a string of untruths.

Did he?