Page 11 of The Duke I Wished For (A Maypole in Mayfair #5)

N either Blake nor his brother Adam were known for being garrulous. But as they sat side by side near the fire on this chilly spring evening, Blake was certain this was the first time he’d ever been more churlish than his notoriously terse brother.

“So what’d you say then?” Adam took another swig of his whiskey.

“What do you mean, what did I say? There was nothing to say. Her parents took her away from me.”

“Mph.”

Adam’s grunt was easy to interpret and Blake stiffened. “It’s not like I could force the woman to give me an answer, now could I?”

Adam eyed him levelly.

Blake let out a sharp exhale. “I wouldn’t have invited you over here if I knew you were going to judge me so.”

“You didn’t invite me. Clarissa did. Didn’t you, sweetheart?”

Clarissa beamed at her uncle.

Adam wasn’t wrong. When Blake had taken Clarissa to visit her uncle last week, she’d told him he needed to come to their house to play. And while the retired captain might be uncivil to most and a terror to his enemies, his niece had him wrapped around her little finger.

“Besides, I’ve barely said a word,” Adam shot back. “You’re doing enough blaming for both of us.”

Blake pinched the bridge of his nose. His brother was right. He’d been defensive and on edge as he’d given his brother the brief rundown of how he’d gone and fallen for a near stranger, and then went about proposing with no thought to propriety whatsoever.

“I should have spoken to her father first,” he muttered.

Adam leaned over to pick up the doll Clarissa had dropped and handed it back to her as she played at their feet. “Here you are, moppet.”

Clarissa grinned at him, and Adam gave her a rare smile that he seemed to reserve only for his niece.

The smile and the flickering of the firelight did nothing to soften the hard lines of his features, and it only exacerbated the scar that cut across his left cheek, a remnant of his time on the battlefield—but Clarissa never seemed to notice any of Adam’s deficiencies.

How the child could be so afraid of everyone else and yet so warm to two beastly men, Blake could not say.

“You won’t hear any argument from me there,” Adam said mildly. “You should have spoken to her father first.” And then he fell silent.

Which was his way.

Adam and his blasted silences. Blake shifted in his seat as the silence grew. “I know I handled it poorly. But I’ll do right by her in the end.”

“Course you will,” Adam muttered. “And if it helps, I understand why you went to her first.”

“You do?”

Adam shrugged. “If you’d asked her parents, she wouldn’t have much of a choice, now would she?” Adam’s lips curved up in a rueful smile. “One of the perks of being a duke. Everyone forgives you when you break the rules.”

Now it was Blake’s turn to grunt. Adam had the right of it. He had wanted to be sure she liked him well enough before going to her father…

He frowned. No, that wasn’t it. He didn’t want her to just…like him. He wanted her to feel the same way he did when he was around her.

He fell back in his seat with a sigh. “Do I even go to her father when she’s made it clear she doesn’t want to marry me?”

“Did she say that?”

Blake frowned as he recalled her odd response. “No, she…she went on about embroidery.”

Adam’s brows lifted, and for a moment they sat there listening to Clarissa whisper to herself as she played with her dolls.

Adam shifted in his seat, his brows knitting together. “To be clear, you proposed, and she…spoke of embroidery?”

Blake flinched. “I know what she meant,” he said. “The first time I spoke with her, and then again at the tea party with Clarissa, I may have told her about…the list.”

Adam’s eyes widened. “No.”

“Yes.” Blake fought the urge to justify his actions. “So I believe she may have gotten the wrong impression when I suggested she take on the role of duchess?—”

“Just a moment,” Adam interrupted. “ Take on the role? Is that what you said? Blake…” His brother leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. “How exactly did you propose marriage?”

Blake hesitated. He’d left out the specifics when he’d told his brother the tale. They were painful to remember and worse to say out loud. Thankfully, he was bought a small reprieve as Clarissa, apparently tired of her dolls, climbed into her uncle’s lap.

Adam wrapped his arms around her as Clarissa curled up and snuggled, and then Adam met Blake’s gaze with an expectant stare.

Blake cleared his throat. “I’ll admit, I wasn’t exactly…romantic.”

Adam’s lips twitched.

“I didn’t want to pressure her,” Blake added.

Adam grunted in acknowledgment. “From the sounds of it, the girl gets enough pressure from that mother of hers.”

“Precisely,” Blake said. His muscles tensed with anger every time he thought of the way her mother spoke to her. Like an errant child, and even then, he’d never push his daughter that way. “I don’t want her to be forced into this.”

Blake frowned. He wanted to marry her. Quite desperately, really. He might not have known her long, but there was a connection there that he’d never even dared to hope for with a wife.

But it wasn’t difficult to see that her mother undermined her and tried to control her… Rage boiled inside him at the memory of their very first meeting. The way she’d hidden behind him to avoid her mother and the man her mother had clearly intended for her to meet.

His hands clenched into fists. “Blast it all, I want to save her from her mother and whatever horrid match she has planned. But how am I to do that if Daff doesn’t want to marry me?”

This outburst was met by two surprised stares. He supposed he had been quiet for a while there, and his voice had been filled with all the anger swelling inside.

Clarissa turned her gaze up to Adam. “Why is Papa mad?”

He pet her hair soothingly. “He wants to marry your new friend, but he’s not sure she’ll say yes, love.”

Said so simply and easily, as if Blake’s whole world and future happiness wasn’t at stake. Blake pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm this storm inside him that made him tense with this urge to run out into the rain until he reached that finishing school.

He’d knock on the door and demand to see her and?—

“Did you tell her she’s pretty?” Clarissa’s voice cut into his thoughts like a knife.

His head lifted. “Er…”

No. The answer was no.

“Did you tell her she’s nice?” Clarissa’s eyes were wide, and her expression hopeful.

Blake had no doubt Clarissa knew they were talking about Daffodil, and his heart ached.

“No,” he admitted. He hadn’t told Daffodil anything of the sort.

He hadn’t told her that her smile made him feel alive inside, or that the way she handled his daughter made him want to worship the ground her slippered feet tread.

He hadn’t told her she was stunningly beautiful, and delightfully outgoing, or that she never ceased to surprise him when she spoke, or?—

“Did you tell her you love her?” Clarissa asked.

Blake stared at his daughter, and when he tried to speak, his jaw went slack. He didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that he looked as foolish as he felt.

He loved her.

Blake sank back in his seat, feeling for all the world like he’d just been struck by a blow to the chest as he realized the truth of it.

“No, sweetheart,” he said to Clarissa, who was waiting for a response. “I didn’t tell her that.”

“Well you should,” she said.

He nodded, rubbing at his chest. But he couldn’t think of words to respond, just as he couldn’t bring himself to get angry when his brother had the nerve to tip his head back and laugh at what a fool he was.