Viscount Breckenridge to the Rescue (38 page)

“That’s what I thought last night was all about.”

His flat tone halted her mid-rant.

She searched his eyes, could read nothing beyond an implacable determination.

“I thought”—he continued in the same cold, impossibly even tone—“that last night was all about your
true
affections. I thought it was about exchanging opinions—if not vows—on that score. I thought last night was about us examining our
affections
and thereby taking a step closer to the altar.”

Oh, God.
Wildly she searched his eyes, trying to convince herself she wasn’t looking at the confirmation of her worst fears.

He’d
known
; he’d recognized what she’d been doing and had with cold deliberation—the same deliberate planning with which she’d approached the exchange—given her what she’d wanted. He hadn’t been swept away by passion, hadn’t been moved by her wordless declaration—he’d been as deliberate as she in using the act to communicate what he’d known she’d wanted to hear . . . he’d come looking for her intending to do just that.

She’d received the response she’d schemed to get, but now she had no reason to believe he’d meant it, rather than that he’d seized the opportunity she’d engineered as the surest route to his desired goal.

The hollowness inside intensified.

His hazel eyes bored into hers; his voice dropped to a lower register. “Are you telling me last night
wasn’t
an indication of your true affections?”

She glanced aside. Forced her shoulders to lift in a small shrug, then elevated her nose. “Last night . . . was just another night. Wasn’t it?” She glanced fleetingly at him, saw nothing but an increasing stoniness in his features, looked away and hurriedly went on, “It was, I grant you, somewhat more intense, but . . .”

Why the devil had she let herself expose her heart so? It
hurt
. Just thinking that he’d deliberately intended to engage with her, to persuade her like that even though he didn’t—clearly didn’t—love her slashed like a blade through her heart.

Dragging in a breath, raising her head higher, she baldly lied, “I wasn’t aware it was anything all that special. It wasn’t on my part.”

Silence greeted her pronouncement.

She couldn’t look at him, didn’t dare. If she did, he would see the emotions roiling inside her.

“I . . . see.” There was a tone in his voice that she’d never heard before.

She wanted to look at him but didn’t. The too-exposed, too screamingly vulnerable part of her couldn’t.

She sensed him draw in a huge, deep breath.

Then he more crisply, almost normally, said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve just remembered something I need to do.”

Before she even glanced his way, Breckenridge turned and started walking back along the path, heading toward the rear of the manor, back the way he’d come.

He kept his head high, his shoulders straight.

He’d suffered rejection before.

He couldn’t remember it hurting like this.

Last night hadn’t been anything special on her part. What he’d seen as exposing his heart—and his soul, come to think of it—had meant nothing to her.

Suppressing the urge to swear and kick something took effort.

Just as well—the effort distracted him.

He knew better than to get on an unfamiliar horse in such a temper. In such turmoil. He kept walking. Out past the stables, out along a track between two fences.

Picking up his pace, he strode fast and furiously. Only when he was out of sight of the manor’s turrets did he halt. Hands on his hips, breathing hard, he hung his head.

Closed his eyes.

He’d thought . . . tipping back his head, he blinked up at the blue, blue sky.

He’d thought she loved him.

But no.

For some reason, the foremost rake in the ton was impossible to love.

Perhaps because he
was
the foremost rake in the ton . . . but that had been a reaction to not being loved by Helen Maitland. He’d thought to show her what she’d declined by becoming the noble lover all the ladies like her begged to grace their beds . . .

And he’d somehow made himself unlovable in the process.

He didn’t know how he’d done it; if he knew, he’d try to change.

But no. Too late. He was what he’d become, and no matter what he thought had occurred in the dark passionate watches of the night, Heather Cynster wasn’t about to give her heart to him.

B
ack in the herb garden Heather stood where he’d left her, her gaze fixed on the spot where he’d passed out of her sight.

He’d gone.

Simply turned on his heel and left . . . because he’d realized his tack hadn’t been working and so had abandoned it and gone off to think of some other way to pressure her?

Probably.

She’d thought back over the words they’d exchanged, but her conclusion remained the same. Last night he’d deliberately set out to use the very same route she’d thought to use to demonstrate her love for him, but his intent had been merely to tell her what he’d realized she wanted to know. While she was truly in love with him, he wasn’t truly in love with her.

He wanted to marry her because he’d made up his mind that that was the correct thing to do, and he’d decided it would suit him well enough.

After what she’d just learned, he would need to think again.

As for her . . . she would have to accept that there was no future for her with him.

That there was fated to be no
them
.

H
e finally understood what it was to lose one’s heart.

His chest felt empty, hollowed out; he couldn’t think, could barely function well enough to preserve an outward glamour of normalcy.

He couldn’t let this—let her—go. Felt compelled to step far beyond what was wise and make one last push. . . .

Even if she didn’t love him, he loved her.

He knew it, had always in some corner of his brain suspected it, but now there was no hiding from the truth. Not after last night, when he’d thought, been convinced beyond question, that she loved him—and he’d seized on the prospect, gloried, and rejoiced—and in doing so had finally recognized all he wanted of his life.

Had recognized, with an unshakable finality, that he had never felt and would never feel for any other woman what he felt for her. She was the only lady he would ever love.

And if in general love was deemed worth fighting for, then the chance to love was even more precious to a man like him.

Such thoughts, that understanding, drove him to hunt her down.

Luncheon, as usual, was taken with the entire household in the great hall. He and Heather sat apart, with the twins and Algaria between them. Neither Heather nor he made any effort to communicate in any way, not by word or glance; if the others found anything unusual in their mutual avoidance, no one gave any sign.

When the meal ended, and everyone rose and headed off in various directions to whatever tasks and chores awaited them, he followed Heather from the hall. He caught up with her in the shadowed alcove at the top of the stairs leading down to the dungeons.

Hearing his boot steps, she halted and faced him.

He was determined to keep this brief. “I’m about to ride out with Richard.” During the meal, he’d heard her arranging with Algaria to process the herbs she’d gathered that morning. “Before I do, I wanted to state that I’ve had enough. Enough circling around our reality.”

He couldn’t stop his expression, already hard, from hardening even further; his face felt like graven stone. “I’ve given you time to grow accustomed to that reality—as much time as I can, as much as we can afford. As much as the situation allows us. Regardless, the facts haven’t changed, and they dictate that we must wed.” He held her stormy gaze. “You have to accept that, have to acknowledge that there’s no choice, make up your mind to it, and then start planning to leave here for London. We can’t hide here for forever.”

Heather stared into his eyes, agate eyes that told her nothing—that showed her nothing beyond utterly determined, invincible implacability.

Her temper geysered; she opened her mouth on a scalding retort—

“Breckenridge!”

Richard, calling from the front hall.

They’d both turned their heads at the call.

She looked back at Breckenridge.

Just as he stepped away, met her gaze, and curtly nodded. “I’ll find you when I get back. And we can start making the necessary decisions.”

With that, he walked off.

Heather watched him stride down the corridor. Felt her fury fade.

Felt the cold emptiness within swell and grow.

And wondered where, in dealing with him, she had gone so terribly wrong.

H
er heart had sunk so low that it had drowned.

It seemed she was finally seeing his true colors—his unswerving focus on getting his ring on her finger, love be damned.

Love—her “true affection”—was for him merely a route to his goal.

After he’d left, she’d come down to Catriona’s workroom. Algaria had joined her, but only long enough to show her what to do with the wormwood, rue, and tansy she’d gathered that morning. Leaving her to bind the fronds in bunches, Algaria had hurried off to resume her oversight of the twins and their lessons.

In the cool, peaceful workroom, Heather methodically sorted and bound. Her gaze remained on her hands, her fingers deftly parting the delicate foliage before winding twine around the stems, but her mind was elsewhere, retreading her arguments, replaying conversations, trying to see, to reexamine it all in the desperate hope she’d missed something vital, or had misinterpreted . . . but no.

Underneath all their words, underlying all their actions, one fact remained unchallenged.

She loved him—and because she did, because she was the woman she was and he the man he was, she had to know beyond question or doubt that he loved her in return.

Yes, that need was an emotional one, one fed by both a fear and a dream.

The fear that if she accepted him without the surety of his love, of having it acknowledged and declared, then at some point, unbound by such a love, he would stray. That he would turn from her to one of the myriad ladies who were forever trying to lure him to their beds.

That fear was real enough, hard enough to counter, yet her dream was even more an innate part of her, one she had no wish to deny. To her, marriage meant one thing—a partnership in which both parties were committed to, and therefore free to, love without restraint. Without reserve, without boundaries.

No such marriage could come about without both parties being openly and honestly committed to that ideal.

No marriage like that could ever be founded on the commitment of one party alone, with the other shying from the act.

The necessary investment had to come from both, or the marriage would never stand.

She’d clarified her thoughts, reaffirmed her decisions, when two hours later she heard Breckenridge’s boots slowly, deliberately, descending the stairs.

She didn’t look up as he loomed in the doorway, but continued neatly tying herbs.

Breckenridge ducked beneath the arch of the open doorway. Heather stood on the opposite side of a deal table, a welter of herby foliage spread before her.

She didn’t lift her gaze from her hands. Gave no acknowledgment that she knew he was there, but of course she knew he was.

Halting, he, too, looked down at her hands, at the stems she was gathering and binding together.

This was, he knew, a risky gambit, a last desperate push to get their marriage that had to happen back on track, but he didn’t know what else to do.

He glanced briefly at her face.

Didn’t like the look of her closed expression, saw precious little to make him hope.

He’d rarely felt so helpless. So unsure.

Quelling a strong impulse to rake his hands through his hair, he sank both hands into his breeches’ pockets, hauled in a huge breath. Let it out with, “So—when will we leave?”

The demand sounded a lot harsher than he’d intended.

She continued calmly working, pressing stem to stem. “I have no interest in when you leave. For myself, I’ve decided to remain here for the moment.”

“Heather—”

“No—just listen. And please don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. You asked me to make up my mind, and I have—I’ve made up my mind that I will not marry you.”

He stood there, absorbed the impact of her words, of the determination behind them, and felt a blade slide into his heart.

“However”—Heather laid aside the bunch she’d tied off, picked up more fronds, and tried one, last, desperate throw; men like him were possessive, at least about the women they loved—“you needn’t fear any social repercussions. If later a marriage becomes necessary for me to do as I wish with my life, then as I am an heiress, well-connected, and passably attractive, I’m sure there’ll be some gentleman ready and willing to overlook this adventure, especially as the family will no doubt have invented and spread some tale to account for my absence from town.

“So, you see, you may leave with a clear conscience.” She paused, waited, but he said nothing. Drawing in a tight breath, she forced herself to continue, “There’s no reason for you to stay longer—there’s nothing to keep you here.”

Silence fell.

Breckenridge felt chilled. Chilled to his marrow, frozen and numb.

Sightless, deaf, all that he was transfixed by the revelation that, if she had to marry, she’d rather marry any man but him.

That’s what she’d just told him, in words impossible to misconstrue.

The knife slid deeper, and twisted.

The pain of it nearly brought him to his knees.

Breathing in—God, had he ever known such pain?—by main force he gathered the shredded remnants of his heart, of his pride. Clinging to the latter, he forced himself to stop thinking.

To stop dwelling on what he’d thought, on what he’d hoped and had barely dared dream . . .

He should be accustomed to women using him, engaging with him for fleeting pleasure without any true feeling involved; she hadn’t treated him any worse than countless others before her. He couldn’t fault her for that.