Twenty-three
If a rake once discovers he has emotions, he will be ruined forever.
The turkey had escaped. Sometime during the end of the fight and the return to the ducal residence, the turkey and Ronnie had disappeared. She hoped the creature had run off to find a welcoming forest somewhere. She hoped Ronnie had gone off, never to be seen or heard from again.
But mostly, she didn’t hope or want or feel anything at all. She just sat in a chair and stared at the fire. Trevor had failed her. She knew that wasn’t a logical feeling. None of her feelings ever were. Not when she’d clutched him in a desperate need to escape London with a fake engagement. Not when she’d realized she was in love with a man who had stated at the very beginning that he didn’t even like her. And certainly not when she’d decided to fight for him by giving him her virginity.
She’d been an illogical, irrational female, just like her mother. And just like her mother, she had destroyed her life. She hadn’t thrown herself off a bridge, but she had done something equally disastrous. She’d accepted Mr. Rausch’s ring.
Her entire goal in coming to London was to find love. Someone she loved who loved her in return. Who would marry her and raise a family with her. Mr. Rausch would do none of those things. And lest she be confused about these things, he had stated it aloud when he’d offered her his ring.
“I do not love you, Melinda, and I never will. But we can still travel the world together. And you can still give me your formula and make me rich enough to buy you anything your heart desires. If you accept these things, then I offer you honorable marriage.”
She had agreed. And now, his heavy diamond ring listed sideways on her finger.
So she and Trevor had failed each other. She would have to carry on as best she could without love, which meant she had completed the transition to the aristocracy. Everywhere she looked in theton, there were loveless couples. And that too Trevor had told her: my set doesn’t marry for love. And now she wouldn’t either.
“Hasn’t the duke returned?” Mr. Rausch asked.
She looked up from the fire and mustered a smile for her fiancé. “He sent word an hour ago that he will return before the feast.”
“Does he stay to watch over Mr. Anaedsley?”
She nodded. “He wrote that Trevor was drugged, not poisoned. A powerful sleeping draught.”
“I told you something was off. No man goes down from a turkey kick, even one to the gut.”
“Ronnie did.”
Mr. Rausch smiled in obvious amusement. “Ronnie got a turkey peck in…well, in a sensitive area. That is vastly different.”
She had no answer to that, and so she smiled as she might to her father. It was a vague sort of pleasant expression, which was usually enough to set her pater to prosing on without a thought to her. But Mr. Rausch was cut from a different cloth.
“For a woman newly engaged to a man as rich as Croesus, you appear remarkably downcast.”
“I apologize. Was there something you wish me to do? If we are to leave soon for Africa—”
“Tell me first why you are glum.”
“I’m not glum, Mr. Rausch—”
“And for God’s sake, call me Carl.”
She paused, then realized he was completely in the right. “Very well, Carl.” She paused. She did not like the feel of his name on her tongue. It felt unwieldy in her mouth. She supposed it was one more thing she would have to adjust to. “I am merely overwhelmed, I suppose.”
“Or perhaps you have given up on your dreams and are mourning the loss.” Then he took her hands in his, his long fingers toying with the heavy ring he had given her. “You loved him?”
She thought about denying it, but this man was to be her husband. She would not start the relationship with a lie.
“Yes, I did. I do. But I assure you, that will not prevent me from being a good wife to you.”
He patted her hand. “I never doubted it. But can you tell me why you love him?”
She frowned, wondering why he was pushing into a wound so raw.
“I find that it is the words that make a difference. If you can express things in words, it makes everything more clear.”
It made sense when phrased like that, but she didn’t know if she could do it. “How does one use words for a feeling?”