Suddenly there was a strange ringing sound in his ears.
“How long does it take a man to decide he wants to buy a horse?” Her voice was a thread. Her mouth twisted ruefully.
Christ.
“So his long letter wasn’t by way of declaring extreme devotion?”
She blinked, as if this hurt her. And he wondered if this had been his intent. Because on the periphery of his awareness, somewhere within him, he could sense a storm gathering, by far more dangerous, more annihilating than the one that had trapped them inside together.
“He was sharing his assets in detail, by way of persuasion. He has fifteen thousand pounds a year, and estates in London, Richmond, and Sussex.”
The amount was nearly bludgeoning. It left him speechless and airless.
He would have about twenty-five thousand pounds to hisnamewhen the auction of the ship they’d recently captured was complete. After a lifetime of work. It was indeed a small fortune. But it was a raindrop in the ocean of the earl’s fortune.
“As well he should provide all of that, Daphne,” he said gently, finally. “You are... worth persuading.”
The words felt wholly inadequate.
Her little smile then was lovely and grateful, and it was like nails raked across his heart.
“And this is the life you want?” It was a struggle to keep his words even and conversational.
It was a long moment before she replied.
She drew in a breath and released it at length.
“I want to feel safe again. I want consistency. I want children. I want to belong somewhere and to someone. I want to hold my head high. I want to know my family will be cared for. And I want, very much, something of my old life back.”
Nothing about love.
Because love was the anchor that could pull you under and drown you. It was an agonized scream when a child fell into the sea. Love was Daphne shaking violently on a settee purging the memory of heartbreak. Love was his mother, enduring his father’s rage when he was a tiny boy.
It was a toxin, a ruse.
Wasn’t it?
If she married the Earl of Athelboro, she might never need to worry about experiencing that sort of pain again.
Servants, and a grand house to manage, and fine clothing, and people curtsying to her. Never buffeted by uncertainty again.
What a relief that would be, he imagined. He ought to be relieved for her.
He recalled how pleased he’d been to learn she’d had a proposal. She’d be sorted into the proper category, he’d thought. Where she belonged.
He was oddly careful about the next breath he took. As though the whole of his body hurt.
“All very reasonable wants,” he said gently. “How would you explain it if you encounter Delilah or Captain Hardy in the company of your new husband, the earl?”
She swallowed. “Odds are very good I’ll simply never see either of them again. We’ll move in different circles, you see. And from what I understand, the earl seldom leaves the countryside anymore. If I should encounter anyone from The Grand Palace on the Thames, I’ll simply feign polite confusion and suggest they must be thinking of someone else who looks like me.”
She’d clearly given this some long, frighteningly clearheaded thought.
“Ruthless,” he said admiringly. And rather relentlessly. “It seems some of your lessons in make-believe have paid off.”
Her features tensed fleetingly.
But she didn’t reply.