don’t care. Whatever you want. Whenever you want. But do it.”
She was so still that even the air around her seemed to stop moving. She clasped her hands in front of her, her blue eyes guarded.
“I—”
“Deliver a lecture,” Alexander interrupted, “and you will finally have the locket back.”
A smile ghosted her lips. “Another wager?”
“Not a wager. An agreement. The payment for your locket is one lecture. My final offer.”
“Alexander, I—”
“No.” He took two steps toward her and grasped her shoulders. “Do not tell me you can’t. That will be a lie. And we have no place for lies.”
To his shock, a flood of sudden tears swamped her eyes as her fingers curled around his arms. He loosened his grip on her, prepared to step back, but her hold on him tightened.
“Wait.” She swiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Wait. Alexander, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“You needn’t be sorry, Lydia. You need only do what you were put on this earth to do.”
“You… you believe that?”
“Of course I believe it. You were meant to impart knowledge, Lydia. It’s why you were granted such intelligence.” His mouth twisted. “Though you might have suffered a lapse in said intelligence when you rejected my proposal.”
Lydia gave a watery laugh, but the sound was hollow. She moved closer to him, her grasp so tight that the warmth of her fingers, her palms, burned through his coat and shirt.
“I’m sorry, Alexander. Please believe it’s not… I didn’t decline because I don’t love you.”
Alexander’s breath stopped. He stared at Lydia, her blue eyes clear and direct, her cheeks flushed, the ends of her eyelashes still damp. His heart thumped, an odd, discordant beat that resonated with everything Lydia—her maddening, luscious presence in his life, her naked abandon, her crisp, fresh-pencil scent.
“Then why?” he asked, his voice tight.
She shook her head.
Frustration spiraled through him again, winding into his chest. “I will not tolerate this, Lydia. You have one more week.”
“This is not like solving a mathematical problem, Alexander.”
“Isn’t it? Aren’t you studying this sort of thing, figuring out equations to explain emotions? Love plus love equals marriage, doesn’t it?”
She drew in a sharp breath, a hard tremble racking her body. He tightened his grip on her, inhaled the perfume of her thick hair.
“Say yes,” he whispered, not knowing if he was referring to his marriage proposal or the lecture series, or both.
Lydia stiffened in his arms, her fingers clutching the lapels of his coat. “No.”
Something broke inside Alexander as that single word rose between them. His brother’s words from so many weeks ago echoed in his head.
Do whatever makes you happy. Oh, no, you’ll never do that, will you?
But Alexander had tried. God in heaven, he’d tried.
He let Lydia go as she pulled away from him. She went to collect the books, tucking them into the crook of her arm. He stared at her profile, the graceful curve of her cheek, and the way a loose tendril of hair spilled over her neck.
Determination swelled anew. He wasn’t finished yet. If Lydia still refused to recognize they were meant to be together, he would find another way to convince her. He needed an ally.
Chapter Twenty
Pencil marks, notes, and scribbled equations marred the pages of her notebook. Lydia leafed through them, attempting to muster the desire to pursue her ideas, to prove that Alexander was wrong. She could quantify love. She could explain attraction through a differential equation, could establish patterns of intimacy.
She just no longer wanted to.
She looked at all the notes she’d made about Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere, Helen and Paris, Petrarch and Laura. Her equations could never explain the one common element of those relationships—the fact that none of them ended well. For all their passion and emotions and desire, none of the couples lived a joyful, fulfilling life together.
So dr/dt = a11 r + a12 j mattered not a whit since, ultimately, it equaled unhappiness. Not to mention a frequent untimely death.
I propose, Miss Kellaway, that you throw your infernal notebook into the fire and leave me the bloody hell alone.
A faint smile tugged at Lydia’s mouth. She snapped the notebook closed and stared at the fire. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the notebook into the flames.
It fell open, pages fluttering in the heat before the paper caught and began to burn. Her writings, her numbers, her equations, blackened and curled in the fire.
She watched until the book burned to ashes. A sense of freedom spun through