Who Wants to Marry a Duke - Sabrina Jeffries Page 0,89
not the real reason she’s angry. She’s envisioning the whole world laughing behind her back. Until now, she thought you were on her side, both of you not fitting in. The fact that you were a duke and she a mere miss only reinforced how remarkable it was that the two of you felt that kinship. Now suddenly you’ve switched sides, and she’s all alone save for her mother, the other victim of your mockery.”
Shame swamped him. “Oh, God, you’re right. All Olivia could speak of was the mockery. I hurt her very badly. I don’t know how she can forgive me.”
“You must do whatever it takes to reassure her you’re still on her side.”
“How?” he asked.
“I’m sorry, dear brother, but I’ve reached the end of my twin-sisterly ability to deduce the truths of your relationship. You alone can figure that out. You’ve already asked her to marry you, and I assume you’ve told her you love her—”
He groaned.
“You haven’t told her you loved her, you dolt?” She dropped her hand from his back. “God, men are so stupid.”
With a frown, he straightened in his seat. “She hasn’t said she loves me, either.”
“Then I take back the ‘dolt’ part.” She tapped her chin with one finger. “On the other hand, she probably didn’t want to tell you how she felt once she discovered you’d essentially been lying to her all this time about who you really are.”
Olivia had said something to that effect: If you can keep this secret, I have to wonder how many other secrets you’re keeping. For all I know, you have mistresses strewn across London!
“What if I don’t know if I love her?” he asked. “I’m not going to lie to her about it.”
“Good Lord, of course you love her. Would you be in this agony right now if you didn’t?”
“This agony is why I pray I’m not in love. After spending the years since I met her sure that our father didn’t truly love our mother, no matter what we’d been told, I—”
“Why?”
Damn. He’d forgotten Gwyn didn’t know about the blackmail. And since it probably wasn’t based on anything real, he wasn’t about to tell her and prejudice her against Lady Norley for no good reason. “Something I heard through gossip. It doesn’t matter. I’ve since heard evidence it might be false. My point is I’ve spent years hardening my heart against love, sure that those who feel it are either deluding themselves or asking for trouble by giving their hearts to someone who invariably doesn’t appreciate it.”
“My, my, you are cynical about love.”
“But with Olivia . . . I don’t know.”
“Well, you have to decide that before you do anything. There’s almost no point in mending fences if you can’t say you love her. Women want that. Actually, men generally want that.”
Olivia’s final words to him rang in his memory: It’s clear I will never gain your respect, much less your love. And I find I require both of those for a marriage after all.
“She wants my love,” he said. “She told me that much.” His love . . . and his respect. She already had the latter, whether she knew it or not.
“It seems to me if you’re asking how to fix things, then you don’t want to let her go.”
“You deduced that, did you?” he said, now a bit embarrassed by his show of emotion. Except that if he couldn’t show emotion to his twin, he had the feeling he would be truly lost. He’d be confirmed as an arrogant arse undeserving of any love.
“You’ll know for yourself soon enough. But promise me that if you do feel love for her you won’t fight it out of some determination to be a world-weary rakehell. Because that will only lead to more heartbreak.”
“Speaking from experience, are we?” he asked.
“Well, not the part about the world-weary rakehell. But the fighting love? Perhaps a bit. Love is funny that way. Embrace it with someone who loves you, too, and it’s the most beautiful, wonderful experience imaginable. But try to fight your feelings? It’s like . . . like trying to push the needle of a compass away from magnetic north. You can push it all you like, but the moment you let go, it will swing back to magnetic north. Unless you break the compass entirely. And a broken compass isn’t useful to anyone, is it?”
No. He should know. He’d been a broken compass for a long time. And protecting his heart had only been