Mismatched Under the Mistletoe - Jess Michaels Page 0,57

throat to find his voice. “I-I see. You do not wish me here anymore?”

“It isn’t that,” she gasped, and stepped toward him. “Cav, I realized today that since you confessed to me all I’ve thought about is you. What you think, what you’ve felt, what you want…and if I am to take this seriously, I’m going to have to take a much harder look at…at me. What I feel. What I want. What I need from a future either with you or alone. And I won’t be able to do that with you at my side, or even back in London together when I’ll know you’re just a quarter mile away.”

His heart jumped. This did not seem to be the rejection he’d feared. At least not out of hand. “I see. Then what will you do?”

She looked around. “I’m going to stay here a while. I was going to come back in a week or so to make final arrangements for my personal effects anyway. This will give me the chance to do that and to have a more private goodbye with the servants who have served me so well this past decade.” She blushed. “And to think about what you told me without…distractions.”

He nodded. What she said made sense, of course. And he wanted her to have all the time she needed to make the best decision for herself.

But oh, how he wished that what she’d been calling him here to do was to throw herself into his arms. That it would be as easy for her as it had been for him on a long ago night that often felt like yesterday.

“I understand,” he said with difficulty. “Do you…know how long you’ll be?”

“A few days?” she said. “And I will write you when I return to London. But I may need even more time than that, Cav. I don’t know. I don’t want to mislead you on that score. Because I do care so very deeply for you.”

He almost laughed. He had declared his love and she said she cared deeply. That stung when she meant it as a balm.

“I appreciate it,” he choked out. “And I do understand. I hope you will find the answers you seek, Emily. You deserve them and to be able to make whatever decision is right for you.” He stepped a little closer. “Because I want you to be happy, no matter what that looks like.”

She shook her head slightly. “Yes. You’ve more than proven that, I think.”

She shivered, and he shrugged away his troubles. “Now you’re freezing. Let’s go in. We won’t speak of this again until you are ready to do so.”

“Cav,” she said as he turned toward the door.

He flinched as she said it. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

The words softened him, and he nodded before he motioned her back inside. And as they parted again, it felt a little more permanent. He could only hope that was a trick of his imagination and not the harbinger of things to come.

Chapter 15

Cav nursed a drink as he watched his grandfather pace his parlor, eyes that looked so much like his own storming with every turn.

“Does she not know what a catch you are?” he snapped as he flopped himself down at last on Cav’s settee and grabbed for the whisky Cav had poured him right before confessing the entire tale of what had happened at Emily’s Christmas party.

The weight of it had become so much harder to bear as the days had passed, and then a week. She’d returned to London the night before, but he’d had no message from her yet. Just the rumors through their shared friends that she was home.

It did not bode well.

“I’m certain she’s well aware of my financial and social benefits, yes,” he said, his tone dry as the desert.

The marquess snapped his gaze to Cav’s face. “That isn’t what I mean at all.”

“No?” Cav said as he sipped his own drink. “I cannot imagine what other advantages you think I could offer the lady.”

His grandfather scooted to the front of the settee and draped his elbows over his knees. “I have watched you pine for this woman for well near a decade,” he said softly. “Offering her everything she could ever want or need all while you remained silent about your own desires. She would be lucky to be loved by a man like you. She would be lucky to love you in return.”

Cav smiled slightly. “You are not often prone to waxing poetic about