Page 6 of How the Duke Saved Christmas

Ignoring the narrowing of her eyes, he leaned back against the sideboard, crossed his legs at his ankles, and did his best to keep at bay the frustration that had been pent-up inside him for two years.

He eyed her over the rim of his glass. “How have you been, Clara?”

“Do you really care?” She turned her attention to her tea cup as she lifted it to her lips, but he could see the cup shaking from clear across the room.

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t.”

Damnation.She still possessed the power to wound him with only a soft word or two. “Old habits die hard.”

She stiffened yet acquiesced slightly by answering, “I’ve been fine.”

“You’re lying.”

Her bright blue eyes flew up to his, her pink lips parting in surprise.

“You’ve always been a terrible liar.” He smiled grimly. “Apparently, some things never change.”

“I’d forgotten how absolutely infuriatingyou can be.” She forced a haughty sniff and turned away. “I never enjoyed arguing with you, and I have no desire to do so now.”

Another lie. She’d loved arguing with him. They both had. But after the accident…silence. She hadn’t even had the courage to break off with him in person. Instead, she’d sent a footman with a note at the very same moment that the Camden coach had been whisking her away from London to God only knew where. She’d made certain he’d had no way to find her until the full blow of what she’d written had sunk in…that she never wanted to see him again.

She’d provided no answers then, but at least she could tell him now how she’d fared since he’d last set eyes on her. She could grant him that much in recompense for the hell she’d put him through.

So he asked again, “How have you been, Clara?”

She hesitated, as if she were about to tell him the truth—or to tell him to go to hell and mind his own business. Instead, she shrugged a slender shoulder. “I told you. I’ve been fine.”

He arched a brow. “If you keep lying like this, the housemaids are going to confuse you for a rug.”

She huffed out a breath of irritation. But instead of giving him the tongue-lashing he deserved, she conceded with exasperation. “What do want me to say?”

“The truth.” Or did she think he’d lost that right, too?

“The truth is…” She pulled in a deep breath and stared into her tea. “I find London troublesome and the estate boring. I am overjoyed that Anthony and his wife are expecting their second child, and I’m happy—if a bit bemused—that Aunt Gertrude still behaves as if she’s a young miss out for her first season.”

“Good to hear.” He set down his glass, then slowly crossed to the settee and sat beside her, only for his breath to hitch when she stiffened. She’d once craved his nearness. Now she’d most likely be thrilled if he were out in the blizzard on his arse. “But how areyou?”

She repeated her earlier lie. “I’ve been fine.”

His chest sank. This conversation was not going well. He’d had better luck with weather and landscaping. “Clara, you don’t have to—”

“Please, Michael, accept that answer.” But any resolve she’d aimed for vanished beneath the emotional quaver that broke her voice. “We can at least try to be civil to each other and not pry into each other’s lives, can’t we?”

“I’m not prying. I’m honestly concerned.” He reminded her in a murmur, “And we were once far more to each other than simplycivil.”

She turned her face away, but not before he saw a flush darken her cheeks. Certainly she remembered the times they’d spent together as clearly as he did, even now, after two years apart. “It would be best, I think, if we let the past be past and leave it alone,” she whispered to her tea. “The one lesson I’ve learned better than any is that you shouldn’t dwell on things you can never have.”

“And what, exactly, do you think you can never have?”

“Everything.” She looked at him, and the grief he glimpsed in her watery eyes undid him. “The accident changed everything,ruinedeverything.” The words tumbled from her in a choking, halting confession. “For me, for us…forever. Every time I think of all I’ve lost…”

“But you didn’t lose me. You sent me away. Why?” His chest squeezed around his heart so hard that he was certain the blasted thing was going to stop. But he’d spent two years driving himself mad attempting to figure out why she’d ended their engagement. Fate had given him the chance to finally learn the truth, and he refused to let it slip by. “I wanted to marry you.” Somehow he managed to make the words emerge as casually as if they were still discussing the weather. “You wanted that, too.”

“I did.” She set away the unwanted tea. Unconsciously, she rubbed the flat palm of her hand along the side of her right thigh as if it pained her even now. “But plans changed.”

“They didn’t have to. The accident was terrible. You were hurt, and Morley was killed.” He swallowed hard against the rush of memories of the screech of twisting metal, the shatter of wood, the screams of the horses… “But we could have stayed together.”