Page 95 of Discovering Her Earl

It might be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but it was the last thing she could do for him.

She would find the man she loved an adoring wife.

Chapter Thirty

“Absolutely not,” Julian complained when Lainey shared her ridiculous plan to help him find a wife. She had waited until they’d arrived at the docks in London before apprising him of her ridiculous plan.

“You don’t have to be saddled with just any snooty woman of the ton when we could find you someone you might actually care for.”

“I don’t want to care for anyone else.” He may have sounded like a petulant child, but there was no helping it.

“You are being stubborn,” she accused.

“Yes, and you know that because you know me so well. How am I supposed to stop loving you and start loving another? It doesn’t work that way, Lainey.”

Ben nodded that his trunks had been loaded and it was time to leave for his townhouse. This was the last moment of his adventure and he didn’t want to spend it fighting with the woman he loved.

She let out a breath. “I don’t expect it would happen so quickly, but it could happen. In time.”

“No. If I cannot find a way out of this, I will marry the most proper woman who will accept my hand and be done with it. I will not attach feelings to a transaction my father has forced upon me. I won’t do it.”

“Please consider it when you are less upset.”

“I will never be less upset.”

She blew out a breath and he wanted so much to kiss her in that moment, but they couldn’t continue in that vein. It was just causing more damage. Not to mention they were in plain sight of everyone.

“Please, Julian. For me.”

“For you?”

“Perhaps if you allow yourself to be happy, I may be also.”

He tilted his head in question.

“I thought myself unappealing for so many years because of what happened with Lord Dunnage. And perhaps because I carried around so much anger and suspicion, I frightened off anyone who might have otherwise shown an interest. But being with you, seeing the way you look at me, it has made me feel… beautiful.”

“You are beautiful. Don’t ever doubt that.”

“I wasn’t searching for a compliment, I was making a point that if I opened up, someone might offer for me.”

The shattered pieces of his heart fell into his stomach. She was speaking of marriage. To someone other than him.

The vine of jealousy coiled around him, cutting off the air to his lungs.

He wasn’t just going to lose the woman he loved. He would lose her to another man. A man who would touch her and make love to her as he had. Who would win her smiles as they grew old together.

And he finally understood what she was trying to do for him. Because despite the jealousy and hatred for the faceless man who would call her his wife, he knew he wanted that for her.

Happiness and love.

Of course, whoever the blighter was, he wouldn’t deserve her. Julian knew he hadn’t either. But if they could care for Lainey and allow her to be the person she was without judgement or trying to turn her into something proper or normal, Julian would praise the man until his final breath.

“Very well,” he managed to say around the lump in his throat. He’d known the reality they were facing, but it hadn’t seemed so real until this moment.

He needed to get away before he scooped her up and ran away with her. He only wanted to keep her for himself.

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