Page 75 of A Scandal at Stonecliffe

Verity’s jaw dropped. “What? Have you lost your mind? Marrying me would ruin you.”

“No. It will give you status. You wouldn’t be a nobody, you’d be my wife. You’d belong in the ton. All you have to do is deny what Stanhope says. Say that you didn’t kill his father. Someone else did, and you ran in terror. Carlisle and Noelle will back us up. And Lady Drewsbury—she’s a countess. And Lady Lockwood. You know she’d do it if for no other reason than she loves a good fight.”

“That’s why you want to marry me?” The idea hurt more than Verity would have thought possible. “So you can protect me? It wasn’t enough that you heroically gave up Annabeth so she would be happy? Now you’re going to sacrifice yourself again in order to save me?”

His eyes widened, and he quickly said, “No! No, that’s not what I mean. It’s not only to protect you. I mean, I’m not sacrificing myself. I want to marry you. This is just...hastening things. I know you don’t want to marry, but look at how we’ve been the past few weeks together. How happy and...and good it’s been.”

“Passion doesn’t last, Nathan. ‘Good’ and ‘happy’ aren’t enough.”

“It’s not just passion,” he protested. “I love you.”

“The way you loved Annabeth a year ago?” Verity shot back. He looked stricken at her words, and she immediately regretted them. “I’m sorry. I was angry. I didn’t mean it.”

“I think that’s precisely what you meant,” Nathan replied. “You don’t trust me. You think I’m fickle and shallow. You’ve always discounted me—I’m naive, I don’t know what I’m doing, I simply float through life.”

“No.” Verity was aghast. “That’s not what I think. Maybe at first, but not anymore. I can be aware of how very different our lives have been, how very different we are without it being a judgment on you. Just because I keep some things private, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care for you.”

“You see? Care.” Nathan let out a bitter little laugh. “You can’t even say the word love. You want to be alone. You’re scared to commit yourself for a lifetime. You like things the way they are because it means you don’t have to give anything of yourself to me.”

“What the devil do you think I’ve been doing the past weeks but giving myself to you?” She was suddenly furious. “I’ve let you into my life. Into my house. Into my bed.”

“But not into your heart,” Nathan said quietly. “You have given me your body, you have made space for me in your life—and I am very glad that you did so. But I want more than that, Verity. I want everything. I want marriage or nothing at all.”

“Then leave.” Verity felt ice all through her. “I’m not marrying you.”

Nathan’s face tightened. For a moment, she thought he would argue, but instead he turned and walked out the front door. The door slammed, leaving only silence behind.

Verity’s knees were suddenly weak, and it was hard to breathe. She sank down on one of the risers at the foot of the staircase. He was gone. She felt as if some vital part of her had been torn out, and she wanted to run after him, to tell him she would marry him, that she’d throw herself into his care and let him protect her.

But she would not do that. She could not. She wrapped her hands around her knees and rested her head on them. She couldn’t be weak. She couldn’t give way to tears and regret. Verity had learned long ago that the only way to stay alive was to keep moving. Do what she had to. Don’t look back.

Nathan didn’t understand what danger he would be putting himself into. He had always lived a privileged life. Perhaps he hadn’t had as much money as some of his friends, but he had been protected from want, from fear, from condemnation. He didn’t know, as she did, what it was like to be vulnerable. So easily overwhelmed by the powerful.

Verity felt sick, remembering Stanhope’s face, astonished and sharp and somehow gratified. He was glad he’d found her; he wanted to see her punished. She had faced down men with weapons without a qualm, but just the sight of him, so similar to his father, just the feel of his hand grabbing her arm, sent shivering terror through her.

He would see her dead, she was certain, and he would ruin Nathan as well if Nathan crossed him. And no matter how very much Verity wished Nathan were with her right now, his arms strong and warm around her, she would not subject him to Lord Stanhope’s revenge.

She was being sensible. She was doing the right thing. She was being strong. But, oh, God, why does it have to hurt so much?

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

NATHAN’S FURY CARRIED him halfway home before it turned to heartache. Was I born under some unlucky star? Every time he loved a woman, she broke his heart.

Nathan thought about drinking himself to unconsciousness, but he couldn’t see what a raging headache tomorrow would do to improve his situation. It was the sort of showy and unreasonable thing Sloane would do, not him. So he spent a sleepless night fruitlessly thinking of all the things he’d said wrong and the things he hadn’t said, all the ways in which Verity was utterly in the wrong, and all the days that stretched out in loneliness before him.

He decided he would go back to her the next morning. He’d say he was sorry and tell her that he would run away to France with her—or anywhere else she wanted to go. He would say he didn’t need marriage or her undying declaration of love.

Only it wasn’t true. His heart had shriveled inside him when she could say nothing more than she “cared” for him. One cared for a friend or for one’s aunt. It wasn’t what you felt for the love of your life. And he could admit that to himself even if Verity wouldn’t hear it—Verity was the love of his life.

It was unfair to expect her to feel as he did, given that he had only realized that he loved her last night. But he had been in love with her long before he awoke to that fact. Surely she knew that—women often seemed to know what a man felt before he did. And certainly they knew what they felt themselves.

Of course, Verity was not like most women. Maybe she didn’t recognize her feelings any better than he had. She had said she loved him, but that had been in the aftermath of passion, right before slumber. Was it possible she had not even realized what she’d said?

And of course she was frightened. With Stanhope grabbing her tonight, how could she not be? She’d had bitter experience with a man’s protection in the past, but, still, it hurt that she obviously didn’t believe Nathan could keep her safe. It wasn’t his fault that she assumed she could not trust a man, but he supposed it wasn’t her fault, either.

And there he was, being reasonable again. But reason didn’t fill the hole in his chest. He could tell himself that he would put her out of his mind, that he would go on with his life, that he would get over her, just as he had with Annabeth.

The problem was that he felt much worse than he had when he called off his engagement with Annabeth. Then he had felt sad but—admittedly—also a bit righteous in his sacrifice. Now, with Verity, he felt as if his guts had been ripped out of him.