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This woman knew.

And she said she loved him.

“Say something,” she said.

He loved her. The realization hit him clear and hot. Tears prickled his eyes, his chest heaved, and he felt hot and shaking. Through all of this, he had managed to fall in love with his wife.

I love you, Penelope. You are the best thing that has ever happened in my life. You’re healing my stupid dark heart. You make me feel like I may be a worthy man. You make me so happy…

The words were on his tongue. He opened his mouth to say them. She looked at him with her eyes as blue as a winter sky.

But he didn’t say them. He said none of that.

“I don’t want to do a nude portrait, Penelope,” he said, his whole body feeling pricked with needles. “What I want is you and me in this bed. If I’m nude, I want you nude, too.”

She hid the hurt in her eyes and pressed out a smile. “This is not the end of this discussion.”

He freed his shoulder from under her head and rolled to sit up, putting his legs over the side of the bed. “It is for now.”

As he stood up and put on his dressing gown, he didn’t look at her.

He was a fool if he dared to hope for a lifelong happiness, like his parents had had. There couldn’t be true love between them. They may be in love now, but sooner or later it would end.

Love terrified him. It was possible, he knew, for good people. Like his parents. Like Sebastian and Emma.

All that happy future he could almost see and feel—it would never be. Deep down, he didn’t deserve a happy life and the love of this woman. She had started to break down his walls. He could see cracks in them, see how low and thin they had become thanks to her.

But it terrified him that she could see the real him… She couldn’t love the jealous, prideful boy who’d become an arrogant, stubborn man. She loved some version of him that she had constructed in her head.

Wrapping the belt of the dressing gown around his waist, he went to pull the servant bell. He knew he was guilty in Spencer’s death. She was mixed up in the middle of it all. And she was still his enemy’s daughter. And while he should be staying indifferent to her and simply making her pregnant, he’d somehow managed to lose his mind, his heart, and his soul to her.

This whole marriage had been a big mistake.

She loved him. He went to the window and looked out over the beautiful sunlit park in front of Grandhampton. He had just betrayed his brother even further. Not only had he married Penelope, but he had fallen in love with her and she with him.

Spencer didn’t deserve that betrayal.

Besides, would she even want to be with him if he hadn’t forced her? Like many women, she must be just trying to make the best of the situation she found herself in.

And so should he. Until it all came crumbling down.

Because his choice was the same. Love or revenge.

And he was still set on the latter.

26

Penelope wove her fingers through Preston’s on his lap. From the window of the carriage, she could see that apple trees had blossomed like white clouds and magnolia trees were covered in gentle pink flowers, and the crisp scent of lilacs filled the air. London was in bloom.

As was Penelope’s heart. Two blissful weeks in Grandhampton had been heaven. Preston’s lungs had recovered quite well, she felt much better, and Preston’s solicitor had written to inform him that he had found a potential new house for them. Preston and Penelope had a meeting today at the house to view the property and decide about the purchase.

The only cloud that darkened Penelope’s happiness was that she had blurted out to Preston that she loved him. And clearly, she had spooked him.

He hadn’t said it back. Which meant he didn’t love her. Not yet.

Or he did, but was afraid to admit it.

She was not sure how she could love the man who held her father’s destruction over his head. She must be a masochist.