“I tried to make myself useful,” he said, though the words sounded thick and clogged in his throat.
“You tried to earn their love, and it’s not something you should have to earn.”
He could not do this. He could not sit here and allow her to dissect his entire life. Stratford rose. “We should go back.”
She rose as well. “Do you see now why I told you, over and over, that I did not want you to come after me? I do not want to be another way you try and prove yourself to your father and mother. I don’t want to be a path they can use to hurt you more. Because Stratford—they will never love you. Not like they love your brothers and sisters.”
He stared at her, knowing it was true. But he hadn’t come after her to prove himself to anyone. He’d come because he cared for her.
“Your mother makes me the angriest. She made the mistake of lying with Lord Wight years ago. Not you. You should not suffer for it.”
He knew the truth of those statements, but hearing someone else voice them brought up all the old pain. He felt the sting of tears prick behind his eyes. “I should go back now,” he said, his voice strangely devoid of emotion, when inside he churned with so many feelings, he could not possibly name them all. He started away and she moved in front of him, blocking his way.
“But I love you, Stratford. I think I have always loved you in some form or another. You can have the love you want, if you’ll just accept it from me.”
“And do you think I feel nothing for you?” he said, his heart pounding and his blood rushing so loudly he could hear it like a waterfall in his ears. “I love you, Emmeline. I always have, and that is why I will not marry you. Do you think I would saddle you with a husband whom no one respects? A man who doesn’t even respect himself?”
She took in an audible breath and stepped away from him. “That’s not true. You think no one can look past the circumstances of your birth? Your true friends do not care. Murray and Mayne and Colonel Draven and I’m sure all the rest of them. They have the utmost respect for you.”
He stared at her. She was right, but he couldn’t seem to let himself accept it. He could not believe himself worthy of it.
“I respect you too. I love you, but I’m beginning to agree that we should never marry.”
Stratford didn’t think he could be wounded again, and yet her words were a sword to his gut.
“If you really know me so little—if you really believe that the circumstances of your birth matter to me...well, then you do not know me at all. After all we have been through. After all the years when I have never once treated you as anything less than a friend and equal, if you really believe that I wouldn’t want you because your father was not married to your mother, then you are correct. You are not worthy of me.”
And with that final twist of the sword, she walked away.
Stratford let her go, though some part of him screamed to go after her. But he couldn’t. Because she was right. He’d thought her just like everyone else, when she, like he, had never fit in. Of all the people he knew, she was one of the few—outside of the Survivors—who knew him and saw him for who he really was.
And now he had lost her, and it had nothing to do with the Marquess of Wight or his mother or the goddamn baron.
This was all on his shoulders.
Nineteen
DUNCAN
His brother James came for dinner. Duncan and James had their share of fisticuffs as lads, but they got along well enough as adults. Of course, James was far more pleasant than Duncan would ever be. He always had a ready smile and an amusing story and made everyone feel at ease.
Duncan appreciated those qualities immensely this evening when the table felt like a heavy shroud had been laid over it. Ines sat quietly at one end, hands in her lap, saying nothing. Duncan assumed she’d finished the lace cuffs this afternoon, but he did not yet think she’d given them to his mother. Miss Wellesley and Stratford sat across from one another, but they tried so hard not to look at each other it was almost painful to watch.
Duncan didn’t know why Stratford didn’t just propose to his cousin and have it over with. It was obvious to Duncan, whenever he’d seen them together, that Stratford cared for her. Watching them over the course of their travels to Scotland had only made it clearer that Miss Wellesley felt the same way about Stratford. The two of them seemed a perfect pair—friends since childhood, close families, and an obvious attraction.
Duncan and Ines had attraction—they had more than attraction. Ines loved him, and he—Duncan would not allow himself to think too much about what he felt for her. He’d wanted to avoid the pain of loss. It was a pain he knew well from losing his father. But try as he might to keep Ines at arm’s length and far from touching his heart, she’d found a way in. Duncan didn’t know how she’d done it. No other woman had ever even breached the drawbridge of his heart. If a woman drew near his fortifications, it was easy to scare her away with gruff words or an outrageous act.
Ines had seen him at his best and his worst. His most outrageous—well, perhaps not his most outrageous—and his most gruff. And she still wanted him. But the fact was Duncan could not have her. Even if Draven agreed to allow them to marry, Lady Charlotte would never accept her. And how could he go against his mother? Hadn’t he caused her enough pain in her life?
“Isnae that right, Duncan?” James said, and Duncan realized his brother had been telling some anecdote in which he played a part.
“I would caution the party nae tae believe everrathing my brother says,” Duncan said, feeling that was the safest response.
“Dinnae believe everrathing I say?” James countered. His eyes were bright and his cheeks ruddy. With his beard, he looked very much like Duncan remembered their father. Duncan glanced at his mother, and saw she wore a wistful look as she listened to James entertain the party. He knew she was thinking of her late husband too.
“Och, well, Duncan is the war hero. But do ye think we can get even one story oot of him? Nae. He’s like my oldest son. He goes tae school all day, and when I ask what he learned at the evening meal, he says nothing.” James looked at Stratford. “But perhaps ye have a story tae tell us of my brother’s bravery.”
Stratford looked at Duncan, and it was easy to read Stratford’s expression. They had lost eighteen men of their troop. Eighteen brothers. Nothing they had endured was fodder for dinner conversation. Stratford could undoubtedly tell stories of Duncan rushing into a fight. Of course, if Duncan had saved one man, there was another story of when he had not been fast enough. The Survivors had an unwritten rule that they did not tell each other’s tales.
Stratford cleared his throat. “Duncan and I had very different orders,” he said. “We didn’t work together often enough for me to have any stories about him. I’m sorry.”
The shroud James had been trying so hard to lift descended again. The footman came in with a plate of candied and sugared nuts, and Duncan breathed a sigh of relief that dinner was almost over.
“I have a story,” Ines said.
Everyone looked at her. She’d said only a few words at dinner and then only when someone had spoken to her directly.
“I am not a storyteller like you, senhor,” she said, looking directly at James. “But I do know your brother is brave. He saved my life.”