He opened his mouth ready to press on but shut it. Her gaze was so sterile, her jaw tight, as if she were doing all she could to hold back her feelings.
He hated it.
Without further hesitation, he strode forward and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling the damn book away so he could take her hands into his. She gave a small gasp of surprise, and now her eyes were wide, her gaze anticipating.
“Don’t pretend what I did meant nothing to you.” This was not a planned part of the apology, but he couldn’t stand for her to be so aloof. “I kissed another woman, Eliza. I betrayed your trust, and I broke the vow I gave you on our wedding day. You have a right to be upset.”
He wanted her to rage. He wanted her to yell. He wanted to know she felt something for him in return.
Instead, she only frowned. “That isn’t part of our bargain, Your Grace.”
He stilled. The words were spoken with cool abandon, and her use of his formal address was quite effective in wedging a distance between them. But he wouldn’t let it. He gripped her hands, turning them so his thumb stroked her palms. He saw the moment it affected her as her gaze dulled, her lower lip loosening.
“I don’t care what our bargain was. This is no longer about our bargain, Eliza. This is about me hurting you when I swore I would never do it again.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Dax.” The words were spoken so softly, so earnestly, they rendered him speechless. He stared at her, his argument dying on his lips as the real Eliza surfaced, her eyes sharpening as she drank him in. “What you did has nothing to do with me, and it has everything to do with your past, with Lady Isley. I know that.”
“It doesn’t make it right. I should—”
“Dax, I cannot expect anything from your future if you haven’t settled with the events of your past. It doesn’t matter if I’m beautiful or a wallflower, if I’m outgoing or sullen. None of it matters if you aren’t willing to take the risk of loving someone else again. And if that is how it stands, I will not let what you do determine how I feel.”
The words struck him directly in the center of his chest, and he was left without air, his lips parted and yet unable to draw breath. He studied her, her words echoing in his ears.
“Do you really believe that?” He didn’t know why it was important to him, but her words were having a clearing effect on him he hadn’t anticipated.
He thought he would simply come in and apologize to her for betraying her trust. He had not expected to have his understanding sent into such upheaval.
She tugged her hands from his, and while he didn’t want to let her go, he realized she was changing their positions. She cradled one of his hands in both of hers.
“I believe it because it’s true. Why did you kiss her, Dax?”
He sat back, her question leaving him unstable.
“Why are you asking that?”
“Because I know you didn’t kiss her out of desire, did you?”
He pushed to his feet, wrenching his hand away. How did she understand so much without him explaining how he felt?
“I did not kiss her because I wished it.” He paced away from her, unable to speak the words while looking at her.
“Then why did you do so?”
He opened his mouth ready to say it was Bethany who had kissed him, but he realized what a weak excuse that was. He could have stopped her. He knew what she was about even as she leaned in. There was no reason he couldn’t have prevented it all from happening.
So why hadn’t he?
He turned so he could look at her.
“I don’t know why.” The words were the truth even if they felt like he was making excuses.
“Would it help if you told me what happened?”
He considered her. The candle she had been using to read by dappled her with soft light, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with her, pull her against him, and let the warmth of her comfort him. He collapsed in the chair he had occupied their first night at Ashbourne Manor when he’d sat across from Eliza and begged her to give him a second chance. So much had changed since then, and yet, they seemed to be back at the very beginning. Each stepping carefully as they figured out how to navigate around each other.
“I don’t know what happened,” he muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Stephens came to fetch me when she arrived, and when I got to the drawing room, she was…desperate.” He tried to recall the first image of her he had glimpsed upon walking into the room, but now the entire afternoon was muddled.
“Why was she desperate?”
He looked up when he heard the sound of the bed clothes being pushed back. Eliza slipped from the bed, and even the sight of her bare feet had his heart rate picking up.
“She said her father had arranged her marriage to Isley without her knowledge, and she had always hoped that as long as I remained free, there might have been a chance for us to be together one day.” He said the words in a trance as Eliza made her way over to him and took the chair opposite his, tucking her feet underneath the chair as she sat.
She looked so prim sitting there in her nightdress, her braid over one shoulder. She’d removed her spectacles for reading, and her face took on a softness that called to him.
He licked his lips and had to try twice to get his next words out. “I don’t know now why I believed her. She sounded so earnest.” He shrugged. “I still don’t know if what she said is true.”
“But at the moment you believed her?”
“I had to.” The words were whispered, and he may as well have taken a knife and sliced through what was left of his marriage.
Eliza didn’t move. She gave no indication that his words had hurt her the way they did him to merely speak them. But he knew. He could feel it in the way she kept herself so still, in the way her hands fisted into the lengths of her nightdress, in the way her mouth remained so tight.
With each word he spoke, he tore her down a little more, and yet he couldn’t stop.
“I had to believe that what she said was true because then I wouldn’t have suffered such humiliation. I wouldn’t have been so betrayed. And I could—”
He would be free to love Eliza.
The realization washed over him with such ferocity it was as if he were caught in an ocean wave in December. His eyes flew to Eliza’s face, but her expression remained cold. He couldn’t blame her. This was the second heartfelt apology in the course of their mere months-long marriage, and he had no right to expect it would do anything other than convince her not to trust him.
He stood suddenly, propelled by a need to make it right.
“Eliza, I love you. I know you don’t believe that, and I know I’ve given you no reason to. But I do, and I’m going to make this right.”
The only sign that she’d heard was a slight softening of her mouth.
“Dax, you mustn’t—”
He closed the distance between them, pulled her to her feet, and kissed her soundly. She gave no resistance. In seconds, her arms were around his shoulders, her fingers digging into his back as she held on.
He released her just as quickly and took a step back. She rocked slightly on her feet, but he daren’t touch her.
“I love you, Eliza,” he said when he thought she’d regained her senses. “I love you, and I’m going to do everything in my power to show you.”