“I’m sure you will.”
She nodded.
He nodded.
They stood there. Looking at each other.
And then—
From her lips—
In the most unbelievably stupid—
“I love you!”
Oh God.
Oh God oh God oh God oh God. Where had that come from? She wasn’t supposed to say that. And it wasn’t supposed to sound so desperate. And he wasn’t supposed to be staring at her as if she’d grown horns.
And she wasn’t supposed to be shaking and she was supposed to be breathing and oh dear God she was going to cry because she was such a wretch and—
She threw up her hands. Shook them. “I have to go!”
She ran. Oh bloody bloody. She’d dropped the letter.
She ran back. “Sorry.” Scooped it up. Looked at him.
Oh, that was a mistake. Because now she was talking again, as if her mouth had done anything but make a fool of her this evening. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t, well, I shouldn’t have. And I’m—I’m—” She opened her mouth, but her throat had closed up, and she thought she might have stopped breathing, but then, finally, like some horrifying belch, it came out—
“I really have to go!”
“Amelia, wait.” He put his hand on her arm.
She froze, closing her eyes at the agony of it.
“You—”
“I shouldn’t have said it,” she blurted out. She had to cut him off before he said anything. Because she knew he wasn’t going to say that he loved her in return, and nothing else would be bearable.
“Amelia, you—”
“No!” she cried. “Don’t say anything. Please, you’ll only make it worse. I’m sorry. I’ve put you in a terrible position, and—”
“Stop.” He put his hands on her shoulders, his grip firm and warm, and she wanted so much to let her head sigh to the side, so she could rest her cheek against him.
But she didn’t.
“Amelia,” he said. He looked as if he was searching for words. Which could not be a good sign. If he loved her . . . if he wanted her to know this . . . wouldn’t he know what to say?
“It has been a most unusual day,” he said haltingly.
“And—” He cleared his throat. “Many things have happened, and it would not be surprising if you thought that—”
“You think I just came to this conclusion this afternoon?”
“I don’t—”
But she could not even begin to tolerate his condescension. “Did you ever wonder why I fought so hard against having to marry Mr. Audley?”
“Actually,” he said rather quietly, “you did not say much.”
“Because I was dumbfounded! Thunderstruck. How do you think you would feel if your father suddenly demanded you marry someone you’d never met, and then your fiancé, with whom you thought you were finally forming a friendship, turned and demanded the same thing?”
“It was for your own good, Amelia.”
“No, it was not!” She shook him off, practically screaming the words. “Would it really be for my own good to be forced into marriage with a man who is in love with Grace Eversleigh? I’d only just stopped thinking I was going to get that with you!”
There was an awful silence.
She had not just said that. Please, please, she didn’t just say that.
His face went slack with surprise. “You thought I was in love with Grace?”
“She certainly knew you better than I did,” she muttered.
“No, I wouldn’t—I mean, I didn’t, except—”
“Except what?”
“Nothing.” But he looked guilty. Of something.
“Tell me.”
“Amelia—”
“Tell me!”
And she must have looked a complete virago, ready to go for his throat, because he shot back with, “I asked her to marry me.”
“What?”
“It did not mean anything.”
“You asked someone to marry you and it did not mean anything?”
“It’s not how it sounded.”
“When did you do this?”
“Before we left for Ireland,” he admitted.
“Before we—” Her mouth dropped open in outrage.
“You were still engaged to me. You can’t ask someone to marry you when you are promised to another.”
It was the most unbelievably un-Thomas action she could have ever imagined.
“Amelia—”
“No.” She shook her head. She did not want to hear his excuses. “How could you do this? You always do
the right thing. Always. Even when it’s a bloody nui-sance, you always—”
“I didn’t think I would be engaged to you for very much longer,” he cut in. “I just said to her that if Audley turned out to be the duke, that perhaps we ought make a go of it when it was all over and done with.”
“Make a go?” she echoed.
“I didn’t say it like that,” he muttered.
“Oh, my God.”
“Amelia . . . ”
She blinked, trying to take it all in. “But you wouldn’t marry me,” she whispered.
“What are you talking about?”
She looked up, finally able to focus on his face.
Sharply, on his eyes, and for once she did not care how blue they were. “You said you would not marry me if you lost the title. But you would marry Grace?”
“It’s not the same thing,” he said. But he looked embarrassed.