“No!” She glanced up at him with a shake of her head. “Far from it. I thought I made that abundantly clear.”
He smiled, but said, “You looked… sad somehow.”
“Oh.”
Pulling from his arms, Audrey sat up and looked around the room, refusing to meet his eyes when she spoke again. “I hate having to go back to reality now that I’ve been in this dream world, that’s all.”
Standing, she groped around on the ground until she found her chemise. Griffin watched as she slipped it over her head, loving the way the fabric moved over her skin.
As she went to work on her stockings, he said, “Then don’t go back. Stay here with me tonight.”
Her eyes flew to his face at his request, surprise evident by the way her lips parted. “You know I can’t do that.”
Standing, he walked over to her, not bothering to cover himself as she’d done. He liked how her eyes dilated with desire, moving over his body in one swift motion before she forced them back to his face.
“Why?” he whispered. “Just don’t go.”
She frowned. “I must. My brother will return soon. We wouldn’t want him to find us this way, would we?”
He shrugged one shoulder as he watched her hook her stocking with one hand. “I don’t care.”
With a bark of disbelieving laughter, she straightened back up. “You will after my brother pistol whips you. When he calls you out and makes you…”
She trailed off and a blush colored her cheeks as she turned away to find her dress.
“Makes me what?” Griffin asked softly, turning her around to fasten the buttons of the gown.
She pulled away from him as soon as her gown was closed and ran her fingers through her tangled hair with a distracted sigh. “Never mind.”
Griffin knew full well what she meant was that Noah would force him to marry Audrey. After all, he’d made love to her not once, but twice. The honorable thing to do would be to make her his wife. It wasn’t the first time the notion had sprung into his mind, and each time it seemed like the best course of action. Certainly better than letting her slip from his life into the night.
His heart had begun to beat faster somewhere between the time he’d gotten up from the bed and now, and all he could hear was the blood rushing in his veins. It had been a long time since he’d been so out of sorts, but he steeled himself to his task as he yanked his trousers over his hips and buttoned the first two buttons.
“There’s something important we must discuss,” he said, clearing his throat. “About what happened tonight.”
With a sigh, she paced away from the bed, throwing one last glance at the tangled mess of his bedclothes before hurrying back into the relative safety of his dressing room.
“About what happened at the ball?” she asked, though he knew she was only trying to avoid the subject. “I realize you must be very angry. And your parents are in danger, so you must be worried, as well. But I assure you-”
“No,” he interrupted.
He followed her into the sitting room and neatly cut off her retreat by stepping in front of her to block the door. “You know very well that wasn’t it at all. This isn’t about anyone but you and me.”
“Oh.” Her answer came out as no more than a squeak. Her eyes were lit up with anticipation, as well as remnants of desire.
“All I could think about last night and today was what happened between us yesterday afternoon.” Reaching out, he took her hand. “What I knew would happen again tonight.”
“It’s been on my mind, as well.” Her cheeks became a charming shade of pale pink at her confession.
“But…” He drew in a deep breath before continuing. “I shouldn’t have let things go so far between us.”
Her eyes flew to his face once more as her skin darkened further. “Oh.”
“But I did, and now I must do what’s right.”
He cleared his throat a second time. Somehow this entire undertaking was proving more difficult than he’d imagined it would be. Especially when Audrey looked at him with hurt in her eyes.
“You don’t have to make anything right,” she said. “I’m an adult and I made a choice. If there are consequences of that action, I must be the one to deal with them. I certainly don’t need anyone to save me from my own decisions.”
He frowned at the way she held herself, on guard and ready for attack.
“I was the more experienced between the two of us,” he reasoned. “I should have maintained control. Lord knows I tried to…”
A small smile turned up one corner of her lips. “It wasn’t as if I was entirely swept away. I knew what I was doing.”
Again, he frowned. He hadn’t expected her to reason with him, though perhaps he should have. If Audrey could do one thing, it was reason her way into and out of any situation.
Ignoring her statement, he said, “We know we’re compatible in many ways. I respect your intelligence and wit. We have a friendship I value immensely. All these things can make a marriage a great success.”
Her lips parted further and her eyes widened.
“I realize this is sudden,” he hastened to add. “But it is what I must do to make up for my… lapse in gentlemanly behavior.”
For a long moment, she said nothing and stared down at her trembling fingers as she twisted her wrinkled skirt in her hand. “Is that all?”
“What?”
“Are you through?” she repeated without lifting her eyes.
“Yes.” He paused. “You realize I’m asking you to be my wife, don’t you?”
“I’m aware of that fact.” She turned to pace away from him to his window. Her shoulders trembled as she looked down at the street below, silent again for a long time.
Finally, she turned to face him with ashen skin. “No.”
As he drew back, shock raced through him. “No?”
“I won’t marry you.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m saying it myself.”
His pride stung. “Then why are you?”
Pursing her lips, she said, “I will not marry for anything less than love. And I don’t mean love from one person alone. Both the parties must feel the same level of regard for one another.”
Griffin laughed bitterly. “That fantasy doesn’t exist. One person always feels more emotion than the other. We have friendship, esteem and passion. That’s more than most in the ton.”
“It isn’t enough for me, Griffin,” she whispered. “So the answer is no.”
Faint anger stirred in his chest at her utter refusal, even in the face of his reasoning. “I can force your hand, you know. I can make sure Noah finds out what happened between us in the carriage and tonight. After he beats me within an inch of my life, he’ll force a union between us.”
At that, her face paled until it was nearly ghostly white, but her hands clenched into trembling fists. “My Mother and Father tried to compel me into a marriage once. I ran. Force my hand, and I’ll do the same now.”
For the first time, Griffin realized just how serious she was. Audrey wasn’t playing coy or blurting out an answer without thought. Whether or not her ideas were valid, she was ready to bolt if he tried to make her follow his order.
As her face began to regain some of its color, she spoke again. This time her tone was much gentler.
“Passion will fade, and we’ll be left with what? A nice friendship? Cordial strangers who share a name?” She shrugged. “I don’t want a man who still loves and mourns his first wife.”
This time it was Griffin’s turn to stiffen in reaction to her words. The reminder of Luci made his blood chill and his head begin to throb. There it was, one more thing his former wife could take from him. Had taken from him for years.
Audrey.
Choking out a laugh, he said, “Mourn for Luci? I can barely keep myself from cursing her to everyone who offers me condolences.”
Drawing in a sharp breath at Griffin’s sudden outburst, Audrey stumbled away from him.
And Griffin realized the time had come to finally tell her the truth. Even if it changed the way she felt about him forever.
Chapter Seventeen
“Oh yes, that horrifies you, doesn’t it?” Griffin asked with a shake his head. “As well it should. One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, especially one’s wife, and yet I hate her. I despise her with every fiber in my being.”
Audrey stepped closer and blinked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. They weren’t for the anger in Griffin’s voice, but the anguish in his eyes.
“What you see in me isn’t horror. This is just the first time I’ve heard this from your own lips. Others have implied you weren’t happy, but I didn’t know if that was idle gossip. I know how the ton can be, finding reasons to malign when there are none.”
Closing his eyes, Griffin lifted his head to face the ceiling high above. From his pained expression, it was clear his emotions tormented him. She had never felt such sharp waves of pain emanating from a person before.
“No,” he whispered. “They weren’t gossiping. It’s the truth.”
Sucking in a short breath, she finally dared to touch him, very gently, on the top of his hand. His eyes flew to where her fingers rested, but he didn’t flinch away. For that she was glad. Somehow she needed to touch him, to comfort him while he told her the truth he’d kept hidden for so long.
“Was it always that way? From the beginning?”
He shook his head. “Not from the beginning. When I married her, I believed I cared for her and that she cared for me. After you kissed me, I couldn’t stop thinking of you, but I convinced myself time would change that.”
Resisting the urge to stagger away again, Audrey stared at him. He’d spent the years thinking of her? She couldn’t believe that was true.
“Of me?”
“That’s right.” His voice was strangely distant as he reached out to draw his palm across her cheek. She shivered at the heat of his hands on her skin. “I had to force myself not to think of you. I did everything I could… riding, gambling and socializing with Luci and our friends. During the day, I could control my thoughts. But the nights… I couldn’t stop the dreams that haunted me.”
Audrey bit her lip and dipped her head, her breath coming in shallow little gulps as she digested what he’d revealed. A shudder rippled through her. All these years Griffin had been obsessed with her while she’d been yearning for him.
“Why did you think of me?” She didn’t dare to look up at him for fear he’d see how much his words affected her.
“Don’t you know?” He slipped a finger beneath her chin to force her to tilt her face toward him. “When you kissed me all those years ago, you woke something in me. Perhaps it was a desire I’d always felt for you, but suppressed because we were so young or because you’re Noah’s sister. But once I realized my desire, I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t keep from wanting you.”
The breath she drew in was ragged, more like a little cry than a breath at all. Her head was spinning with the words he said to her. Obsession, desire, a need to be with her. They were concepts she’d never dared to think of before. That Griffin would want and need her as much as she’d always wanted and needed him.
“But what happened with… Luci?” she asked, barely choking out the question as she tried to remain focused and rein in her out of control emotions. It was nearly impossible.
He dropped his hand back down to his side with a small sigh, as if her question brought him back to an unpleasant reality he didn’t want to face.
“Things began to change between us.”
“How?” Her voice cracked.
“Though I tried to keep my feelings for you a secret, Luci was jealous of everyone around us. Even her friends became targets of her suspicion. She grew more and more distant from me and the acquaintances she’d had all her life. She took up with new people, people I didn’t care for. She’d go out and not come home until very late, well past a reasonable hour. Even at events we attended together, she would slip away for hours at a time.”
Audrey frowned as a sense of premonition filled her. Yet Luci couldn’t have been untrue! How could someone be married to Griffin Berenger and not be satisfied with only him? After just two nights with him, she knew for a fact that she could be more than satisfied with him for the rest of her life.
Taking a deep breath, he moved away and returned to his seat. “I encouraged her to start a family. I thought becoming a mother would settle her down, that we’d be brought closer. I believed that with children we would become a real family. No more anger or fights between us. No more late hours and lies.”
Closing his eyes, Griffin drew in a long breath, as if it pained him to say what he said next. “She laughed.”
“Laughed?”
Stricken by Luci’s viciousness, Audrey crossed the room to sit down on the chair beside his and cover his hand with her own. Luci’s betrayal had devastated Griffin, and she hadn’t even cared. So he’d suffered. Greatly.
He lowered his voice to a dangerously quiet level. “She told me I would never be entirely certain if any child she carried was my own. She told me there was nothing I could do about it unless I wanted to bring shame upon myself and my family.”
Tears stung her eyes before Audrey managed to blink them away. This wasn’t her pain, it wasn’t her story to cry about. Griffin looked up when she was silent.
“I’m so sorry, so very sorry, Griffin.”
The words weren’t enough. She felt stupid saying them to him. He’d been hurt. Hurt more than she could even imagine. Saying she was sorry was little more than putting a tiny binding on a gaping wound.
“Don’t be,” There was a harshness to his voice, though she didn’t feel it was necessarily directed at her. “You were right. You told me on my wedding day I would be unhappy and I was.”
“Oh, Griffin.” This time she couldn’t control the tears that began to run down her face. “I never wanted you to be unhappy. I never wished for it! I hope you know that. I wanted you to find peace and love in your marriage.”
He caught one of her tears on the tip of his finger and wiped it from her cheek. “I know. You were always kind. Even if you believed I wouldn’t be happy, you would have hoped for it regardless.”
There was a long pause, but finally he seemed to gather his resolve and spoke again. “After that, our marriage disintegrated entirely. We never shared a meal. We never spoke unless it was forced by a societal or family obligation. We didn’t share a bed. So when she told me she was carrying a child, I knew for certain the babe couldn’t be mine.”
Audrey’s hand came up to cover her mouth as she bit back another cry of shock and anguish. What the man beside her had gone through during their years apart. While she had spun around foreign ballrooms in fancy gowns, thinking she was alone, Griffin had truly been isolated. He’d had no one to turn at the lowest point of his life.
“How horrible,” she gasped.
He shrugged one shoulder. “Still, I was surprised by how deeply I mourned for her baby when Luci died.”
Audrey smiled sadly. Not many men in the ton would have felt the same way. In a world where bloodlines ruled, Griffin Berenger cared more for a child’s lost life than his true parentage. His compassion reminded Audrey how much she loved him.
“You’re an amazing man, Griffin Berenger. A true original,” she said softly, leaning forward to place a gentle kiss on his warm cheek.
He turned his face to catch her lips with his own and for a moment they only held each other. When they parted, he leaned his head against the back of the chair and stared at her evenly.
“Are you going to ask me the obvious question?”
“What is the obvious question?” She smiled sadly.
It was a smile he didn’t return. “Don’t you want to know if I killed her?”
Audrey parted her lips in surprise then instantly shook her head. “No! I already know the answer. You wouldn’t, couldn’t do that. Whatever
Luci’s faults, she was your wife. You took your vows seriously, even if she didn’t.”
Griffin gave a sigh of relief and a weak smile returned to his face. “I’m glad you know that without asking. Some of my family members and close friends who knew of Luci’s indiscretions did ask me.”
She drew back. “Not Noah?”
“No. Not Noah. Never Noah,” he admitted. “Luci died of complications from an early birth of her child. Much too early, I’m afraid. I did all I could to save her and the baby, but the doctor said there was no chance for either of them.”
“Griffin,” she said softly. “What can I do?”
Now he turned his eyes on her with intensity. “Do as I ask and marry me. You’ve been in my head for years. And you would be faithful to me. I know that.”
Audrey looked into his eyes, but instead of seeing love there, she saw desperation. He so needed her to say yes, but not because he loved her. He wanted her to save him in a way. To give back to him some of what Luci had stolen all those years ago.
Slowly, she pulled away to stand up. Pacing over to the window, she caught her breath as she looked down into the busy street below.
“You can’t marry someone for safety, Griffin,” she said softly. She heard him rise, but continued without allowing him to respond. “You’ve been burned by Luci’s deceptions, but controlling me, taking me from my work… marrying me isn’t the way to regain your equilibrium.”
“That isn’t what I’m trying to do!” His tone was suddenly angry.
When she turned it was to see him staring at her with a red face, his nostrils flared and his hands trembling at his sides. His pain and anger moved her, but she had no choice but to stand her ground.
“Yes, Griffin, it is what you want to do, whether you realize it or not. You want to use me as sanctuary…”
This time he did interrupt her, motioning toward the bedroom. “You think what just happened between us in my bed was a plea for sanctuary? That was passion, darling, pure and simple. We have all the ingredients for a good marriage. Why won’t you let go of your ridiculous denials?”
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