Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(57)

Roseford flushed and he refused to meet her eyes. His voice was taut when he said, “When you and Graham announced your wedding date, Simon came to me and we decided we’d go to Ireland. Or Italy. It didn’t really matter where. He just wanted to go and not come back until after your marriage was performed. I thought he might have told you so himself, but it seems I’ve revealed a secret. One that will clearly hurt you both.”

Meg’s ears were ringing as she stared at the handsome man before her. Roseford was many things, and he had certainly never been her favorite of her brother’s friends but he was not a liar.

“He was going to walk away,” she whispered.

Roseford nodded. “You must see that was the honorable thing to do.”

She clenched her jaw, her hands shaking as she stared at him. “Honorable. Ballocks,” she finally choked out, “I’m so bloody sick of that word!”

Roseford’s eyes went wide that she would curse in such a way, but before he could reply, Simon walked into the parlor.

“Roseford,” he said. “Finley said you were here and—”

He cut himself off as his gaze slid to Meg. She knew what he must see, for she couldn’t hide it. Her hands were shaking, her breath came short and tears filled her eyes no matter how she tried to angrily blink them away and keep her weakness from being revealed in such a humiliating fashion.

“Meg,” Simon said, moving toward her. “What is it?”

“Roseford, get out,” she whispered.

Roseford cleared his throat gently and bowed to her. “Of course, my lady. I’m sorry that I upset you.” He moved toward the door and added, “And Crestwood, I’m just sorry.”

Simon didn’t acknowledge it as his friend left, closing the door behind him. “What is it?” he asked.

“You were going to leave,” Meg said. Not asked—said, for she didn’t want to give him a chance to launch into a hundred explanations of the unexplainable.

The color left Simon’s cheeks and he stared at her in silence for what felt like an eternity. “Roseford told you?” he finally asked.

She nodded, but the movement felt jerky and unbalanced. “Yes. And thank God he did, for it seems you never would have. But that’s what your best at, isn’t it, Simon? Withholding.”

He flinched at the accusation and she could see that he wanted to move toward her. He didn’t, of course. It seemed he was patently incapable of doing so.

“I wasn’t trying to withhold something from you, Meg,” he said softly. “I didn’t leave, so I wasn’t certain there was any point in telling you that it was my initial plan.”

She moved toward him, hands clenched at her sides. “Do you wish you had?”

“Told you or left?”

“Left!” she cried. “Do you wish you had left?”

He bent his head. “If I had, I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”

She drew in a sharp, hard breath and staggered away, recoiling just as she would have if he struck her. In some ways, it felt as though he had, for the truth of him…of them…now hung between them in a way she had been trying to hide from. Avoid. Pretend she could repair.

It was clear now that she had been a fool.

“You would have hurt me,” she said, her voice hardly carrying.

He lifted his gaze slowly. “What?”

“Damn it, don’t pretend that you don’t know how I feel for you,” she said with a violent shake of her head. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know all along. You and I have had a connection that went deeper than friendship, deeper than lust, for years. We both felt it. And you know that if you had ridden off with Robert and I had married Graham, that it would have hurt me. The fact that it was only some night you regret that kept you from doing it…well, that hurts me almost as much.”

“The situation was…complicated,” he said softly.

“Of course it was,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I was in love with one of my brother’s best friends and marrying the other. You think that hasn’t torn me apart for years? That seeing you and wanting to be near you and wanting to touch you hasn’t broken my heart and my spirit?”

His eyes went wide. “You love me.”

“If you don’t know that, then you are blind as well as a coward,” she whispered. “Because I have never been very good at hiding it. Especially not when we were alone together.”

“Meg—” he began.

She shook her head. “No. No! I know you, Simon. You’re going to start reciting all these reasons why we are wrong and what we did was wrong and how we don’t deserve to be happy. That you don’t deserve it. But that is a pile of…well, it’s a pile of something I’m not supposed to say as a lady. And you know it.”

“I was never trying—”

“You were never trying at all!” She realized she was shouting. And she didn’t care. She wanted to shout. She wanted to scream because she had been silent for so long.

“Do you think I wanted to walk away?” he snapped.

She folded her arms. “You were going to, so in this situation I suppose it doesn’t matter what your intention was.”

He stared at her, his mouth opening and shutting.