Her Favorite Duke (The 1797 Club #2)(58)

She shook her head. “Simon, I know you’ve cared for me as long as I’ve cared for you. But you were never willing to fight for me. And I’ve been fighting. I’ve been fighting since we were caught together that night in the cottage and it was clear we would be forced to marry. I knew that we could be happy, that we could be…right. But now I see I was a fool.”

She stared at him, at his beautiful face. She saw his pain. But she also saw his hesitation. And that was what broke her, for it proved to her what she already knew.

He wasn’t willing to overcome the obstacles between them. She wasn’t worth it to him. And like Emma, she realized she didn’t want to live a life like that. She couldn’t love this man and have him incapable of allowing himself to feel the same in return.

She’d rather be alone.

She backed away, forcing a wall down between them just as he had done so many times before. “I’m leaving.”

His eyes went wide. “Leaving?”

She nodded slowly. “I need time. I need to think. I’ll go to James and Emma’s. I just need…to not be here.”

“Please, Meg,” he said, moving to her. He caught her arms, but she struggled free of him even though his touch burned her with desire and love.

“No,” she insisted. “I just need to…go.”

He backed up a step, his mouth drawn down and his eyes dark with emotion. Then he nodded. “I won’t stop you.”

Those words were meant to give her what she wanted, but her heart sank when he said them. Because in the end, that was the problem. He wouldn’t stop her. And that meant what she wanted was something she would never have.

She shook as she turned her back on him. She shook as she walked out of the parlor in silence. She shook as she waited for Finley to call for a carriage. But she didn’t turn back and he didn’t call out for her.

In that moment, she knew it was over.





Simon paced the parlor, drink in hand, just as he had been doing for…God, he didn’t know how long. Hours, for certain. The room had grown dark, then light had returned.

Meg had not.

His mind had spun all night, spun with Graham’s accusations that he didn’t fight, with Meg’s. Their words wound together, burrowing into his soul and making him question everything he’d ever believed about himself.

He was a peacekeeper. He had been between his mother and father, he had been between those in his group. He’d spent a lifetime trying to be whatever was needed to make things…pleasant.

And now he was being told that it wasn’t enough. Worse, he knew that it was true. But to be more, to fight, that required him to take a risk. And giving his heart, reaching for more, that had never ended well for him over the years.

“Your Grace.”

He turned to find Finley in the doorway, the butler’s face drawn with concern as he looked at him. And why not? The poor man kept offering him food and suggesting he take some rest, but Simon couldn’t do it.

He had to find a way to deal with this and he just didn’t know how.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice rough from exhaustion.

“It’s me.”

The butler stepped aside and James strode into the parlor. Simon froze. His best friend’s face was tight and his eyes were bright with anger.

“You can leave us, Finley,” Simon said softly.

The butler did so, closing the door behind him without having to be asked to do so. The moment it clicked shut, James pushed up on him, chest forward, body language nothing but aggressive. “I asked you to do one simple thing. What was it?”

“Not to hurt Meg,” Simon said, and his voice cracked. “And I failed you. You want to hit me, call me out, destroy me, then do it.”

“I don’t want to do any of those things,” James snapped. “I want to see you figure out what you need to do. What you want to do. And I want to see you be happy.”

Simon bent his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happy, James. I’m not sure I know how.”

He sank into the settee and rested his head in his hands as emotions he normally controlled washed over him. He felt James sit beside him.

“I know what your life was like as a boy,” James said. “Your father wasn’t as overtly cruel as mine could be, he wasn’t as violent as Graham’s, but I know you spent your life walking a tightrope. Trying to be what everyone wanted you to be in order to keep some kind of peace. Hell, you even tried your best to keep Graham and me steady when we lost our way.”

“You and he are fighters,” Simon whispered. “I just don’t know how to be.”

“What do you want?” James asked.

“Her,” Simon snapped, looking at his friend at last. He saw pity in James’s face, but also understanding and both broke him. “Bloody her, always her, only her.”

James nodded. “Then you’d better figure out how to be the man she needs, because your time is running out.”

“What does that mean?”

“She was devastated when she showed up at our home yesterday,” James said, his frown deepening. “I’ve never seen her so broken. And she…”

“She what?” Simon asked, leaning in.

“She left, Simon. She was determined that she couldn’t see you again, that she couldn’t know that you don’t love her enough to make her a priority. She left London this morning.”