A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)(95)



“Thank you.” He stared at her hand on his sleeve, until she withdrew it. “Why didn’t you come inside?”

“It didn’t seem right,” she said. “I knew your whole family was there, and considering our history … I didn’t want to be a distraction.”

The carriage wheels rattled over cobblestones as they rounded a turn.

“Why did you do it?”

He had to ask. He had to know, no matter how much it hurt to hear it, just what it was that made him so patently undesirable as a husband. And she was the only one who could tell him.

“Why did you run?”

She faded back into the shadows and fell silent.

“Why did you jilt me?” he continued, growing agitated. “Why did you leave without saying a word? Was it something I did? Something I didn’t do? Was the prospect of marriage to me so revolting that you simply had to remove yourself to the other side of the globe?”

“Toby, I—”

He punched the seat cushion. “I said nothing. When you disappeared without so much as an adieu, I said nothing. When you returned from your little honeymoon cruise and all London was toasting Gray … I said nothing, to anyone. I could have ruined you both, made you the center of speculation and scandal. But I didn’t. And still, even now—we’re practically family, and yet you’re barely civil to me. Damn it, you owe me some answers.”

“I do,” she said hurriedly. “I know I do. And I know I owe you far more than that. I’ve simply been so ashamed, so sorry for how I treated you. I didn’t know how to face you again.”

“Well, if you’re so ashamed of your behavior, why did you behave that way in the first place?

Did you have so little regard for my feelings?”

“No, of course not. I cared for you, Toby, a great deal. I … I suppose I cared for you too much to marry you.”

He laughed bitterly. “What a sentiment. Truly, it warms the heart.”

“I cared for you, but we didn’t love one another,” she said. “And I thought we both deserved to find love.”

He snorted. Oh, yes. He had gotten what he deserved all right.

She spoke slowly now. Gently. “I know the way I fled our wedding was wrongheaded and thoughtless, and you can’t know how sorry I am for causing you pain. But would you have me regret it? Would you wish I hadn’t left?”

Now it was Toby’s turn to evade answering. “I think you shouldn’t ask me that today.”

“What’s happened?” she asked. “Did you and Bel have some sort of row?”

He dismissed her question with a shake of his head. There was no way he was going to explain Hollyhurst to her. Instead, he tapped his knuckles against the coach side to signal the driver. It took several smart raps before he caught the man’s attention and could direct him to the Grayson residence. If he’d only had his walking stick, he would have had an easier time of it.

“No real purpose, my eye,” he grumbled.

“What?” Sophia asked.

“Nothing.” He heaved an exasperated sigh. “No, there is something. I don’t want to ask it. I don’t want to hear the answer. But I simply have to know.”

“Yes?”

Toby crossed his legs, then uncrossed them. There was no way to say it but to say it. “Why couldn’t you have loved me? What does Gray have that I haven’t?”

“Oh, Toby. Please understand. It wasn’t like that at all.” She crossed the carriage to sit beside him. “This may not be what you want hear, but it’s the truth. My leaving had very little to do with you, and everything to do with me.”

“Good Lord. I can’t believe you’re giving me that line. Have you forgotten to whom you’re speaking?” He adopted a patronizing tone. “‘It’s not you, darling, it’s me.’ I’ve used that excuse a hundred times if I’ve used it once. It’s never the truth.”

“I know …” She wrung her hands in her lap. “I’m trying my best to explain it.”

“Try harder.” Toby didn’t even attempt to mask the bitterness in his voice. He was hurting. No, it wasn’t entirely her fault, or even mostly her fault, but she was the one nearby. Even though he had no hope of saving his marriage to Isabel, for some self-punishing reason he needed to understand why the first one had failed before it had even begun.

“Toby, I knew you admired my good qualities. My genteel accomplishments, my beauty … my considerable dowry.”

“I wasn’t some impoverished fortune-hunter,” he objected. “I didn’t need to marry for money.”

“Can you tell me honestly it wasn’t an inducement?”

Toby sighed. He couldn’t. It wasn’t so much the dowry itself, but simply the suitability of the match. With her fortune and accomplishment and beauty, Sophia had seemed the sort of lady he ought to marry. The sort of lady who ought to want to marry him. She continued, “I never felt like you truly knew me. At first, your praise was flattering. You were so charming, and you said all the things a girl most wants to hear. But after a while, those little compliments made me feel like a fraud. You always treated me as though I were perfect—

and I wasn’t. No one is. I feared I’d be living a lie for the rest of my life—that if you knew my

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