A Rake's Ruin (Devilish Lords #1)(46)

“Not exactly.”

“Then what exactly happened?” Anne asked, her hand squeezing hers for support.

Claire took a deep breath. “He gave me the option to call off the wedding if I so choose.” She swallowed the thickness in her throat. “He offered me freedom.”

Freedom. The word alone called to her. How had he known that was what she needed and wanted more than anything? Sometimes it seemed as though he knew her better than she knew herself, and that was terrifying.

But was it bad? Not necessarily.

“I don’t understand,” Georgie said. “How? Why?”

The how was easy enough to answer so Claire filled them in on the gossip he’d learned about the baron. How he believed it possible to get him to change his story and alleviate some of the pressure to marry immediately.

“Why would he do that?” Anne asked. She looked honestly perplexed. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

Georgie’s face brightened with a mischievous grin. “We all have.” She sighed and leaned back on the settee as though about to swoon. “Good gracious, the way he looks at you makes me believe in true love.”

Claire exchanged a quick grin of amusement with Anne. “Dear, you have always believed in true love.”

Georgie laughed. “Yes, in fairytales. But believing one could find it among the ton or while making a good match? That is a different story.”

Claire couldn’t have said it better herself. She wasn’t even entirely certain she believed in love, but love with a gentleman? Love with a man who wanted to marry her and who returned the feeling? It seemed too good to be true.

Georgie was right. It sounded like a fairytale.

“But then I watched the way Davenport dotes on Anne and now how Galwin fawns over you,” Georgie said with another sigh. “And I am now a true believer.”

Anne laughed. “Me too.”

“You were always a believer,” Georgie said.

“True,” Anne said, her attention turning back to Claire. “But Claire wasn’t.”

Claire met her sister’s keen gaze. “I wasn’t,” she agreed.

“And now?” Anne asked softly.

Both of her sisters seemed to be waiting anxiously for her answer and she delayed by rearranging her skirts. “Now…” Now, what? Thinking it was one thing, but admitting it was quite another.

That little voice that loved to challenge her came to the forefront. Oh go on, don’t be such a ninny.

There was no other explanation for the way her heart and body responded to Nicholas’s proximity, or the way her thoughts seemed to fixate on him when he wasn’t in the room. There was no other reason she should feel so giddy when the hour of his visits drew near.

“I think I may…” She cleared her throat. “That is, I believe that perhaps I am in love with Nicholas.”

Georgie released her grip on Claire to clap her hands with delight as Anne wrapped her arm around her even tighter in support. “It’s rather frightening, is it not?”

She asked it so quietly, Claire wasn’t certain if Georgie heard. She nodded. Yes, indeed it was. It was frightening and overwhelming and…beautiful.

It was thrilling, in a way. Funny, but saying the words aloud seemed to take away some of the terror and she caught herself smiling as the full rush of feelings enveloped her.

She loved him. She was in love. She, Claire Cleveland, the least romantic of them all, was in love…with a rake.

Pressing a hand to her mouth she stifled a hysterical giggle. She was in love with a rake. And now they were engaged to be married. It was ridiculous. This was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid. It was her mother’s fate, which she’d decided long ago would be a fate worse than death. A fate worse than the most disagreeable arranged marriage, to be certain.

But now…did she still feel that way? After all, Nicholas wasn’t like her father.

Wasn’t he?

No, he wasn’t.

She twisted her hands in her lap as the internal debate started up once again. Oh, how was she to know who to trust and what to believe?

Anne broke into her thoughts. “Has he told you how he feels as well?”

Claire nodded. “He says he…” Her breath caught in her throat at the memory and as the full meaning of his words registered, fitting inside her like a piece of a puzzle. “He says he loves me too.”

Georgie let out a little squeal of excitement and Anne was beaming at her as though it was all settled.

But then Georgie’s face fell. “I’m confused. If he loves you and you love him…why would he offer to back out of the wedding?”

Claire blinked at her. How to explain?

“You haven’t told him how you feel, have you?” Anne guessed.

Claire hesitated briefly and then shook her head.

Anne sighed. “Why not?”

Her hands trembled. That question seemed so simple but was anything but. “Because I don’t know if I can trust it,” she said.

There was a silence as all the women seemed to absorb that. Georgie spoke first. “You don’t know if you can trust what you feel or if you can trust him?”

Excellent question. Claire turned to her, not trying to hide the agony of her indecision. “Both.”

Anne grasped her hand tighter and Claire turned to her. Anne looked uncharacteristically serious. “Did you believe him when he said he loves you?”