After the Wedding (The Worth Saga #2)(84)

Chapter Twenty-Two





Camilla made herself retain her composure through the dinner and the bath that followed. She made herself laugh when he said something funny; she reminded him to contact his brother, and she nodded when he sighed and promised to do it in the morning. She made herself act as if her heart was still intact.

He joined her in bed that night. She would have given him anything, but he just held her tightly, the clench of his muscles saying all the things he did not speak aloud.

He hadn’t chosen her.

She felt the moment when he drifted off to sleep, his arm around her loosening.

The lamps were out. She was in his arms. All she had to do was forget what she knew, forget what she wanted, and this could be her everything.

He held her for comfort, and it was comforting. He was the farthest thing from a monster; Adrian had suffered a horrific blow delivered by a man who ought to have cared about his welfare.

He’d brushed it off as best as he could, but…

She knew what he had done for his uncle. He didn’t deserve this.

And yet, that also meant…

It meant, quite simply, that he didn’t deserve to be saddled with her. That he deserved the choice he wanted.

Once, she might have thought that in sorrow. But with his arm around her, in the dark of the night, it felt like simple, rational truth.

He’d wanted a choice. He’d wanted a slow falling in love. He’d wanted a family and joy. Instead, he’d found betrayal and tears. No matter how Camilla valued herself, she could not take that away. She would always be inextricably tied with his uncle’s treachery.

And she? Gently, she pulled his arm off her. She turned to face the wall.

She hadn’t said it to him. The fact that his uncle’s betrayal hurt her, too, was not something he needed to grapple with at the moment.

But it had wounded her deeply.

He didn’t deserve to be saddled with her, and she didn’t deserve to be a saddle. She deserved to know that the man she spent the rest of her life with wanted her. Valued her. Believed in her. She deserved a choice, and a family, and joy, and a slow falling in love…

If she did nothing, he wouldn’t have that. Neither would she.

She slipped out from under the covers. Her feet found the cold planks beneath.

She’d always paced when she thought, and she did it now, hopping around the parts of the floor that squeaked under her passage so as not to wake him.

One turn of the room, and her mind was boiling.

She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life wondering if he was regretting her at the moment. When they argued—and she was sure they’d find cause to disagree, as all people did—she deserved to know that he would strive to listen because he wanted her above all others. Not because he needed to.

She did not deserve to wonder if he was envisioning someone else or if he mourned the woman he had not had the chance to choose.

She didn’t deserve a lifetime of not knowing.

A second turn about the room. She watched his slumbering form, a dark lump under the blankets. One arm was poised over the empty shell of covers she’d left on the bed, as if he were still trying to comfort her, even in his sleep.

Camilla gave her head a shake. She was being dreadfully unfair. Adrian wouldn’t do that to her. He’d never let her know that he had doubts. He wasn’t the sort to hold her worries over her head.

But she would wonder. As much as she would tell herself not to, she would.

She made a third circuit. There were worse things than a marriage where she wondered, were there not? He wouldn’t beat her. They had a firm friendship and a physical rapport. She loved him, and she had no doubt he would deserve that love every day of her life.

She had almost completed her fourth circle of the room, had almost convinced herself that she would grow used to this new reality. Her feet had warmed with her exertion. She loved him; was that not enough?

What did it matter, when there was nothing to be done about it? It would be enough. It had to be.

But deep inside her, Camilla had always had a dream. She had spent so long wanting someone to love her. She’d wanted to be chosen, to be wanted. She’d made bargains walking back from the store in the snow—“please, if she will just love me, I’ll never complain about anything again.”

She was no longer the woman who made desperate bargains for distant dreams.

She didn’t deserve to be loved as second place. She deserved to be loved without reservation or condition.

She deserved more. He deserved more. And just because the thing she wanted was impossible…

That didn’t mean she needed to give up hope.

She stopped walking. She stared straight ahead, thinking. They would have to get an annulment. They’d consummated the marriage, true, but she’d never been a virgin in the first place, and she’d read the reports. Others had lied about the matter; why couldn’t she?

She wanted a choice.

She imagined the world where she had that choice. In order to get there, she would have to obtain an annulment. An annulment in this circumstance meant power, and power meant…

She had not thought of the letter from Theresa, not since Adrian returned.

Judith missed her.

Judith wanted her.

Judith was married to a marquess and living in Mayfair. Maybe, once she heard the whole story, she’d reject Camilla as unfit.