Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(90)

Agony knifed through him. She tightened her grip upon his face. “I loved my brother, Auric,” she said quietly. “I always will and the pain of his loss will always, always be with me.”

The muscles of his stomach tensed. “I’m s—”

She gave her head a brusque shake, staying that useless apology.

Yes, at some point, he too had reconciled that one was never truly free of such a loss. The jagged, empty hole left in Lionel’s absence would never be fully healed. “That pain will always be with us,” she softly amended. Daisy looked at him squarely. “But I don’t want to imagine a world without you in it.” She let her hands fall to her side and he mourned the loss of her touch.

Ah, God he did not deserve her.

Daisy’s chest rose up and down with the force of her emotion. She took a step closer so only a hairsbreadth of space separated them. “Perhaps you only wed me of obligation,” she began.

“No.” The denial burst from his lips. Auric could not live knowing she believed herself a responsibility and nothing more. How could she not know how much she meant to him? Because you never let her in the way she deserved… He drew in a breath. “I convinced myself that was all it was, Daisy.” He dragged a quaking hand through his hair. “What was the alternative? Loving you, the woman who—”

She pressed her fingertips to his lips, stopping the flow of those words. “I know you love me, Auric.” A tremulous smile hovered on her lips. “And I’ll have you any way I can have you. If yours is just the love of a friend—”

He took her lips under his in a slow, silencing kiss. The noisy call of vendors hawking their wares and the rattle of carriages along the cobbled roads faded and he, who’d spent years valuing and honoring propriety and respectability because he couldn’t face the truth, kissed his wife, uncaring of anyone and everyone around them. Daisy leaned into his touch and met his kiss. He drew back and ran his gaze over her precious, heart-shaped face. Her lashes fluttered wildly, and when she opened her eyes, they were glazed with passion. He caressed her lower lip. “I love you, Daisy Laurel Meadows.”

She said nothing for a long while, studying him with an assessing silence, and then that slow, mischievous, patently Daisy smile turned her lips up at the corners. “And I love you, husband.”

Auric dropped the inexpensive bauble given him by the gypsy woman into his pocket. She narrowed her old, knowing eyes now intently studying them, but then a young woman stepped up to the wagon and called her attention away and she rushed to assist the young woman. He rescued Daisy’s reticule and handed it over to her. “Shall we go home?” He held out his hand.

Daisy looked at his fingers a moment and then placed her fingertips in his. “Haven’t you realized, Auric?” she whispered.

He furrowed his brow.

“We already are,” she said softly.

Her words washed over him, and a lightness he’d never thought to again feel filled his chest, freeing, and at last he knew peace.





Epilogue 17 January, 1817

“It is time we say goodbye,” Auric murmured. His voice carried off the walls of his office. “I will forever appreciate everything you have done, the friend you’ve been to me.” He drew in a slow, steadying breath. “I will no longer require your assistance, however,” he said quietly. Even as the words left his mouth, he recognized how ungrateful they seemed, how formal, and very aloof. “You see, I’ve another who listens and I will give myself wholly to her.” He paused. “And I know you would approve.”

Auric sat back in his chair and studied the slightly charred, black leather book atop the mahogany surface of his desk. He ran his palm over the front of this piece that had been with him for eight years. Odd how an inanimate object had pulled him from the edge of despair and provided him some sliver of solace. He stood. However, he no longer required a mere sliver of solace. Daisy had filled his life with the peace and happiness he’d thought forever beyond his grasp. With purpose in his movements, he stood and carried the book across the room to the blazing hearth.

He touched his lips to the cover of the volume and tossed it into the fire. The crimson red flames licked at the edges of the book, swiftly devouring the pages, until it burned bright in an orange-red blaze. “Goodbye,” he whispered.

A sense of peace filled him. With that, he turned and started for the door. He pulled it open and made his way through the empty, quiet corridors of his London townhouse, passing portraits of his stern, frowning, ducal ancestors and their prim, unsmiling, and very un-Daisy-like duchesses. Auric climbed the stairs and made his way to a set of chamber doors.

Mindful of the late hour, he pressed the handle and quietly stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to make order of the darkened chamber. He located Daisy propped amongst a cluster of pillows with a precious bundle in her arms. “Hullo,” she whispered softly, a smile wreathed her plump, freckled cheeks. He returned her smile. She returned her attention to the tiny babe cradled against her heart. Joy swelled in his chest, powerful and all-consuming. He swallowed back a wave of emotion. The roaring fire snapped and hissed angrily, thoroughly warming the room.

Auric made his way carefully over to the bed. “You are awake?” he asked quietly, as he sat at the edge of her bed. The mattress dipped under his weight.

Daisy looked up from the babe in her arms, just two days old. “I could not sleep,” she said with another smile.