Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(83)

“I am dead inside, Gwyneth,” he said. “I can function as a living man. I can and will do my duty here. I will marry and fill the nursery here if my marriage is so blessed. But I cannot resurrect the man you remember. I cannot love you. I can only want you.”

She sat back in her chair and drew a slow breath. He was looking very directly at her with those hard blue eyes, which had once gazed into hers with warm, open adoration. He wanted her?

“You must understand that,” he said. “There is no magic, Gwyneth. No romantic love. At least, there is not for me. You must understand my terms if you are to marry me.”

She sat very still.

“You would have a role to play as my countess,” he said. “It would be an alliance, a partnership. There would be no tasks I would expect you to take on without even consulting you. We would discuss each and come to an agreement either way. We would remain together spring, summer, autumn, and winter. You would never have to worry about my fidelity. You would have it. I have not been celibate during the past six years, but I will be after my marriage—celibate, that is, apart from the conjugal relations I will have with my wife. They will be regular and frequent. I wish for children—plural. No sentiment, though. No romance. No love except for the respect and even affection I would hope would be inevitable in a relationship that by its very nature would be an intimate one.”

She licked her lips. “You are asking me to marry you?” she said.

“No,” he told her. “I am accepting your offer to marry me. But upon strict conditions. With no illusions, Gwyneth. If you hope that I will fall in love with you again if you can only marry me and soften me up, then think again. For your own sake. The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you. I did love you once.”

What a very foolish man he was, she thought as she gazed back at him and marveled anew at how that saber cut could have spared his eye. Thinking that for her love was all about magic and sweet, sparkly eyed romance. Love was so many things that no one, not even the greatest poets, had ever been able to define it and establish one single meaning applicable for all time. Love was . . . Well, she was not a poet, and she was not even going to try. Not even in her own head.

He had come home. To do his duty, he had said. To hold his family together and this home. To reach out and make life better for the community around him. He had not been obliged to offer the ballroom here for the assembly. And he certainly had not been obliged to consider the feelings—and the finances—of Mr. and Mrs. Berry. His father had never shown that sort of sensitivity. He had just told her he had not been celibate during his years on the Peninsula. She would have been surprised if he had been. But he had told her so that there would be truth between them. When she had arrived here earlier he had been with two of his brothers, relaxed, leaning on the fence about the paddock, enjoying their company. He wanted children. Children, not just the heir and perhaps the spare that most men in his social position hoped for when they married. The last thing in the world he wanted was to hurt her.

What else but love were all those things?

He was hard and full of darkness. That could not be denied. But oh, he was not all cold, hard darkness. There was love in him too. He just did not realize it, and she was not going to explain it to him. At least, she assumed he did not realize it. Maybe he had admitted to himself that he loved Stephanie. And Philippa. And perhaps—perhaps?—his mother too. Gwyneth was not going to use any sort of wiles to tease him into falling in love with her. She was not going to do anything about the love that was there inside him, all mixed up with the darkness. She was just going to allow him to discover it for himself. To discover who he really was deep down at his core. Or not.

In the meanwhile, she was simply going to love him and live her life to the full.

“I think,” he said, “you would be well advised to rescind your offer, Gwyneth. You deserve more than I have to offer.”

“You have everything to offer that I want,” she said. You are Devlin, she almost added, but did not.

“Well, then,” he said. “I will ride back to Cartref with you when you go, and have a word with your father. If he is at home. Today is choir practice, I believe?”

“Yes,” she said. And dear God, this was real. This was happening. Was she making the biggest mistake of her life? No, she thought. No, she was not. For there were no illusions—on either side.

She smiled.

He did not.

She should get to her feet and lead the way back out into the cool autumn sunshine. There was much to look forward to. Including heartache. But she wanted to stay here forever. Just like this. She did not want to move and risk spoiling everything.

“I do want you, Gwyneth,” he said.





Chapter Twenty-One





His eyes seemed to look straight through hers to the very heart of her, and everything inside her ached with a longing so intense she thought she might not be able to continue breathing.

“Now?” Her question hung in the silence.

“We will be marrying,” he said. “By Christmas. I will not take your virtue and leave you.”

Oh. By Christmas?

“There will be no way back if we make love now,” he said. “Not for either of us.”

“I will never want a way back,” she said.

He continued to look at her for a few moments longer, his eyes still hard, not letting her in. Then he got abruptly to his feet, looking upward as he did so. There were long curtains for the windows, three of them, which could be drawn to cut out most of the sunlight on a hot day. He pulled all three across their rails until they met, and only the door facing down the long alley remained uncovered. The curtains brought little darkness, just a deeper sense of seclusion and privacy in the very unlikely event that someone should wander within sight of the summerhouse.