“Leave me alone, Duncan,” she shot back, her breath hitching. “Just… leave me alone. This game, this… chase, has come to an end. So, please, if I mean anything to you at all, then leave me be.”
Barefoot, she turned and stooped to pick up her shoes and stockings, limping across the grass alone.
Duncan pushed away from the tree, determined to carry her even if she hated him, but as he caught up to her, gritting his teeth through the pain of his own rolled ankle, she stopped and whipped around. The glower in her eyes was fiercer than any he had witnessed before, shards of fury glinting.
“Leave me alone,” she hissed. “You know me—if I need help, I will ask for it.”
“You are injured,” he growled in reply. “Youneedhelp, but you are too stubborn to ask for it.”
A cold smile graced her lips. “Or, perhaps, I know that you are not the man to help me. Indeed, you have done quite enough. So, if you have nothing more productive to say, I shall be on my way.” She paused. “Donotfollow me.”
Turning her back on him, she hobbled onward, and it took every shred of willpower that Duncan possessed not to sweep her up into his arms and carry her as far away from Roger and that proposal as possible.
Boring is better than a broken heart,he told himself, no longer sure if he meant hers or his.
Bizarrely, Valeria found herself grateful for the pulsing pain in her foot, as it gave her the perfect excuse for being somewhat teary-eyed and distracted. Whenever she felt her anguish or anger rising again, all she needed to do was touch her sore foot, now re-stockinged and shoed, and no one would suspect there was anything more to the pained scrunch of her face. Certainly not Roger.
“Are you certain you are able to have this conversation now?” he asked, frowning.
He sat beside her, at a polite distance, on the brocade settee that faced the splendor of the grounds, the terrace doors framing that wretched cedar tree perfectly. How she wished she had never spotted that golden ‘treasure.’
Valeria nodded slowly. “Please, do continue.”
She cast a cursory glance at Beatrice, who had retreated to the far corner of the room with her back to the pair, perched on a chair, pretending to read. The stiffness of her shoulders and the slight bend in her neck, however, made it clear that she was listening to every word.
“I am sorry for… ambushing you with my proposal,” Roger said, fidgeting with the cuffs of his tailcoat. “A friend of mine thought it would be… romantic, and I did not want it to feel like a business arrangement. In hindsight, putting it in a tree so tall was a terrible idea.”
Valeria had to laugh, though it echoed hollow. “Wereyouplanning to climb to retrieve it?”
“I was,” he replied, nodding. “Valeria, may I be frank with you?”
“Please.”
He took a breath. “I have admired you for some time and have long considered you to be an excellent… acquaintance. But I amnota romantic man. I am a practical man and, I hope, an honorable man.” He hesitated. “It has recently come to my attention that my father borrowed a tremendous sum of money from your father and neglected to pay any of it back.”
A chill bristled up and down Valeria’s spine, her eyes widening in shock.
“I happened to speak with your father last night, and after several games of chess and a brandy too many, the conversation became more… illuminating. I have been made aware of the hardships your household is facing,” he continued, unable to look at her. “I was already considering a proposal, I want you to know that, but it was the deciding moment for me.”
The increasing heat of the summer day seemed to surge into the Sun Room and crest across Valeria’s face, her skin flaming with shame. Nobody wanted to have to accept charity, nor did she like the idea he felt some kind of obligation to marry her.
“I asked your father’s permission there and then, and he has agreed,” Roger said, tentatively reaching out a hand to take hold of hers. “But, as I say, I did not want the proposal to feel like a business arrangement. Yes, this is my way of repaying my father’s debt to yours, but I also… like you, Valeria. I saw no reason not to combine the two.
“As for my haste—well, I was informed that it was a matter of the utmost urgency, but I assure you, Icanremedy your predicament. My fortune is greater than society is aware of. I arranged that deliberately, so that I would not be approached by ladies—mothers, in truth—who were hunting wealth above everything else.”
Embarrassment robbed Valeria of her ability to speak, squirming on the edge of the settee, uncomfortable with the feeling of seeing her secrets—her father’s secrets—laid bare before her. She had never felt quite so small before, her entire being reduced by her circumstances.
“And you need not worry about William,” Roger added brightly, as if they were in the midst of some cheery afternoon discourse. “He left at dawn this morning.”
“Left?” Valeria choked, her head pounding.
He nodded. “His mother sent a letter by express messenger. I believe she discovered his plans to propose marriage to you and promptly maneuvered to prevent it. She has chosen someone else for him, as I understand it.”
Valeria had assumed that the night’s revels were the cause of William’s absence, for he had been rather wobbly by the time she had retired from the drawing room. To hear that he had departed conjured a prickle of panic, for if she had no options anymore, then her future was already decided.
It was Roger or no one. Roger or destitution. Marriage to the mild-mannered, respectable viscount, or losing everything. It was no choice at all.
Yet, she hesitated.
