“Then the next time he shows up here with gifts, I will have him thrown out on his arse. So if you do not want that to happen, brother, youwillinform him I will never marry him. Ever. Not even if you ordered it.”
“What is it that you have against him? Please tell me.”
For a long moment, Thea stared at her brother, then lowered her eyes to her plate. She did not speak for quite some time, but when she did, her voice held fear in it. Liam wanted to rush across the room and hold her against his chest, to soothe her fears and worries with his hands and his voice. However, he could not, dared not, even move a single muscle.
“He will hurt me, Freddie,” she said at last. “Not just a little, or hurt my feelings. I know he will hurt me physically and badly.”
“Rubbish,” Lord Willowdale scoffed. “He is one of the kindest, most gentle people I know.”
“What is the use in trying to talk to you?” Thea cried. “You refuse to listen to me. Freddie, I saw it in his eyes yesterday.”
Lord Willowdale glanced away from her pleading expression, her fear wracked eyes. “You do not know what you saw.”
“You are right,” Thea said, her voice empty of all emotion. “What do I know? I am just a woman, a thing to be given away, to be married off. Why should I expect anything more from you?”
“Thea.”
Liam expected her to rise from the table and stalk out the dining room door, slamming it closed behind her as she had on so many other occasions. She did not. Rather, she picked up her fork and ate her breakfast, and Liam doubted she tasted a thing. Brother and sister said nothing else to each other, the rest of the meal eaten in stony silence.
“Thea, I am sorry,” Lord Willowdale finally said when his plate was empty. “I was wrong to give him permission to see you whenever he wanted. And I should have told you that I had.”
Thea said nothing, nor did she look at her brother.
“I know you are wrong about him hurting you,” he went on. “He loves you so much. Perhaps he was just angry.”
Thea finally looked up and smiled stiffly. “I am sure that is quite correct.”
“Am I forgiven?”
“Of course. Now if you will excuse me, I have party invitations to write.”
Liam could not even turn his head to watch her go. His heart ached for her, knowing how lonely, how friendless, she must be feeling, when not even her brother, the only family she had left, would listen to her.
I hear you, my love, the light of my life. Though I can never tell you, I will die to keep you from harm. My life is yours.
Chapter 12
Her hand aching from writing out all the party invitations in her best penmanship, Thea sealed all the envelopes with red wax and the Willowdale seal. She spent the entire morning, with Felicity’s help, on the task, feeling glad it was now over with. Gathering them all up, she and Felicity took them to the house entryway where they would be put on the Royal Mail coach when it arrived later in the day.
Dispirited over her intense quarrel with Freddie, Thea said, “I will want to lie down after luncheon. Will you make sure the cleaning maids are finished with my rooms?”
“Yes, Miss Miller. Are you not feeling well? You look – peaked.”
“I am just tired, Felicity.”
“I will have hot chamomile tea ready for you when you come up.”
“Thank you, that would be lovely.”
However, her spirits sank even further when she discovered the Baron of Ampleforth had arrived, again unannounced, in time for the midday meal. Liam was sent to formally conduct her to the dining hall, and it was he who informed her of the visitor. She gazed up at him in stark disbelief after he had said, “The Lords Willowdale and Ampleforth are expecting you in the dining room, Miss Miller.”
She recognized the sympathy and the deeper spark of anger in his green eyes despite his immobile and neutral face. In public, he had to be formal when addressing her when she craved to have him talk to her as he did during their visits with each other by the lake.
“I do not suppose I can plead an illness?” she asked. “A headache perhaps?”
“Miss Miller?”
“Never mind.”
