* * *
Oliver looked at his sister as if the lady had gone mad before his very eyes but she was looking at him with a strange gleam in her own.
“The Marquess has invited her out for a tour around the city,” he repeated. “I do not see why I should agree to such an excursion.”
“I do not see why you should not.” His sister leveled her gaze at him. “You refuse to confess your true feelings to her, although you have clearly shown that you care for her a lot. You also do not want the Marquess to have her but you wish to make no specific moves on that matter.” She laughed a little. “I fear you do not exactly know what you want.”
“Of course I want her,” he replied brusquely. “There is hardly a moment that goes by that I do not think of her.”
“But still, you hold yourself away from her,” she shot back. “You insist that you cannot have her but you do not want others to have her either. However, you seem to have failed to factor in something else.”
“Pray tell what that could be, sister mine.”
“Claire,” she replied succinctly. “Somehow, you have forgotten that she is her own person with her own mind, heart, and soul. You have made decisions about her as if she were a prize to be won but you have failed to considerherfeelings on the matter. You are not being fair to the lady you profess to love.”
Oliver sat back down and ran a hand over his face in frustration. “I thought you would be on my side on this.”
“I am onbothyour sides,” his sister pointed out to him. “But you are being impossibly stubborn and it is doing the matter absolutely no good.”
“What do you suggest I do, then?”
“You can either confess to Claire and have her choose between you and the Marquess, or simply allow the Marquess to draw her nearer—it’s your choice. You could lose her either way.”
Oliver paused his sister’s astute observation. He had never had his fears laid out so logically before him.
“You are right,” he finally admitted, after a lengthy pause. “I should confess to Claire and allow her to choose between us both. I have always thought of her as someone to protect and shelter and I have neglected the fact that the Viscount wanted her to make her own decisions regarding her happiness.”
His sister nodded. “Yes, that is precisely why he left Claire and Trixie a sizeable dowry—it was because he trusted his own daughters to be able to make the right decisions for their own happiness.” She looked at him, her gaze softening. “Besides, would it be so bad if you opened yourself up to Claire?”
He shrugged helplessly. “I have feared losing what we had so much that I had not exactly planned for going after what I truly wanted, I suppose.”
She laughed, the sound soft and melodic. “Well, we can remain trapped, paralyzed by our fears, or we can take a leap of faith and see where that leads us, who will catch us, and who will let us down.”
“I have always thought you were a wise woman but only now have I seen the full extent of your wisdom.”
“If I were so foolish, I would have been married in my first Season!” she chuckled. “But I have seen our parents and I have seen Lord and Lady Rowley. I want the same things for myself and I am willing to wait for the same thing to happen to me.”
He looked at his sister in wonder. For a long time, he had thought that his sister merely decided that she could not live with any of the eligible bachelors of thetonand decided to remain a spinster because of it. He had never realized that she was holding out for true love—the same love that their parents found in each other.
The same love he felt for Claire.
“So, what do you suggest about the excursion?” he finally asked her.
“I think you should give her your permission,” she said simply.
“I thought we had decided that I was going to confess my love for her.”
“No, we have decided to let Claire make her own choices and we cannot do that if you keep restraining her,” his sister pointed out wryly.
“Oh.” He smiled sheepishly at her. “Then perhaps you can tell her that I have given her my express permission to accompany the Marquess on his proposed tour of the city?”
Oliver knew that by following Suzanna’s advice he was taking a tremendous risk. He could very well lose the friendship between him and Claire, as once he admitted his feelings to her, there was no way he could take it back.
On the other hand, he still stood to lose her to the Marquess of Draydon by doingnothing.
He sincerely hoped with all his heart that by taking this leap, he was making the right choice and if he did, that he was not too late.
Chapter 20
