He ignored her and turned to Cecelia, who had stepped away from him. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“You lied to me,” she whispered.
“I wanted to ensure ye wanted me for simply myself.” He cringed at how idiotic his reasoning now sounded.
“Youliedto me,” she repeated, her tortured voice searing his soul with pain. “Could you not see that I was not the sort of lady who would marry just for convenience?”
“I—” The words froze on his tongue. “I can now,” he said lamely.
She pressed her cheeks to her hands. “I’m a fool,” she said, her voice cracking. “I thought we had fallen in love. You made me believe it was possible to have fallen so fast, so completely. I thought I knew you!” She whirled away from him, but he caught her by the arm and turned her back.
He could not let her go. He could not imagine life without her. “Cecelia.” He pressed his lips close to her ear and felt her grow tense under his touch. “Ye do know me. The money does not change who I am.”
“If you truly believed that,” she said in flat tone, “you would have told me. Please, let me go.”
“Cecelia, I love ye. I wish to marry ye,” he admitted, not giving a damn that her mother stood on the steps, open-mouthed and staring at them.
“Marry me? You do not even know me, and despite what you say, it is now clear to me thatIdon’t knowyou! I thought you honest. You told me it was customary where you lived to speak the truth, and I believed you, yet you lied to me! I was truthful with you, told you I was not free to marry as I pleased. You must have seen my torment, seen how I was struggling to accept what I thought I must do to help my mother after meeting you, yet you stayed silent.”
The words sounded torn from her throat, and it nearly killed him to hear it. As she fled up the steps without looking back, he felt as if he was losing a part of himself he had only just found.
Cecelia flung the front door open and slammed it shut behind her, leaving him standing in the snow and staring up at her mother, who stood still gawking.
A long silent moment passed before Lady Thornberry spoke. “She will come around. You’ll see.”
He did not even care that Lady Thornberry only now desired him for Cecelia because of his money. He only cared about getting Cecelia back, but he feared he had been the biggest sort of fool and that she would never trust him again.
