Fire flashed in his eyes, yet his voice remained cold and detached. “Don’t be a fool. You’ve been compromised, albeit at your own instigation.” A tic appeared in his jaw. “We’ll get on well, and we’ll accomplish great things between us. I will require some conventionality of you as my wife, but you needn’t fear I will curb your work overmuch. I doubt many husbands would offer the same concession.”
“I daresay you are right on that count,” she ceded, but her hopes died. “However, that’s not a basis for marriage.”
Beneath the table, his hand slid up her thigh. Heat radiated from his palm through the satin of her skirts, strangling the breath from her chest as he leaned close. His scent overwhelmed her, and like a flash fire she boiled over with desire.
“Perhaps not.” His hand rose higher, fingers skimming over her through the layer of fabric. “But this is.”
Liliana looked away, trying not to betray herself. His touch still aroused, still burned with passion, but beneath it lay a leashed anger, so different from the tenderness with which he’d caressed her just last night. If only she could be certain that warmth and affection toward her would return, maybe she’d have the courage to go through with a marriage.
But how could she take the chance that it would not? How could she live with Geoffrey, loving him so, knowing he might never love her?
His hand slid away, and he turned to converse with a gentleman on his left who’d asked him a question. Liliana returned her gaze to Geoffrey, envisioning life between them. Polite. Perhaps passionate at first, but growing apart as the novelty wore off. Long, distant years, her heart breaking a little more each day.
No.
She’d come to Somerton Park with a purpose. Romance had been the furthest thing from her mind, not part of her formula at all. In fact, she’d never thought herself capable of love. But now, having tasted it, the idea of being in a marriage without love seemed as sour as the acetic acid that made vinegar so pungent.
The only thing keeping her here was the unknown still surrounding her father’s death. But didn’t she know enough? Her father had willingly involved himself in dangerous activities, albeit to help a friend—the best of intentions. She’d been relieved to discover nothing nefarious on her father’s part, yet he’d been an adult who’d made the choices that led to his death.
And even if she could prove that Geoffrey’s father had dealt the killing blows himself, which she doubted given the suspicious nature of the man’s own death, she would never breathe a word of it to anyone. She couldn’t destroy what Geoffrey was working so hard for. She couldn’t do anything to harm him.
Liliana twisted her napkin in her lap, coiling it ever tighter. Who was she kidding? She’d already hurt him, badly. Whether she’d intended to or not, she’d pursued this delicate situation as a scientist, not as a woman. Not as a person with feelings who cared for other people’s feelings, too. As a scientist, she always sought the truth with precision, pursuing theories to the end regardless of what was upset in the process, like a horse with blinders seeking only the finish line.
But what she’d done to Geoffrey was wrong. She couldn’t take it back, but she could put an end to it before any more damage was done. He, and how the truth would affect him and his work, was more important than the truth.
An uncommon peace stole over her at a startling revelation. For once in her life, she was okay with leaving things unknown. She had enough to satisfy and she was going to move on.
But to what?
She cast one final glance at Geoffrey, the ache of tears lodged in her throat. Not to a life as Lady Stratford. That was certain.
She’d return to Chelmsford and resume her work. It would be a lonely existence, even more lonely now that she knew what she’d been missing. And yet, no matter how miserable that prospect seemed, it had to be better than a life where she’d be forced to face the love she could have had but didn’t, every day across the breakfast table.
She let her eyes linger on Geoffrey’s noble chin, his bold features, the lips that had brought her such pleasure and joy and pain.
Good-bye, sweet love.
She’d leave first thing in the morning.
“Well done, Stratford!” Geoffrey’s partner chortled as he raked in yet another purse of winnings. Geoffrey nodded absently. The smile he’d held all night with some effort now seemed frozen on his face as the fingers of dawn approached.
He should be quite satisfied. It had been a fruitful night all around. He’d sent the countess into a fit of vapors with his choice of bride, his negotiations with several prominent gentlemen had gone better than he’d hoped and he had verbal agreements from four of them to fund various industrial projects, and he’d made peace with the Earl of Northumb. The older man had slapped him on the back, admonishing Geoffrey for keeping his “romance” with Liliana a secret and insisting he would have never pressured him into marrying his daughter had he known Geoffrey’s heart was already engaged. He also pledged his support for the Poor Employment Act, which all but guaranteed it would pass later this summer.
All of that, along with the realization that in three short weeks he’d have Liliana in his bed every night, should have made him a happy man. Yet he couldn’t shake the stricken look upon her face at dinner.
Well, she’d adjust. He’d had time to cool throughout the day, though he knew his anger was merely banked beneath the surface. But perhaps eventually it would fade entirely. After a few months together, he hoped they might fall into a comfortable partnership. And if he ever sensed further manipulations on her part, he would set her straight immediately about the kind of man she married.
“I must say, I was sure when I drew you as partner that we would lose our shirts.” Lord Goddard, the neighbor Geoffrey would forever think of as a wizened old turtle after seeing him in armor on the tournament field, raised his glass. “But you’re a sight better card player than I expected. I’ll take you as partner anytime.”
“Many a night was passed playing one game or another with my fellow soldiers,” Geoffrey said, “but why would you think I’d be so awful?”
Goddard shrugged, counting his winnings. “Just figured you took after some of the other men in your family when it came to luck. Or skill.”
Geoffrey huffed. What a strange old buzzard. “I don’t recall cards ever interesting my father, and you’re certainly too young to have been at the tables when my great-grandfather haunted them. Did you play with my brother, then? I hear he took some heavy losses in his day.”
Lord Goddard guffawed. “No, no. That young buck ran with a different crowd than I. I meant your uncle.”
“Joss?” Geoffrey glanced around at the other players, but as usual, his uncle wasn’t amongst them. “I’ve never seen him so much as look at a deck of playing cards,” Geoffrey said, thinking perhaps Lord Goddard had had one too many sips of the cognac.
“Well, he probably hasn’t in your lifetime. At least not in polite circles, but when we were young men, he took after old William Wentworth. You couldn’t drag him away from the tables.” The older man’s eyes clouded with a faraway look. “Was a terrible player, most times. Got into trouble more than once. But then his luck changed…at least until he was caught cheating.”