He scowled back at me and then turned to close the studio door.
“No.” I flung my paintbrush outward, pointing at the door. “You can just leave.”
He ignored me. I considered marching across the room to wrench open the door and demand he get out, but the look in his eyes told me I’d never make it past him, so I stayed where I was.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I reiterated, turning back to my canvas and pretending to examine it. I swirled my paintbrush in the Mars Yellow on my palette, trying to still my shaking hands.
“That’s fine,” he said, moving toward me. “But I have something to say.”
“I won’t listen.” My voice rose higher with each step he took closer. Why couldn’t he just leave me be?
“Oh, yes, you will,” he declared confidently.
I whirled away from the easel and around the table set near it, placing both between me and Gage. “No, I won’t.” I could hear the panic in my voice, revealing my agitation, but I couldn’t control it. “Please,” I begged, shaking my head. “Please, just go.”
“Kiera, she’s not my fiancée!”
I looked up at his wide eyes, his open hands, and shook my head again. “No. You’re lying. I . . . I saw the way you reacted.”
“Kiera . . .”
“You were headed to London . . . And those letters from your father . . .” My voice was trembling. I flung my paintbrush angrily into the cup of linseed oil sitting on the table, making the glass klink and liquid splash onto the wooden surface. “No. No. No!” I dropped my palette down next to the cup with a clatter and turned away, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Kiera,” Gage pleaded behind me. “She is not my fiancée. I swear to you.”
His footsteps were loud against the floorboards, all of his usual stealth gone. I stiffened as he moved closer, and he stopped several feet from me. I could just barely make out his reflection in the darkened glass of the window before me, standing tall and rigid, his hands fisted at his sides.
“I was headed to London to see my father,” he said, his voice tight with frustration. “That part I did not lie about. Or that it was in regards to a small disagreement. I just didn’t tell you that the disagreement involved his wanting me to marry Lady Felicity Spencer, and my refusal to do so.”
My chin rose at those words, and I supposed he saw it as a sign of encouragement for he moved a single step closer.
“He made the suggestion late last spring, and at the time I had no serious objections, so I let him introduce us and even danced attendance on her for a short while. But before I left London for your sister’s house party at Gairloch Castle in August, I had already decided that Lady Felicity was not the wife for me.” He hastened to add, “I made her no promises. I confessed no intentions. If she believes I’ll make her an offer of marriage, it’s not because of anything I have said or done.”
“But clearly she does believe it,” I murmured in a small voice.
“Please,” he said, shifting half a step closer. “Will you at least look at me?”
I considered denying him. My body quavered with anguish and uncertainty, and I worried that if I looked at him, I might lose what limited composure I still had. But it seemed cowardly not to face him, and petty to do so out of spite. So even though my chest was tight with distress, I turned sideways to meet him halfway, staring up at him through the screen of my lashes.
His shoulders lowered in relief, though his eyes were still stricken. “Despite my resistance, my father is set on the match, and determined to forge an alliance with Lady Felicity’s father, Lord Paddington. My father is the one who has kept the suit alive. I’ve written to him time and time again, telling him I will not marry Lady Felicity. But he will not listen.” The last was taut with exasperation. He inhaled deeply. “Which is why I was traveling to London. To make him see reason.”
He lowered his head so that he could see more directly into my eyes. “So you see, I am not engaged to Lady Felicity, nor was I ever.”
My stomach fluttered with a stirring of hope I wasn’t willing yet to believe. “But . . . aren’t you honor bound now to offer for her? If your father and Lord Paddington have already drawn up marriage contracts . . .”
“No. I made no promises to the girl. It doesn’t matter what my father has done.”
“But what of the scandal?”
“There won’t be one.”
I frowned. Gage might not be concerned, but I knew better. There was nothing society loved more than to criticize and compare. He might emerge from this relatively unscathed, but gossip was always less kind to the females involved.