Page 82 of The Duke's Promise to Her Child
“See? With Helena you were never doing any of that. You argued with her. You made a fool of yourself in front of her on more than one occasion. You told her things about Cassandra you have never told anyone.” He raised an eyebrow. “When is the last time you behaved that naturally with a woman?”
Gideon was quiet for a moment.
“I cannot think of one,” he admitted.
“No. Neither can I.” James took a drink. “And she did the same with you. That is what frightened her. Not you specifically — the fact of you. Of what you had become to each other.”
Gideon leaned his head back against the chair and stared at the ceiling. The fire crackled. Outside, the wind had picked up against the windows.
“I love her,” he said. To the ceiling, mostly. “I know I have said it before, but I want to say it plainly to another person so that it is entirely and irrevocably out in the world. I love her. I love her determination and the way she argues and the way she handled those two farmers in the public house and the way she held that pig without caring in the least what it was doing to her dress.” He paused. “She made me want to be better. Not for her approval — I stopped caring about people’s approval years ago. But because she deserved better, and I wanted to be the person who could give it to her.”
James said nothing. His countenance told Gideon he was trying not to smile.
“She is the only woman I have looked at with any genuine feeling since Cassandra made a thorough fool of me,” Gideon continued. “Her and Lavinia.”
“Lavinia,” James said.
“Yes.”
“And Ruby.”
Gideon paused. “Yes.”
James uncrossed his legs and sat forward. “Who is Ruby?”
“A pig.”
A silence.
“I beg your pardon?”
“A pig. Small. Pink. Rather filthy. Helena bought her at the Thursday market approximately three weeks ago. She is currently living in the stable, though Helena had some thoughts about bringing her into the house at intervals.” He glanced at James. “Do not look at me like that.”
James pressed his lips together, cheeks twitching. “I would very much like to meet this pig.”
They went. James followed Gideon around the side of the house to the stable yard where Ruby had been given a pen near the gate, close enough to the house to satisfy Helena’s requirements and far enough to satisfy Mrs. Storm’s. She was rooting aroundin the corner of her pen when they arrived, and looked up at the sound of Gideon’s footsteps with what he had come to think of as her particular expression of alert expectation.
“Good afternoon,” Gideon said to her.
Ruby snorted.
“She greets you,” James observed.
“She knows me. I have been feeding her since Helena left.” He reached over the pen and scratched behind her ear. Ruby made a sound of profound satisfaction. “She is good company. She does not ask questions and she is never disappointed in me.”
James stood with his arms folded on the top of the pen and looked at the pig for a long moment. Then he looked at Gideon. Then back at the pig.
“Gideon,” he said.
“What.”
“Do you understand what has happened to you?”
“I have acquired a pig, yes.”
“That is not what I mean.” James turned and leaned his back against the pen, looking at him with an expression that wassomewhere between amusement and genuine feeling. “A year ago — less than a year ago — you told me in absolute terms that you were never going to open your heart to another woman. That your days of genuine attachment were done with. That any future marriage you undertook would be a practical arrangement and nothing more.” He paused. “You swore to it.”
Gideon said nothing.
