Page 12 of How the Duke Saved Christmas

“Men were lining up for the chance to court her. She could have had her pick of any gentleman.”

Thatarrow pierced him. “I know.”

“Now she never leaves the townhouse—some days she never leaves her room. She’s stopped doing all the things she loved, things that she could still do even without the use of her leg—concerts, lectures, theatre, riding through the park.” He frowned, puzzled, into his glass. “She simply…stopped.”

“She’s always been proud and independent.” Michael returned the bottle to the table. “She doesn’t want anyone to think of her as helpless.”Or pity her.

“That’s why she didn’t want to come here and have you see her be carried around, unable to walk.”

That wasn’t why at all.Michael tossed back a healthy swallow and welcomed the punishing burn down his throat.

Anthony was silent for a long moment. “When I’d heard that the bridge was out and knew we’d need to come here, I was hoping seeing you again might convince her that her fears are baseless. That her true friends will always accept her, no matter that she can’t walk anymore. Thatyouwill accept her, just as she is.” He paused. “I was hoping you could speak with her about it.”

After their conversation that afternoon?Slim chance. Michael shook his head. “She won’t listen to me.”

“Then you have to find a way to make her.” Anthony sat forward in the chair and held his glass and cigar between his knees. “For God’s sake, Michael! I’m at my wits’ end. Every time I try to help her, she becomes angry and locks herself away in her room. My attempts just make everything worse.”

Michael stifled a curt laugh. “What makes you think my attempts won’t do the same?”

“Because she once loved you.”

Michael froze, except for his heart. That damnable thing stuttered in his chest like a snare drum. He rasped out, “You knew?”

“Of course I knew.” He grimaced that Michael would take him for being so obtuse. “I’d like to think that you felt the same. In fact, I’d hoped you would be a gentleman and offer for her.”

Christ.“I had planned on it.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Then the accident…” And all hope for a future with Clara vanished like the smoke trailing from the tip of Anthony’s cigar.

“That’s why I’m counting on you now. I need you to do whatever you can to draw her out and help her live again. To be happy again. What she’s doing now…” Anthony shook his head. “It’s not a life. It’s a slow death.”

Morley wasn’t the only one who lost his life that day. Michael froze with the drink raised halfway to his mouth as the full ramifications behind Clara’s words from that afternoon pierced him.Good God.What she’d been through, the hell they’dallbeen through because of that day…

But he couldn’t be the man who saved her.

Slowly, he lowered his glass and frowned into it. “I’m the wrong person for that.”

“Why?”

The confession tore from him. “Because she blames me for the accident.”

Anthony turned sideways in his chair to gape at Michael. “How could she blame you? You had nothing to do with it. You were following behind on horseback by the barouche with the rest of our group.”

“Because I wanted her to ride in the phaeton with Morley.” He couldn’t keep the raspy edge of guilt from his voice. “I insisted on it.”

Unable to sit still, he shoved himself from the chair. He laid his forearm across the mantel and stared down into the fire at his feet.

“I knew how much she’d enjoy a spin in a racing rig,” he admitted and threw the rest of his unwanted cigar into the flames. “I wanted her to have fun to make up for that afternoon’s boring picnic when she’d gotten stuck between the matrons and your Aunt Gertrude.”

He’d wanted to see her face flush with exhilaration and her blue eyes glow with excitement at the ride, to have the wind whip loose her gold hair from its pins because she wouldn’t be able to keep her bonnet in place once the team found its speed, to set her heart racing the way it did beneath his lips whenever he’d dared kiss her breasts—

A lie. He’d insisted on her riding with Morley for far more than that. If she was seen at Morley’s side, the sight might deflect any suspicions of the love and agreement between the two of them. At least until he could formalize their engagement with Anthony. Instead, he’d ended up pulling her from the wreckage and racing with her in his arms to the surgeon, terrified at every moment that he would lose her.

Six weeks later when she sent the note breaking off their engagement, he did lose her.

No. He lost everything.

Ignoring the sharp pain in his gut, he repeated against the rim of his glass, “She blames me.”

God knew he certainly still blamed himself. With a scowl he set the port away. Its taste had turned bitter on his tongue.