Page 61 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

“I am not being distant,” he said, his voice like icicles.

She crossed her arms. “Yes, you have. You have been pushing me away. Do not insult my intelligence. I know that things have changed between us, and I am confused, Ewan. Confused and angry and disappointed. I thought that something was growing between us. Even if it was not the kind of affection that usually exists between husbands and wives, I thought at least it might be friendship. Companionship. Trust.”

Something flickered in his eyes. Was it regret?

She held her chin up high. “Did you not feel the same?”

Ewan’s jaw worked, and she held her breath, sure that he was about to rage at her and order her out of the study.

And then, at last, his shoulders slumped, and a look of such potent grief passed across his face that she was almost startled.

“I have never spoken this out loud,” he whispered. His voice was so low and gravelly that she had to step forward to hear it. Pain glistened in his eyes, which were locked on her. “But I think you must know it, if you are to understand what it is that plagues me.”

“You can tell me anything,” Cassandra said softly, and she slowly sank into the chair across from him, placing both her hands flat on the desk as if in surrender.

She watched as Ewan struggled to find the right words. His eyes were still on hers.

“My late wife, Margaret, was in love with Christopher,” he said at last.

The words filled the space between them. They were difficult for Cassandra to hear, difficult for her to understand. She did not move, frozen in place as he continued to speak.

“Christopher, of course, did not love her, but he did dally with her, making her believe that he might actually propose. She fell madly in love with him. Everyone in thetonknew of her great passion for him. But everyone also knew, of course, that he would not marry her. He continued to flirt with other ladies, even flaunting his other courtships in front of Margaret.

“She was furious, but more than that, heartbroken, or so I believed. I felt for her, of course I did, and I offered her comfort. She soon became reliant on me, devoted to me, even, and convinced me to marry her. At the time, I was young and naive, foolish enough to believe that my comfort had made her fall in love with me. But once we were married, it soon became clear that the only reason Margaret had married me was out to avenge herself on Christopher.”

Cassandra’s mouth had fallen open in shock, and she quickly closed it. A million questions filled her head, but before she could ask any of them, Ewan was speaking again.

“She was humiliated by him, and heart hardened. I tried my best to show her that she was loved and cared for, that she was safe with me, but she would not open her heart to me, especially once she realized that her revenge was pointless. Christopher did not care that she had married me.”

“That is hard to believe,” Cassandra interrupted.

“It is true. He laughed at her when she tried to point out how she had humiliated him in turn by marrying his titled brother.”

Ewan let out a long sigh, “I was furious at him for his behavior, of course, but I also wanted her to let go of her anger and thirst for vengeance. We were married, and I thought we ought to make the best of the situation. And I cared for her, I really did, I even loved her…”

He trailed off, his gaze becoming unfocused as he stared over her shoulder, at the wall. Cassandra glanced over her shoulder as well. On the wall behind her was a small portrait of a woman she had never noticed before. A beautiful woman, with beautiful brown eyes.

The exact same eyes that Annabelle had.

A shiver passed over her, and she turned back to Ewan. He looked at her, and she felt everything in her body constrict. “I spent my marriage loving a woman who wished I was someone else,” he said. “And I had to bury that humiliation deep. When she died, I had to add grief into the equation. It was almost a relief, to feel grief, rather than longing, because longing for someone who lives in the same house as you and does not want you is a particular kind of starvation. But then of course, the relief only led to more guilt.”

His eyes looked momentarily glassy, but he did not cry. Instead, his face seemed to become even harder, his body as rigid as a board.

“That is why I refuse to do it again,” he said. “If you are in love with Christopher, if you would prefer to be married to him, then I would rather let you go than experience again the pain of living with a woman who prefers my brother. I cannot put myself in that position again, especially not with you”

Cassandra suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Her chest was pounding, her whole body hot.

“The idea that you might look at Christopher and see the man you actually want is something I cannot survive. I cannot, Cassandra.”

His voice broke on the last word, her name, and he finally looked down.

For several heart-stopping seconds, neither of them moved.

And then she reached across the desk and took his hand.

The rawness and vulnerability of his words were making her feel things that she had never felt before, like her whole body couldhave floated up out of her chair, like her heart was moving faster than a speeding marriage, like every inch of her yearned to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin, the roughness that told her he was a man who was not afraid of hard work.

And as his hand slipped over hers, she felt a tremor go through her. His hand was calloused and warm, so big and tanned next to her small, pale one. She stared at where her hand nestled in his palm. Her heart was in her throat. She did not dare look up.