Page 63 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

A sick feeling slithered through his stomach, and he was glad that his eyes were closed so that he did not have to look at Alaric directly. The shame of it was too strong, and he felt tears gather behind his eyes. Tears he would never let fall, of course.

“What are you talking about?” his friend asked sharply. “Her Grace has absolutely no interest in Christopher, and I cannot imagine what you might have done to drive her into his arms.”

Taking a deep breath, Ewan forced himself to open his eyes, praying that the water that had been there was gone now.

“I told her about Margaret,” he muttered. “And now I am sure she is disgusted by me.”

The confusion vanished from Alaric’s face, replaced by concern. “I see,” he said slowly. “Although I disagree with your prognosis. Telling the duchess about Margaret will not make her disgusted by you. If anything, the opposite.”

“She knows of my shame now,” Ewan snapped, although speaking loudly only increased the pain in his head. “She knows how I was humiliated by Christopher. And can you not see the parallels, Alaric? Both women wanted to marry my brother. Both ended up married to me again. It is a cosmic joke, myfriend. God is surely laughing at me, that this is happening all over again.”

“Except it is not the same situation,” Alaric said sharply. “Lady Margaret was deeply in love with your brother, God help her. I do not like to speak ill of the dead, but she was a naive, vain woman, easily won over by empty flattery. Her Grace is not like that at all. Cassandra is intelligent, discerning, and wise. She never loved Christopher, she barely even knew him, and only agreed to the match in order to do her duty to her family.”

“How do you know that?” Ewan asked, staring at his friend with a mixture of astonishment and hope. “Did she say something to you?”

“No, but this is what Lillian, Miss Ashworth, tells me,” Alaric said, sitting back in his seat and folding his arms. “They are friends, and Lillian tells me that the duchess did not cry once after your brother was presumed dead. Not once. Does that sound like a woman who is in love? She was upset, of course, and worried for her future. But she made it clear to Lillian that she had not expected the marriage to be a love match, and that she already had significant worries about the character of her future husband.”

Ewan was silent for a long moment. That first day they met and he saved her from the water, Cassandra had asked questions about Christopher that had told him she had doubts about the marriage. And it was true that he had never seen her weep when they had thought him dead.

And she had seemed remarkably willing to marry Ewan instead.

Not to mention the tender moments that had passed between them, the way that she had taken his hand after he had confessed what his marriage had been like, had admitted that he could never go back, never do that again…

But it was possible she had felt sympathy in the moment, only for that sympathy to be replaced by disgust later, once the reality of what he had told her had settled in.

He did not like the person he had been when he had been married to Margaret. And he did not want Cassandra knowing that man. It was hard to believe she would not find him as pathetic as he had found himself.

“I truly believe that it is you that Her Grace cares for,” Alaric murmured, and Ewan looked back at him. He had almost completely forgotten about his presence. “But you will not keep her forever, if you continue to push her away.”

Ewan swallowed and looked down. “You have noticed that, too, have you?”

“I have,” Alaric said. “And it is not as if I do not understand. Of course you are worried. The circumstances are alarmingly similar… But they are different, as well, in many important ways.And I think that if you continue down the path you are on, where you put up walls that are impossible to climb, that you will only end up pushing her away. Not into Christopher’s arms, I think there is little chance of that, but somewhere you cannot reach her. In her heart, I mean.”

Alaric’s voice quavered slightly, and he cleared his throat.

“I know firsthand what it is like to lose someone,” he said after a moment. “Miss Ashworth has recently informed me that she intends to take a position at a new household far from the Highlands. Despite the many times I have told her how I feel, that I do not care if we are poor, she believes that she must take care of her family, that she has a duty to them. I am losing her, Ewan, and my heart is breaking.”

To Ewan’s surprise, Alaric’s eyes were bright with tears.

“I did not know the depth of your feelings,” he said quietly.

“But while my heart is broken, I do not regret for a moment having told her how I feel. Now I know that when I lose her, it will not be for a lack of trying. I think that is the regret I could not live with. And I think you would not be able to live with it, either.”

“You are right,” Ewan said. His friend’s words were burning through him, making him able to think clearly for the first timein days. “I cannot push Cassandra away anymore. It has been so hard to think straight, with this lethargy that has come over me.”

“I think you will feel better once you talk to her,” Alaric said. “I would not be surprised, in fact, if this illness has been brought up by keeping all of this buried inside of you. Ill humors can affect a man very powerfully.”

“I hope you are right,” Ewan said, although he wasn’t so sure. He had a feeling that his illness was more directly related to his brother’s presence, and the feeling he had every moment of the day that he was about to turn a corner and see him and Cassandra locked in a tight embrace.

At that moment, there was another knock on the door, and Ewan sat up straight, quickly adjusting his cravat so that it was perfectly in place.

Christopher entered with a concerned smile affixed to his face. When he saw Alaric, he paused, the smile momentarily slipping. But then he quickly readjusted it and stepped forward, closing the study door behind him.

“Excuse the interruption,” he said, “but I wanted to speak with you, Ewan.”

He glanced at Alaric, who did not move.

“You can speak freely in front of Alaric,” Ewan said.