The door opened abruptly, as if someone had been at a window, watching for them.
Thea lifted her head and pale blue eyes skewered her to the front steps.
"Mother?" she asked, disbelief coursing through her mind.
"What took you so long?" the countess asked. "We've been waiting, the dowager and I."
The dowager countess was here?
As if in a nightmare, Thea drifted into the parlor, small details exploding in her mind.
Four teacups on the table. Scent of the dowager's expensive French lily eau de toilette.
The dowager stiff-backed in the horsehair chair by the fireplace.
Aunt Hen here as well. She waved to Thea. "Hello, dear. Pleasant journey?"
Thea was too stunned to reply.
Aunt Emma rose. "I'll fetch another teacup." She stopped as the duke entered the room, stooping a little to make it through the low doorway. "Oh! Your Grace." She dropped into a deep, flustered curtsy.
He nodded curtly, his eyes dark and flat.
The dowager countess's gaze swept disdainfully over Thea's mussed curls and Dalton's scuffed boots. "My, my, my. You two must have a tale to tell."
Thea finally located her voice. "What . . . what are all of you doing here?"
The countess flashed her a triumphant smile. "Why don't you ask His Grace? He's the one who invited us."
Chapter 24
"What did you do?" Thea asked Dalton, advancing on him and backing him out of the parlor doorway. "What did you do?"
His face turned blank and emotionless. "I was going to tell you."
She backed him out of the room until they were near the front door. "When? When were you going to tell me that you invited my family to come fetch me like some sheep who broke loose from its pen?"
"Today. I was going to tell you but then . . . everything with O'Roarke. It fled my mind."
"When did you do this?" Her mind felt numb and frozen and her words came from far away. She wanted the facts. The exact sequence of events.
The anatomy of a betrayal.
He flinched. "I wrote another letter and posted it with yours. I couldn't let you throw away your future like that."
His back hit the doorjamb.
He thought he'd done this to protect her. Arrogant, controlling arse.
"It's better this way," he said.
The same words he'd said in the carriage.
"Better for whom?" She was nearly shouting now but she didn't care. Let them hear. Let them know how she'd changed. How she'd found her voice and it would never be soft and diffident again. "For you? So I won't be your burden anymore?"
His eyes darkened to coal. "I'm not any of those things you said I was, Thea. I warned you not to trust me. I betrayed you. My own brother hates me. I've lived my life based on a lie. I have no answers."
"What did your letter say?"
"What difference does it make? I sent it. They're here."
"I want to know what it said."
"I told your mother you were lying. You hadn't been ruined. I told her you still had a choice and a chance for happiness." His head fell against the wall with a thud. "Now what I wrote is the lie. I ruined you. I limited your options."
"I heard that," came the dowager's sharp, reedy voice.
Dalton started, his gaze darting to the parlor doorway.
"You didn't trust me enough to let me make my own decisions," Thea accused.
"And that's the man you'll marry, Lady Dorothea," he said, raising his voice. "You'll marry a heartless rake. You're saddled with me now."
Emotionless. Flat. No love for her in his words . . . or his voice.
Only duty. Stupid honor and duty.
"We'll go back to London. You'll live at Osborne Court," he announced.
Excited gasps from the parlor.
No, no, no.
She clenched her hands. This wasn't what she wanted.
She opened the door and pushed him outside, fighting desperately to keep from crying.
Outside, slashing rain pounding her bare head, sliding down the hood of her cloak and seeking out the opening to trickle down the middle of her back.
Thea slammed the door behind them. "I can't believe you'd do something like this." Hurt and anger raced through her mind, galloping for the finish line. The end of this journey and the end of the dream she'd had of a future with Dalton.
She'd never imagined it ending like this. Never thought he would betray her. Seek to force her back into the cage of her family's expectations.
"I warned you not to trust me," he repeated.
He'd tried to warn her, but she'd deluded herself into believing . . . what exactly? That she yearned for the same outcome her mother and grandmother wanted for her? To marry a duke?
Ha. That's the last thing she wanted. Marry a duke who didn't love her. Never.
"I won't marry you, Dalton. You're precisely what I ran away from. I'd rather be alone here in Ireland than be shackled in a loveless match. I will only marry if there is love and trust and-"
"You have no choice."
And that was the proverbial last straw.
"I do have a choice," she shouted, glaring at his arrogant, cold face. "And I choose not to marry you. You don't love me. You don't even know me." She kicked the muddy path, splattering dirt across her red boots. "I thought you were listening to me, truly hearing me. I thought you understood my need for this hard-won independence. I was wrong."
"You're right." He squared his chest, standing erect, taking the abuse she leveled at him with infuriating calm. "I'm not worthy of you."
"You," she sputtered. She'd never been this angry. She was wet, and tired, and the events of the past few days had left her so raw.
The passion they'd shared. The intimate conversations.
All lies.
"You're an expert at building walls between yourself and your emotions," she said. "A wall to keep me out. A wall to distance your brother. Barriers like the ones hemming in your mother. Walls around your heart."
"You're right," he said again, bowing his head slightly.
"See? There you go again." She stamped her foot, even though it spattered more mud on her hem. "Admitting I'm right is just another wall." She wiped her wet hair out of her eyes. "Our journey meant nothing to you?" she asked, needing to hear him say the words. "You never began to believe that life could hold more. The possibility for trust . . . and love?"
She whispered the last word, knowing what his answer would be, knowing it would only be another wall between them.
"Love's only an illusion. And so is the person you thought I was. I'm not good or noble. You were falling in love with a fantasy. A person you created out of your own needs. I told you I'm nobody's answer." He spread his hands wide. "My own brother, who I thought was lost forever, hates me enough to deny our mother comfort and peace in her old age."
Thea shivered.
His eyes softened and he half raised one of his hands, as if he wanted to touch her. "You're right to refuse me. I can never give you what you need. You don't need me to believe in you. You're strong enough on your own."
"You're right. I don't need you." She wrapped her cloak tighter, even though it was already a sodden mess. "Leave now, Dalton."
Of course that's what he wanted her to say. Just as Alec had said the same words an hour past.
"Leave me and never come back," she commanded.
"Thea." He touched her, the ghost of a caress along her cheek. "I wish I had a heart to give you. It would be yours, Thea. All yours."
He left her then.
Tall and strong, walking away in the rain.
Back to the carriage. He'd go to Balfry House, maybe.
Or he'd go to the devil.
The barricades he'd erected were too high and too thick. And she had walls of her own to blast apart. They waited for her back in the parlor.
She was not going to cry.
She had her own battles to fight and she needed to be strong and uncompromising to withstand the maelstrom of censure that would attempt to bend her back into obedience.
She'd stand firm. She wasn't going anywhere. No one was going to control her anymore.
The dowager's steely tones met her at the door. "Well? What happened, child? Did you accept the duke-"
"Stop!" Thea walked into the center of the room, planted her muddy boots on the blue-and-white carpet, and clenched her fists. "Not one more word."
"Lady Dorothea," hissed the countess. "You forget-"
"You can't speak," Thea interrupted. "For once in your lives, you're both going to sit there and listen!"
"Well!" The dowager fell back in her chair.
"I've refused the duke," Thea announced.
"Pardon me? Did I hear that correctly? Refused-"
She raised her voice, nearly shouting to be heard over the dowager. "I choose to live the rest of my days as a spinster here in Ireland rather than marry someone who doesn't love me."
She whirled on her mother. "I don't want a loveless sham of a union such as yours."
"You ungrateful little fool," the dowager spat. "You don't know what you're speaking about."
"This is what I will say, whether you hear me or not," Thea said, struggling to keep calm. "I'm a woman. Not a marionette dancing to your whims. I have needs and thoughts of my own. You'll never control me again." She glared first at the dowager and then at her mother, daring them to disagree.