“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Reeve? I trust the children are well?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Eugenia.”
Just like that, Eugenia dropped her polite mask—and Evan’s hand as well. She folded her arms over her chest as a patch of color rose in her cheeks. “Indeed,” she said dangerously. “What precisely are you sorry for?”
Behind him, someone began ushering the guests—including the future duke—from the room. Ward waited until only Eugenia, her father, and her stepmother remained. Except for Villiers, leaning against the wall like a damned bird of prey.
“I am sorry for the things I said to you.”
“Are you apologizing for implying that I am not ladylike enough to raise Lizzie and Otis?”
The marquis made a sharp movement. “I am,” Ward said. “May we speak in private?”
“No, you may not,” her father snarled. “I shall allow you three minutes to explain yourself, Mr. Reeve, and that owing only to my respect for your father.”
“Nothing has changed,” Eugenia said, eyes fixed on Ward’s face. “I am still the person who runs Snowe’s Registry, and who took your sister to a tent-talk, not to mention teaching her to curse.”
“I was terribly wrong. You’d be a wonderful mother for the children,” he replied, ignoring that litany. He could see she wasn’t softening her stance.
“Lizzie sent you this.” He pulled a crumpled bundle of black lace from his coat pocket and pressed it into her hands. “Otis thought of sending Jarvis, but I dissuaded him. They need you, Eugenia.” He hesitated and then looked her straight in the eye with all the passion and love he felt. “I need you.”
She looked down at the veil, her eyes stricken. “What made you change your mind?”
“The Duchess of Gilner—”
Eugenia cut him off, her eyes hardening. “She told you.”
“Told him what?” the marquis put in.
“Mrs. Snowe, owner of a registry, wasn’t good enough to be Ward’s wife,” Eugenia said. “I didn’t have the right pedigree or instincts to introduce his wards to polite society.”
The marquis exploded, taking a step forward. “Are you out of your bloody mind?”
“Now that the duchess has told him who I really am, so it’s a different story,” Eugenia said, her eyes scorching. “Now I am good enough to mother the children whom Lisette neglected.”
“That’s not it,” Ward said. “I can’t—I can’t live without you.”
“You could live perfectly well without me,” Eugenia said, her voice echoing in the empty room, “until you realized how much my pedigree would help Lizzie and Otis. And with the case against you in the House of Lords.”
She hated him.
He had imagined many possibilities he would have to overcome, but not that one. Not hatred.
The words came out of him anyway, forced past the gaping hole in his heart. “I love you, and that has nothing to do with your rank.”
“You threw my love back in my face because I wasn’t ladylike enough nor docile enough—and that has nothing to do with rank. That is me. Whatever you are feeling, it isn’t love for me.”
“That isn’t true. I love everything about you, everything that was suddenly gone from my life the minute you walked out of the door,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Your brilliance, your joy, your passion for life: you.”
For a moment he felt hope. He saw her waver. She closed her eyes and he started toward her. Then she looked at him, her resolve firmly back in place. “Whatever your reasons, it doesn’t matter. You judged me, found me wanting, and dismissed me like a street urchin begging for a farthing. It’s your disdain and dismissal of me that I can’t forget,” she said. “Please go.”
She was a queen from sparkling diamonds to delicate slippers.
“I will still help you with Lizzie’s debut when the time comes,” she added.
He opened his mouth but she held up her hand. “You are here because you learned of my rank, Ward. Why would I want someone who finds me acceptable only because of my birth? I won’t accept that any more than you would accept someone who disdained you for yours.”
It wasn’t like that. But he—a man who had always taken his eloquence for granted—couldn’t find a way to explain.
“I gave my heart away too easily,” Eugenia continued, “but it will be my own again just as quickly. Next time, I shall choose someone who knows my worth—and I do not mean my rank.”