Lily stood gazing up at him helplessly, wondering what she could say to take that awful coldness from his eyes. At least the gash on his cheek didn’t seem too serious now that it had been cleaned and was no longer bleeding.
After a long moment she broke the strained silence by offering rather feebly, “You gave us no chance to thank you for saving Fanny.”
The humorless curl of his mouth resembled a grimace. “I have told you more than once, Lily, I do not want your gratitude.”
“Well, you have it. You saved my friend, and I am profoundly grateful to you.”
“Fanny has already thanked me adequately enough. Now, if you are quite finished…” With a curt bow, he took a step backward, as if preparing to turn away.
Dismay spearing through her, Lily stopped Heath by laying an imploring hand on his arm. “You are just leaving like this?”
“What reason do I have to stay, Lily?”
That sinking, tightening feeling in her stomach only intensified, especially when his voice dropped to a rough murmur. “It is clear we are at a total impasse, Lily. I cannot make you trust me. I cannot make you love me. So I am declaring an end to our courtship.”
When she mutely searched his face, Heath added with cold dispassion, “Come now, this is what you wanted all along. You should be glad I am giving you your wish.”
But she wasn’t glad at all! She didn’t want him walking away like this, severing even a chance of friendship between them. And the thought of possibly never seeing him again was more than she could bear. “Heath, please…I did not mean that we should-”
“Enough. There is nothing more to be said.”
The finality in his tone roused a painful constriction in her chest. Then wordlessly, Heath turned and headed for his coach, once again leaving Lily to stare after him.
Yet this time the ache in her heart felt as if it might never go away.
Walking away from Lily just now was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, Heath reflected as his coach drove off. He hadn’t even wanted to come here tonight, let alone speak to her in private.
His frustration with Lily was balanced on a knife’s edge, and he wasn’t certain he could control his primitive urges. He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. He wanted to make her accept his marriage proposal. He wanted to hold her and protect her and love her forever…
His reaction was driven by fear, Heath knew. The gut-deep fear that Lily might never give him the chance to love her as she deserved to be loved.
She believed that marriage was a prison for wives, that love was a destiny to be feared. Her irrational phobia frustrated the hell out of him because it was a fight he couldn’t win.
It wrenched him inside that Lily couldn’t let herself trust him. Which was why he had forced himself to walk away. If he continued making it easy for her to avoid the issue of marriage, she would have no reason to reevaluate her refusal.
He was taking the biggest gamble of his life, but he was determined to push her to decide what she truly wanted.
Remembering her huge dark eyes just now-the stricken look he’d seen there-gave him a measure of hope. Her dismay had seemed very real. And it was certainly possible that the adage about absence making the heart grow fonder might apply in her case.
But would his absence be enough to make her reconsider her answer?
He ardently wanted it to be so. Rescuing her friend this afternoon had only proved to Heath what he already knew: that he and Lily were ideally matched. She had faced danger at his side without flinching. His lovely spitfire was a magnificent woman, one he wanted beside him for the rest of his life.
But he couldn’t compel her surrender. He couldn’t demand that Lily’s feelings for him equal what he felt for her.
Thus, he had hit on a new plan. Yet he didn’t have faith it would work.
Meanwhile, he had another frustrating matter to deal with-namely Fanny’s decision to bargain with Mick O’Rourke rather than send him to prison for her abduction.
During their interview a short while ago, Fanny had laid out her arguments: Mick hadn’t really hurt her when he’d kept her captive in the beautiful house he had built solely for her. Nor could she overlook how kind and generous he’d been to her at the outset of her career as a courtesan. She actually was fond of him in a nostalgic sort of way. But certainly not enough to marry him as he wanted.
Perhaps she could work out a deal with Mick. She wouldn’t press charges against him for her abduction in exchange for hi
s promise to leave her alone in the future, in addition to a significant monetary settlement. Yes, he had made that same promise before-to Lord Claybourne himself just last week. But this time Fanny felt certain Mick had finally accepted that his love wasn’t returned.
If he agreed to her offer, he would be spared a trial and perhaps years of prison, or even worse, deportation or hanging.
Fanny had asked Heath to escort her to Newgate in the morning, so that she could put the question to her former lover.