How to Catch a Wild Viscount by Tessa Dare

conversation would take place between Cecily and Denny on the way to the cottage. Well. That was that. When they returned to Swinford Manor this evening, he’d instruct his valet to pack up his things. Perhaps Luke would even ride out tonight. He could bring himself to let her go, but he’d be damned if he’d sit around and toast the happy couple’s betrothal.
    To that, he would drink alone. In copious amounts.
    “Very well,” said Portia thoughtfully. “Perhaps the heroine is not in love with the werestag. It makes a much better story if the beast is in love with her. So close, and yet so far from his beloved. Doomed to watch her from afar, never to hold her again. How tragically romantic.”
    “How patently ridiculous,” Brooke replied.
    Luke strode briskly ahead, leaving them to their quarrel. He would not have admitted it, but he rather agreed with them both.
    She would tell him, Cecily bargained with herself, once they reached that small boulder. Or perhaps the little patch of ferns. Failing that, she would most certainly break the news before they passed that gnarled birch tree.
    Denny kept pace with her easily, as he always did. Their silence was companionable, as it always was. All the while, Cecily kept up this internal bartering, staving off the inevitable just one more minute . . . and then again one minute more.
    At last she halted at a rotted, mossy stump. “I cannot marry you,” she told the clump of toadstools flourishing at its base. “I’m so terribly sorry. I should have told you years ago, but—”
    “For God’s sake, Cecily.” His soft laugh startled her, and she lifted her gaze. “You can’t do this, not yet. How can a lady refuse a man, when he hasn’t even proposed? I won’t stand for it.”
    “It’s not right, Denny. I’ve known for some time now that we wouldn’t . . . that I couldn’t . . .”
    He shushed her gently, placing his hands on her shoulders. “The truth is, we know nothing of what could be or would be. We’ve been delaying this conversation for years now, haven’t we? I’ve been waiting for . . . Well, I hardly know what I’ve been waiting for. Something indefinable, I suppose. And you’ve been waiting for Luke.”
    Her breath caught. Denny knew? Oh, dear . Perhaps she shouldn’t be so surprised. They’d grown up together. He’d known her longer than anyone.
    “Yes, of course I knew,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “Why do you think I invited you both here, to my home? I wanted to know how matters stood between you.”
    “And how do they stand?” she asked, hoping he would understand her better than she knew herself.
    He sighed. “I know he has some strange hold on your heart. But I believe you’d be happier marrying me.”
    Cecily shook her head in disbelief. If she didn’t know better, she would think him working in concert with Luke. Their arguments were one and the same.
    “But, Denny . . .” She prayed these words would not hurt his pride overmuch. “But we don’t love one another, not in that way.”
    “Perhaps not. But you’ve been in love with Luke for four years now. Has it made you happy?”
    She had no answer to that.
    “And I’ll admit, bachelorhood is losing its charms for me.” Gently, he folded her hands in his. “I know there is no grand passion between us, Cecily. But there is genuine caring. Honesty. Respect. Lasting unions have been built on foundations far weaker than these. And in time, perhaps some deeper attachment would grow. We don’t know what could happen, if only we gave it a chance.”
    He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them warmly—first the knuckles, then each sensitive palm—before pressing them to either side of his face and holding them there. The sweetness in the gesture surprised her, as did the fond regard in his eyes.
    This was Denny’s face she held in her hands. Dear, familiar, uncomplicated Denny, with the dimple on his right cheek and the tiny pockmark on the