Chapter 24
Grace hurried down the stairs. For three days in a row, now, she and Philip had begun their day with a morning ride. She was praying today would be no different. Dressed in her riding habit, she hastened into the dining room only to find that Philip was scarcely aware of her presence.
He seemed uninterested in food for a change. His plate was empty, his coffee cup equally so. In his hand was a thin scrap of paper. Even from this distance, Grace could recognize it for what it was.
“Another?” she said, quite forgetting to say good morning.
Philip jerked his head around in surprise from where he sat at the head of the table. He looked on the verge of hiding it then seemed to think the better of this idea. He laid the page flat on the table in front of him.
Grace walked forward on her toes, nervous about reading what was in the sheet. The last few days, Philip had seemed much more at ease around her, but all semblance of ease was gone now. In its place, there was a sharpness.
She had barely reached the table when he suddenly slammed his fist down onto the table in anger.
All of the crockery clinked and jolted as he leapt to his feet and paced up and down the room, unable to bottle up his anger. He pulled at his hair, making it wilder than she had ever seen it before.
“Philip?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer her. He swiped out at the nearest chair, looking ready to destroy everything in his own house.
She flinched and reached for the scandal sheet, determined to read it fast.
At the top of the page, her name and title were printed in black.
‘The Duchess of Berkley continues to astound us all. It seems just days after making such an exhibition of herself at the Almack’s Assembly Rooms, the Duke’s new wife is determined to embarrass him.
It’s said that she has been outside of the house, not in her new husband’s company but quite alone. Up to her usual tricks, she has been seen falling out of carriages, and according to one trusted source, falling off her horse in such a way that her skirt blew up for all to see. Surely the poor Duke of Berkley must be horrified at the continued embarrassment his wife is causing him!’
“I never,” Grace whispered. “I fall readily off my own two feet but not off a horse. Philip?” She looked up. He had barely noticed she was speaking at all, for he was still busy pacing.
“Why do they continue to do it? Why do they always write about you?”
“I don’t know!” she countered fast, her voice also full of anger now. She discarded the scandal sheet quickly, tossing it back down to the table. “Philip, you know I haven’t been out of this house since I arrived. I have spent nearly every minute in your company. As for my skirts being blown up, quite frankly —”
“I know, I know.” Philip held his hands up in the air, speaking just as loudly as he attempted to stem the flow of her argument. “I know you haven’t been out. I know, too, this is all a lie.”
She sighed with relief though it was momentary, for he was still pacing.
“The question is, why the hell are they so fixated on writing about you? Someone out there is determined to make a spectacle of you. To make sure your reputation is trodden into the ground.”
“And by extension, you mean your reputation, don’t you?” she hissed.
He halted walking and turned to face her, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
“You do,” she murmured, not needing him to confirm it. “Does your reputation matter to you more than anything?”
“Don’t do that.” He shook his head and turned away again.
This argument was fierce, and it cut deeply for Grace. It had to be one of the worst they’d yet had. This wasn’t bickering but something infinitely more full of feeling.
“You remember our deal?” he asked, returning to his pacing. “Our arrangement was that you wouldn’t appear in the scandal sheets anymore.”
“Oh yes, I remember it vividly — because you somehow seem to think that it is within my control not to appear in these things.” She waved a hand toward the sheet. “May I remind you that you have just agreed with me that it is all a lie? How am I possibly supposed to avoid that?”
“I know, I know!” he said again, whipping back around fast. When he looked at her this time, something seemed to crack in his expression. He sighed, deeply. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” She stumbled as she moved around a chair, startled. “What did you say?”
“Dear God, are such words so foreign on my lips that they are unbelievable?” He raked a hand through his hair again and walked toward her. “I’m sorry,” he murmured the words once more. “I know you haven’t done anything. It’s just…”
He paused when he reached her, raising a hand and tangling his fingers into one of the loose locks of her hair that hung down about her cheek. He wrapped it around his fingers for a second then pushed it back behind her ear.
In that sudden silence, she wanted to tremble with excitement. She was remembering what it was like to feel his hands upon her, to be the subject of his desires. If he kept playing with her hair in such a way, then she may be tempted to beg him to relive those moments.
“I can’t help it,” he muttered. “Protecting a reputation has been something that’s been drilled into me since I’m young. I don’t like it when someone out there is intentionally trying to destroy us both.”
The guilt raged inside of her. She hung her head, making his fingers drop from her hair. She focused on the floor, the excitement that had swelled in her stomach moments before now vanishing as the guilt overtook her.
She had never minded too much appearing in the scandal sheets. It was hardly a pleasant thing, no, but she could live with it. She didn’t mind being the antithesis of what others expected in a fine lady. Had she not found friends who loved her for who she was? Why would she need the approval of the ton, most of whom she would never speak to in her life?
“I’m sorry they write about me so much.”
“Don’t you start apologizing,” he whispered with a slow chuckle though there was little humor in it. “I shouldn’t be angry when it is out of your control.” He turned away.
The sudden distance as he walked a little away from her hurt her all the more. She watched him as he rubbed his hands across his face, the stress palpable, as if it hung in the air around them like a thick fog.
She was shocked at the power of the feelings swelling within her. It was a sadness that she had let him down. She didn’t want to hurt him.
“You haven’t eaten,” she whispered, pointing at the table, trying her best to move onto a new conversation.
“I don’t feel like eating this morning.” Then he marched from the room.
The apology he’d given, the soft voice and the touch to her hair, seemed like a great distance away as he vanished from the room.
Grace’s breath hitched in her throat as she watched the door close behind him.
“I’m always going to be a disappointment to him,” she whispered to herself in realization.
That horrible feeling locked inside of her grew exponentially worse. She understood suddenly that it wasn’t just the shame of appearing in the scandal sheets which was hurting her. It was the fact that she had disappointed him, that she would always disappoint him.
She left the room though she did not follow him. Rather than asking any of the staff where he had gone, Grace left the house and headed straight for the stables. By the time she reached her horse and found the stable boy already preparing the animal for her, her eyes were prickling with unshed tears.
I care for Philip, don’t I? That’s why it hurts so much when I disappoint him.
She was thankful the stable boy said nothing as the first tears slipped down her cheeks, and he handed her the reins.
* * *
Grace didn’t know how long she had been riding for, but soon enough, the estate had not felt large enough to hold her in, despite its size. With rain starting to fall, she had left the park and rode into the streets of London.
She urged the horse down one road after another with no real sense of direction or purpose. All she knew was that she needed distance from Philip at that moment and most definitely needed distance from this heartbreak though it didn’t work.
When she rode through Hyde Park, she thought of how many times she would fall over in her life and how Philip would be the man forced to stand beside her as she did so, grimacing at her behavior.
As she rode through Covent Garden, she thought of the way people whispered about what she wore. Philip would have to suffer listening to people gossip about her.
Only when her stomach started growling with hunger did she turn the horse around, intending to head home again.
A carriage turned sharply onto the streets of Covent Garden. To avoid an accident, Grace was forced to pull her horse to the side sharply. The animal reared back in surprise, whinnying loudly into the air.
Grace fought to take charge of the animal and barely did so, narrowly avoiding falling off the saddle. As she reined in the mare’s temper, the door of the carriage that had come to a hasty halt at her side was flung open.
Inside, she saw two faces she knew well. It was a married couple in the ton. She had seen them many times at events though the lady never deigned to talk to Grace, clearly thinking she was beneath her notice.
Mr. and Mrs. Robertson looked at her in alarm, eyes wide.
“Your Grace?” Mr. Robertson said in alarm. He looked around, those eyes growing impossibly wider. “You are riding alone?”
Grace’s stomach knotted tightly as she turned the horse around, refusing to answer him.
She wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact she had nearly lost control of the horse in front of busy Covent Garden and two of the busiest gossipers of the ton or that all Mr. Robertson cared about was that she was a woman riding alone.
Why must a woman always have her husband on her arm?
Grace turned her back on Covent Garden and rode fast away, urging the mare to gallop as quickly as possible. She was grateful the horse put up no further fuss.
By the time she returned to the house, the rain had started to fall faster. She left the mare in the stable and darted back to the main building, taking the back door into the house to avoid being out in the rain for much longer.
She had barely stepped in through the door when she heard a loud thud that startled her. She froze, her damp riding boots skidding on the floor.
The thud followed again. Or was it more of a smack? Like skin against leather.
Grace turned her head toward the nearest door, abrupt fear simmering in her gut.
When the sound came faster, repeating itself, she couldn’t hold back her curiosity. She hastened forward and opened the door dividing her from the sound.
The door opened onto a room she had not been in before though she realized at once what it was. Philip had referred to this room once but only once. He had also made it clear that he didn’t want her in this part of the house — for it was his part. The place where he liked to be alone.
The sports room was long, as if it had been stretched by some giant, the great tall windows flooding the space with grey light. The white tiled floor had been mopped to a gleaming shine, somehow still looking bright in the grey and rainy day.
Along one wall was boxing equipment: punching bags, linen straps, and even something that looked like leather gloves.
In the middle of the room, one of these bags hung from the ceiling. It quivered as something struck it repeatedly.
Grace swallowed around the panic in her throat, urging herself that there was nothing to be scared of here, for it had to be Philip.
She walked into the room, dragging the sodden hem of her gown with her. She streaked the gleaming floor with dirty spots, marring the clean perfection.
As she rounded the bag, Philip came into view though he was Philip as she had never seen him before.
He hadn’t yet noticed her appearance and just continued to punch the bag, relentlessly. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Bare chested, the toned muscles of his chest gleamed in his own sweat. His shoulders looked stronger than ever as slightly hunched, he kept lashing out, his fists curled up into tight fists.
That hair, so often messy, was truly wild now. There was a drip of sweat hanging down from one dark tendril across his forehead.
Philip had shed all semblance of the perfectly ironed and pressed appearance he so often wore. It reminded Grace of when he was alone with her, making love to her. He had that same unbidden image then, only this time there was no passion in his being. There was only fury.
It was the eyes that absorbed her focus the most. They were fixed on the punching bag, never once darting toward her.
The striking grew faster. It was as if the anger was about to explode out of him as some ugly monster if he did not deliver repeated punches to that bag. The volume of his hits grew worse to the point that Grace had to say something.
“Philip?” she whispered, but he didn’t hear her. “Philip!” she cried, much louder this time.
He jerked his head toward her, looked away, then turned back again in alarm, missing the bag completely with his latest strike.
“Why are you here?”