Chapter Sixteen
The carriage ride back to London seemed endless.
At first, Eliza cried. Great, wracking sobs that shook her entire body, left her gasping for breath, and soaked the handkerchief she had pressed to her face until the fabric was useless. She cried until her throat was raw and her eyes ached and there were simply no tears left.
After that came numbness.
She sat in the swaying carriage and stared at the passing countryside, feeling nothing at all.
The fields and hedgerows blurred together into an indistinct wash of green and gold, pretty and meaningless, the scenery of a world that had continued turning despite the fact that hers had just collapsed.
I am not capable of giving you the future you deserve.
The words echoed through her mind. Again. And again.
She had not believed them when he spoke them; she was not sure she believed them now.
That was the worst part.
If he had simply stopped caring, if he had tired of her and wanted something new, the pain would have been cleaner. Simpler.
Instead, he had looked at her with heartbreak in his eyes and sent her away anyway.
He had chosen fear. And she had not known how to fight a decision that had already been made.
By the time London came into view, numbness had begun to harden into anger.
It crept in slowly at first, a flicker of heat beneath the numbness. Then it grew, fed by every memory, every moment, every tender word he had spoken that now revealed itself as a lie.
He had made her believe. Had touched her like she was precious, had looked at her like she was the only woman in the world, had whispered endearments against her skin that she had foolishly taken for truth.
He had taken her to his bed and shown her pleasure she had never imagined, and she had thought, had been so certain, that it meant something.
But it had meant nothing to him.
She had been entertainment. A pleasant interlude. The latest in a long line of women who had warmed the Duke of Hollowshade’s bed and been discarded when he tired of them.
The realisation burned like acid, eating away at the memories she had treasured, corroding the happiness she had felt.
She had been a fool.
By the time the carriage reached her aunt’s townhouse, the day had already advanced.
Eliza sat for a long moment after the wheels stopped, trying to compose herself.
She knew what she looked like, she had caught glimpses of her reflection in the carriage window.
Red-rimmed eyes. Blotchy cheeks. Hair escaping its pins in wild disarray.
The unmistakable appearance of a woman who had been crying for a long while.
There would be questions. Her aunt would demand explanations. Beatrice would see through any attempt at deflection. The careful fiction of “charitable visits” would collapse, and everyone would know that Eliza Hayfield had done exactly what every sensible person had warned her not to do.
She had trusted a rake with her heart.
And he had crushed it without a second thought.
The footman opened the carriage door, his face carefully blank in the way of well-trained servants who pretended not to notice their betters’ distress. Eliza accepted his hand and stepped down onto the cobblestones; her legs unsteady beneath her.
“Eliza.”
She looked up to find Beatrice standing in the doorway, her expression cycling through concern, alarm, and a dawning understanding that made Eliza want to weep all over again.
“Beatrice…”
“Inside.” Her cousin crossed the threshold and took Eliza’s arm with a grip that brooked no argument. “Now. Before anyone sees you.”
Eliza allowed herself to be led through the foyer and up the stairs, past the curious glances of the servants, past the drawing room where her aunt’s voice could be heard in animated conversation with some caller. Beatrice guided her into her own bedroom and closed the door firmly behind them.
“Sit.”
Eliza sat on the edge of the bed, suddenly exhausted. The anger that had sustained her for the final moments of the journey was draining away, leaving nothing but hollow emptiness in its wake.
Beatrice stood before her, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
“He ended it,” she said. Not a question.
Eliza nodded.
“When?”
“This morning.” The words came out hoarse, scraped raw by crying.
“He was… different. Cold. He said he was not capable of giving me the future I deserved. That our time together had been more than he expected, but that it changed nothing. That I should build a life with someone capable of giving me what he could not.”
Beatrice was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was gentler than Eliza had expected.
“I warned you.”
“I know.”
“I told you this would happen. That men like him don’t change. That whatever he made you feel, it was a performance.”
“I know.” The words came out sharper now, edged with the anger that refused to die completely. “I know you warned me. I know I was foolish. I know I should have listened. But I didn’t, and now…” Her voice cracked. “Now, I have to live with the consequences.”
Beatrice’s expression softened. She crossed to the bed and sat beside Eliza, taking her hand with unexpected tenderness.
“I thought I knew him,” Eliza continued. “I thought he loved me. I was so certain. But he looked at me as though everything we had shared had already become a memory to him.”
“Perhaps it had. To him.”
The words should have hurt. Instead, they settled into place alongside everything else.
Another piece of evidence in the case she was building against her own judgment.
“Perhaps,” Eliza said quietly. “Perhaps I imagined everything. Perhaps I was just another foolish girl who believed a rake’s pretty words.”
“Eliza—”
“Do not.” She pulled her hand from Beatrice’s grip, suddenly needing distance. “Do not comfort me. I do not deserve comfort. I did this to myself, with my eyes open, despite every warning.”
She rose from the bed and crossed to the window, staring out at the London street below.
“Whatever happens next, I have no one to blame but myself.”
***
The afternoon passed in a blur of exhaustion and misery.
Eliza pleaded a headache, not entirely false, and was excused from the social calls her aunt had planned. She lay in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the wreckage of her life.
She had come to London with such modest hopes. A respectable match. A comfortable life. Perhaps, if she was very fortunate, a husband who might grow to care for her in time. She had not expected passion or adventure or any of the dramatic romance she had read about in novels.
And then William had appeared.
She remembered the first moment she had seen him, across the ballroom at the Worthington ball, his grey eyes finding hers with an intensity that had made her breath catch.
She remembered their first conversation, his sardonic wit and unexpected flashes of genuine interest. She remembered the ferns, the ridiculous, perfect ferns he had brought because he had actually listened to what she said.
She had fallen in love with him before she even understood what was happening.
And now it was over.
I am not capable of giving you the future you deserve.
She pressed her face into the pillow and willed herself not to cry again. She had cried enough. Had spent hours weeping for a man who did not deserve her tears. She needed to be practical now. Needed to think clearly about what came next.
The Season was ending. In a few weeks, she would return to Devonshire, to her family’s modest estate, to the life she had briefly escaped.
Her parents would ask questions about her London experience.
They would want to know about the gentlemen she had met, the connections she had made, the prospects for a suitable match.
What would she tell them?
The truth was impossible. That she had conducted a scandalous affair with a duke, had given him her virginity in the foolish belief that he loved her, had returned home broken-hearted and possibly ruined?
Her mother would be devastated. Her father would be furious.
And both of them would be forced to watch their only daughter’s reputation crumble to dust.
No. The truth was not an option.
She would have to construct a fiction. A careful narrative about a pleasant but unremarkable Season, about gentlemen who had shown interest but had not suited, about the simple reality that a country gentleman’s daughter with a modest dowry could not expect to make a brilliant match.
It would be believable enough. Expected, even. Her family had never had grand ambitions for her.
They had only wanted her to be happy.
The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes, and she pressed her face harder into the pillow, muffling the sound of her sobs.
Evening came.
Eliza was summoned to dinner by a maid who clearly had been warned to expect resistance.
She dressed mechanically, choosing a simple gown that required minimal assistance, pinning her hair back without bothering to check the result in the mirror.
She did not care how she looked. Could not bring herself to care about anything at all.
The dining room was small and intimate, just Eliza, Beatrice, and Aunt Philippa gathered around a table that could have seated twelve. Eliza took her usual place and stared at her soup without appetite.
“You look unwell, dear.” Aunt Philippa’s voice was kind but probing. “Perhaps you should have remained in bed.”
“I am merely tired. The… the charitable visits have been exhausting.”
Beatrice shot her a look that said clearly: We both know that’s not true. But she did not contradict the lie.
“Of course, dear. All that good work you’ve been doing.” Aunt Philippa returned to her soup, apparently satisfied. “I must say, it’s been lovely to see you taking such an interest in philanthropy. Your mother will be so pleased to hear about it.”
Eliza’s stomach turned.