Chapter 36
“Again.”
Edward spat blood onto the sawdust floor and raised his fists. His opponent, a dockworker with arms like tree trunks, circled him with wary respect. The crowd in the basement tavern roared its approval. They were hungry for violence.
Edward gave them what they wanted.
He threw himself into the fight with reckless abandon, his fists connecting with flesh, pain blooming across his knuckles, his ribs, his jaw. The dockworker was good, but Edward was desperate, and desperation made him dangerous.
He won. He always won. But the victory felt hollow, and the rush of combat faded as quickly as it came, leaving only the ache in his bones and the emptiness in his chest.
He staggered to the edge of the ring and accepted a tankard of ale from a faceless admirer. The liquid burned down his throat. He drained it and reached for another.
This was his fourth night in the tavern. Fourth night of fighting until his body screamed for mercy. Fourth night of drinking until the edges of the world blurred and softened.
It didn’t help.
Nothing helped.
He saw her everywhere. In the flicker of candlelight. In the curve of a stranger’s smile. In the quiet moments between one blow and the next, when his mind betrayed him and conjured the image of her face, her voice, the way she had looked at him when he told her it was a mistake.
The hurt in her eyes. The way she had gone cold and brittle, matching his cruelty with her own. The soft click of the door as she walked away.
He drained his second ale and signaled for a third.
Sleep had become a stranger. He lay awake in his bed, staring at the canopy, listening for sounds from the chamber next door. Sometimes he rose and crossed to the connecting door, his hand hovering over the handle, his heart pounding against his ribs.
He never knocked and never opened the door. Just stood there in the darkness, wanting what he had thrown away, too proud and too afraid to reach for it.
Food held no appeal. His valet had commented, with careful neutrality, that his coats were fitting more loosely. Edward had dismissed him with a wave.
The third ale arrived. He drank it without tasting it.
“You look like death.”
Hugo dropped onto the bench beside him, his fair hair disheveled, and his expression caught between concern and exasperation. He surveyed Edward with critical eyes, taking in the split lip, the darkening bruise along his jaw, and the bloodied bandages wrapped around his knuckles.
“You should see the other man.” Edward lifted his tankard in a mock toast.
“I saw the other man. He is currently being carried out by his friends.” Hugo signaled for his own drink. “What happened, Edward?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You disappeared for weeks. You stopped coming to the tavern and stopped answering my letters. And now you are back, fighting like a man with a death wish and drinking like you are trying to drown something.” Hugo leaned closer. “What. Happened.”
Edward stared into his ale. The liquid was murky and flecked with foam. He could see his own distorted reflection in its surface.
“Oliver got lost in Hyde Park.” The words emerged flat. “I was distracted. Sophia and I were…” He stopped. Swallowed. “I took my eyes off him. He wandered away. We found him eventually, scraped up and terrified, but he was lost for nearly an hour. Anything could have happened.”
Hugo was silent for a moment. “But he is all right now?”
“Yes.”
“Scraped knees? Nightmares?”
“Yes. Both. Sophia has been caring for him.” The name tasted like ash on his tongue.
“So, Oliver is safe. He is being cared for. And you are…” Hugo gestured at the tavern, at the blood on Edward’s hands, at the empty tankards lined up before him. “Doing this. Why?”
“Because I failed him.” Edward’s grip tightened on his tankard. “Because I was so consumed with wanting Sophia that I forgot my responsibilities. Because this is exactly what happens when you let emotion cloud your judgment.”
“A child wandered off in a park.” Hugo’s voice sharpened. “It happens. It has happened to every parent and guardian since the dawn of time. You found him. He is fine. Why are you beating yourself bloody over it?”
“Because one mistake leads to another.” Edward slammed his tankard down. “One moment of distraction becomes a pattern. A pattern becomes a disaster. I cannot afford to be weak. I cannot afford to let my feelings for Sophia destroy what little stability I’ve built.”
“So, your solution is to push her away?” Hugo raised an eyebrow. “To retreat into this…” He waved a hand at the basement around them. “…this self-flagellation? To drink yourself into oblivion and fight strangers until you cannot feel anything at all?”
“My solution is to keep my marriage formal and distant.” Edward’s jaw clenched. “The way it should have been from the start. The way I intended it to be before I let myself forget.”
Hugo stared at him. Then he shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping his lips.
“You are an idiot.”
Edward blinked. “What?”
“An idiot.” Hugo enunciated each syllable. “A fool. A man so determined to be miserable that he will destroy his own happiness rather than accept that he deserves it.”
“You do not understand—”
“I understand perfectly.” Hugo cut him off.
“I have known you for twenty years, Edward. I watched you grow up in that mausoleum of a house, watched your father crush every spark of joy out of you, watched you build walls so high that no one could reach you.” He leaned forward, his eyes fierce.
“And then I watched Sophia tear those walls down. I watched you smile. Laugh. Act like a human being instead of a statue pretending to be one.”
Edward looked away. His throat tightened.
“This is the first time I have seen you happy.” Hugo’s voice softened. “Truly happy. Not performing contentment, not going through the motions, but actually alive. And you would throw it all away because of one small mistake?”
“It is not just one mistake.” Edward’s voice cracked. “It is the beginning. One mistake now, an avalanche later. I have seen what happens when passion overrules reason. I watched it destroy my parents’ marriage. I watched it drive my mother away and turn my father into a monster.”
“You are not your father.”
“So, everyone keeps telling me.” Edward laughed, the sound hollow. “And yet here I am, doing exactly what he would do. Pushing away the people I care about. Retreating into coldness. Convincing myself that feeling nothing is safer than feeling too much.”
“Then stop.” Hugo grabbed his arm. “Stop doing what he would do. Choose something different. Choose Sophia. Choose to be happy, even if it terrifies you.”
Edward pulled his arm free. “You make it sound simple.”
“It is simple.” Hugo spread his hands. “It is not easy, but it is simple. You love her. She loves you. Go home. Apologize. Stop being a coward.”
Coward. The word sank into him, sharp and inescapable. The same accusation Sophia had made, though she had denied it. The same word that had echoed in his head every night since he pushed her away.
“You don’t know what you are talking about.” Edward rose from the bench, his movements unsteady. “You have never been married. You have never had anyone depending on you. Never had to weigh your own happiness against the welfare of a child who has already lost everything.”
“You’re right, but I know what I see.” Hugo rose as well, blocking his path. “A man running from the best thing that ever happened to him.”
“Move.”
“Edward—”
“Move.” Edward’s voice dropped to something dangerous. “Now.”
Hugo studied him for a long moment. Disappointment flickered across his features, followed by something that looked like grief.
“Fine.” He stepped aside. “Run away. Drink yourself into a stupor. Fight until you cannot stand. But when you wake up tomorrow, bruised and alone and miserable, remember that you chose this. You had a chance at happiness, and you threw it away because you were too afraid to hold onto it.”
Edward pushed past him without a word. He climbed the stairs, burst into the chilly night air, and stood in the alley, breathing hard.
Hugo’s words echoed in his ears. Coward. Running away. Too afraid to hold onto happiness.
He leaned against the brick wall and pressed his palms to his eyes. His head throbbed. His hands shook. The ale churned in his stomach, mixing with guilt and grief and something that felt horribly like despair.
He thought of Sophia. Of the way she had cared for Oliver in the days since their fight, filling the void Edward had left. Of the way she had reached for him in the study, trying to bridge the distance, and how he had recoiled from her touch.
Of the footsteps that paused outside her door each night, and the silence that answered.
He was destroying everything. Systematically, methodically, with the same cold efficiency his father had employed. And he did not know how to stop.
The hackney was waiting where he had left it.
Edward climbed inside and gave the driver the address.
The carriage lurched into motion, carrying him back to the house where his wife slept in a bed he had abandoned, where his nephew asked why his uncle no longer visited, where everything he wanted was just out of reach.
He closed his eyes and let the darkness take him.
Morning arrived with the subtlety of a cannon blast.
Edward groaned and pressed his face deeper into the pillow. His head pounded. His mouth tasted of stale ale and regret. Every muscle in his body ached, the accumulated punishment of four nights of fighting making itself known with brutal clarity.
A soft knock at the door. He ignored it.
The knock came again, followed by the quiet click of the latch.
“Your Grace.” Hartley’s voice was pitched low, mercifully. “I have brought tea and toast.”
Edward cracked one eye open. The butler stood beside the bed, a silver tray balanced in his hands, his expression carefully neutral. The curtains remained drawn, blocking the worst of the daylight, a small mercy Edward appreciated more than he could express.
“I do not want tea.” His voice emerged as a rasp.
“With respect, Your Grace, you need tea.” Hartley set the tray on the bedside table. “And toast. And perhaps a bath. You smell of tavern.”
Edward would have laughed if it would not have split his skull in two. Hartley had been with the family since Edward was a boy. Had seen him through childhood illnesses, adolescent foolishness, and the dark days after his father’s death. If anyone had earned the right to speak plainly, it was him.
“The duchess?” The question escaped before he could stop it.
“Breakfasted in her chambers, as she has done these past days.” Hartley’s tone remained neutral, but something flickered in his eyes. “Master Oliver is with her now. He has been asking for you.”
The words settled over Edward like stones. Oliver. Asking for him. While he lay here, hungover and battered, hiding from the consequences of his own cowardice.
“Will there be anything else, Your Grace?”
Edward pushed himself upright, wincing at the protest of his bruised ribs. “No. Thank you, Hartley.”
The butler bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
Edward stared at the tea cooling on the tray. At the toast he had no appetite for. At the space beside him in the bed, where Sophia should have been, would have been, if he had not driven her away.
Hugo’s voice echoed in his memory. When you wake up tomorrow, bruised and alone and miserable, remember that you chose this.
He had chosen this. And he had no idea how to choose differently.