Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Phoebe had realized over the course of a very long week, that the problem with hope was that it was terribly difficult to get rid of once it had taken root.
And it was not as though she had made no attempt to eradicate it.
She had tried. She had been quite deliberate about it.
She had reminded herself, on numerous separate occasions and in several different rooms of the estate, exactly what her marriage was and what it had never been designed to be.
She had recalled the specific terms of the arrangement founded by mutual needs and fueled by the shared desire to keep a careful and civilized distance from anything that might complicate matters between them.
She had told herself repeatedly that it had no way of working out for her.
The hope had remained. Obstinate. Irrational. Entirely her own fault for allowing it sprout in the first place.
And now, a nearly week after Edward had last been in this house, it was withering.
It did not vanish suddenly though. She did not experience it as a sudden collapse, which she suspected she would have found easier to manage.
It was slower than that – like a fire that has not been tended eventually losing most of its heat, until all that was left were dying embers.
Each morning, she woke and it was slightly dimmer than it had been, and she went through the day and it was slightly less so again, and she went to bed and lay in the dark of her room wondering why her heart yearned to blow on them to reignite the flames.
She had received word from the housekeeper that he was attending to business matters in the city and would return when he was able to do so. Her first gripe was due to the fact that the word had not been given to her but to her housekeeper.
The second was that it felt as though she had been left to go about her days with a desperate need for his closeness and a heart that was losing its ability to remain calm in his absence. She had done what she could to keep herself busy, but it was hardly ever enough.
The week passed. The estate affairs continued on and Phoebe carried on her dull activities.
She ate her meals, attended to her correspondence and visited the garden in the afternoons.
She played the piano one evening for longer than she usually allowed herself, until her fingers ached pleasantly and the house had gone dark around her, and she told herself that was simply something she had wanted to do and not at all a means of filling a silence she had not anticipated missing.
By the end of the week, the hollowness in her chest had developed a persistence that she found increasingly difficult to attribute to anything other than what it was.
She woke feeling strangely off kilter. Not ill precisely, but not well either – as though some essential thing had shifted slightly out place and her body was not sure how to cope with it.
She dressed without particular enthusiasm and went down to a breakfast that she ate without tasting, half her attention on the window.
Maude appeared at her elbow, silently lingering as she often did these days.
“You've barely touched the plate, Your Grace.”
“I am not very hungry this morning.”
“Shall I bring some tea instead? Something lighter, perhaps?”
“I am perfectly fine with this,” Phoebe shook her head, aware that she was not entirely convincing considering she had only eaten three bites of toast and had shifted her attention from her plate to the window.
Maude did not say anything further, but she remained close by, and Phoebe had not the energy to send her away.
She went to the garden eventually, as she had developed the habit of doing when it felt as though she was being overwhelmed by her thoughts.
The lavender along the south wall was coming in beautifully – she had been watching it for weeks since the gardener had told her of his intentions – and the climbing rose near the garden gate was beginning to do something genuinely promising along the lower lattice.
She stood and admired the leaves and blossoming buds for a moment before she walked further down.
It helped quite a bit, the breeze against her skin and the warmth of the sun. It felt as though if she really tried, then all her problems would melt away in the silence –
The sound of hooves on the concrete of the driveway cut out the peace she had been wallowing in and she went still, her heart beating rapidly.
Then she the servants chattering busily, and recognized the usual pattern of the duke’s arrival at home and her heart soared as she turned and ran out to the front of the house, praying that she was not wrong.
She was not. He really was there. He seemed slightly windblown from the ride, his coat not somewhat askew as he spoke to the stable hands before he dismounted from his horse. Then looked at her and she stared back, neither of them said anything for a moment.
Relief moved through her first – which was annoying because she had resolved to be calm and composed in order to paint a dignified picture upon his arrival.
Behind the relief, however, was a wariness that she had earned, and she did was glad that had remained at least.
“You are home,” she noted for no particular reason.
“I am,” he nodded, studying her attention for some reason. “You look pale.”
“I am quite well.”
He appeared as unconvinced as Maude had been, but clearly resolved not to push the matter any further, nodded as he turned away. “I should go and change. It was a rather long ride –”
“I would like to speak with you.”
She had not planned to say it that directly, or that soon, but the words were already in the air between them and she realized she was glad she uttered it. She was tired of navigating around the perimeter of what she was actually thinking.
He stilled, his tone hesitant. “Phoebe –”
“I will not keep you long,” she assured, with a calm that sounded too solid to be hers. “But I believe what I have to say is reasonable. I hope you will hear me out.”
He stared at her for a long, quiet moment. Then he gave a brief nod.
She felt her hands inch towards her skirt, aching to be busied, but she forced herself to keep still and face him head on.
“You were gone for a week,” she began slowly.
“The explanation I received was that you had business matters in the city. That may be true, but I have no way of knowing. What I do know is that you left the morning after... the morning after things were changed between us. You left without speaking to me and later, you sent word through the housekeeper. And you were gone for several days without any further communication. I do not think it is unreasonable to want to understand why.”
“Phoebe.” He spoke in a measured voice. “There were things that required my attention. I know you do not like that you were not informed in a timely manner but I can hardly keep myself from handling my businesses.”
“Then attend to them,” she huffed, indignantly.
“I am not asking you to neglect your obligations. I am asking why you left without a word after that night, and why your means of communicating with me was through the housekeeper and not directly. I am your wife. I deserve more than a second-hand message.”
Something moved across his face – too quick to be deciphered and she felt regretful that she had no idea what it might be.
“Do not be ridiculous!” Edward snapped, startling her.
“You are right that we are married, but you should not mistake the terms of what we are.
This is an arrangement, Phoebe. It was always an arrangement.
I believed that we had both understood the nature of our relationship from the beginning. Do we need to revisit our terms?
The words landed coldly, the cutting cruelty of them deliberate and she could only stand helplessly and endure the pain.
“No,” she shook her head quietly. “We do not.”
Edward sighed, long and tiredly, before he spoke up again.
“I am not trying to be unkind. But we cannot allow one evening to rewrite the nature of what this is. We both came into this with clear expectations and I think it is better if we stay within the –”
“What will you do,” she asked suddenly, voicing a particularly venomous thought that had plagued her for quite a while now, “When you have your heir?”
He stopped, his eyes staring at her blankly.
“After,” she continued, with a steadiness that cost her more than she would ever let him see. “When the child is here and the dukedom is secured. What happens then? What happens to us?”
“We will keep our distance,” Edward said eventually, almost resigned. “I intend to leave this estate and dwell elsewhere, while the child is raised here with you. I think that would be best. For both of us. You would have the estate, the title, every comfort –”
She nodded, no longer hearing him as she turned away, willing herself not to cry.
She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing that he had reduced her to a pitiful mess.
Still, the devastation was hard to bear, so she walked away from him as quickly as possible, keeping her face down so no one else would see her.
As she made her way back into the house, she felt utterly pathetic as she kept hoping he would call her back. She prayed she would hear her name, that he would regret his cowardice and confess that he felt the same as she did.
But he did not and that hurt even more than what she had been told in the brief moment during their reunion.
Edward watched her go with his feet rooted where he stood in front of the doorway, his heart falling to pieces around him.
He tried to tell himself that he had said what needed to be said. He was certain of this. This was the best course of action, for the both of them.
And yet, he felt devastated. The words had tasted like ash on his tongue as they spilled from his lips and he knew that he had hurt her, in ways he would never be able to fix. The look on her face – oh, God, the expression she had worn was the most devastating thing he had ever seen.
Edward knew he had likely ruined whatever affection she held for him.
And if he had been honest with himself about the necessary ideal of protecting her, then he should have felt relieved.
But all he knew was the despair growing within him, taking control of his senses.
He felt as though he could hardly breathe.
Slowly, he made his way inside and requested that his tonic be brought to him immediately.
The liquid was even more difficult to down then than it had ever been, and the ache in his chest did not dissipate either.
So, Edward remained like that, leaning back in the settee in his office, trying to convince himself that he had been left with no other choice, despite the fact that he had given Thomas the impression he was returning home to offer Phoebe a choice of her own.
He wondered if he would go to hell when his time finally came and then he prayed that he would, if it would mean that he would be able to pay for the suffering he cost Phoebe.
He could only hope that would bring her solace someday.