Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Eliza’s feet carried her through the village without conscious direction. One step, then another, her mind replaying August’s accusations until they took on the quality of a nightmare. Except nightmares ended when one woke. This continued, relentless and inescapable.
You have proven yourself quite capable of deception.
The words burned. Burrowed under her skin and festered there, poisoning everything they had built. Everything she had allowed herself to hope for.
She had been a fool, an absolute fool, to think their marriage could become something real. To believe that the man who kissed her in the carriage, who looked at her as though she hung the moon, might actually trust her. Might actually see her as more than a convenient solution to a scandal.
Who had written that letter? Who wanted her marriage destroyed badly enough to fabricate evidence of an affair?
The handwriting had not been familiar, and the contents—she shuddered.
Someone had gone to great lengths to make it convincing.
The intimate details, the references to past meetings, the implication of an ongoing liaison.
But August had believed it. That was what cut deepest. He had read that letter and immediately assumed the worst. Had not even paused to consider that she might be innocent, that someone might be trying to hurt them.
She stopped walking and found herself standing in front of the orphanage.
The building looked solid and welcoming in the afternoon light, and something in her chest loosened slightly.
At least here, she was wanted. At least here, no one suspected her of terrible things or accused her of betrayals she had never committed.
She climbed the steps and pushed open the door.
Mrs. Everett appeared almost immediately, her face brightening. “Your Grace! What a lovely surprise. We were not expecting you until Thursday.”
“I hope I am not intruding. I simply—” Eliza’s voice caught, and she had to clear her throat. “I found myself with some free time and thought I might be useful.”
Mrs. Everett’s expression shifted to concern. “Are you well, my dear? You look rather pale.”
“I am perfectly well. Only in need of distraction, perhaps.”
“Then you have come to the right place. Little Thomas has been asking after you all morning, and Mary needs help with her letters. She is determined to read that book you brought last week, but some of the words are proving troublesome.”
Eliza nodded and allowed herself to be led inside, into the chaos of children and lessons and simple, uncomplicated needs. Here, there were no accusations. No letters. No husbands who looked at her with suspicion and rage.
Here, she could breathe.
Two days later, Eliza walked the gardens alone, her book tucked under her arm though she had no real intention of reading it. The morning was cool and overcast, threatening rain but not yet delivering it. The roses were at their peak, the air heavy with their scent, but she barely noticed.
She had taken most of her meals in her room since the argument.
Had avoided the breakfast room, the library, anywhere she might encounter August. It was childish, perhaps, but she could not bear to see him.
Could not bear the way he looked at her now, as though she were a stranger. Or worse, an enemy.
The path curved ahead, and she heard voices. Male voices, one of them unmistakably August’s. She slowed, debating whether to turn back, but it was too late. They had already rounded the bend.
August stood with his steward, both men holding papers and appearing deep in discussion about something estate related. They both stopped when they saw her.
“Duchess,” August said, his voice carefully neutral.
Eliza nodded once, not trusting herself to speak. Her heart was doing complicated things in her chest, and her hands wanted to shake. She gripped her book more tightly and kept her gaze fixed somewhere over his left shoulder.
The silence stretched. She could feel him looking at her, could sense the weight of all the unsaid words between them. The steward shifted uncomfortably, clearly wishing himself anywhere else.
August nodded. “Good day.”
Eliza inclined her head again and continued walking. She passed within three feet of him, close enough to smell the soap he used, close enough to see the shadows under his eyes. Close enough to feel the chasm that had opened between them.
Three feet. It might as well have been a mile.
She did not look back. Did not allow herself to falter or slow her steps. She simply walked on until she reached the gate at the far end of the gardens then slipped through it and kept going.
She would not cry. She would not break. She would survive this as she had survived everything else in her life—alone, with her dignity intact, and without asking anyone for help they clearly did not wish to give.
But as she walked, she could not stop thinking about his face. About the way he had looked at her with such careful blankness, as though they were strangers passing on a street rather than husband and wife who had kissed each other breathless only days before.
She had been right to guard her heart. Right to maintain her distance and expect nothing from this marriage beyond civility and convenience.
She had just forgotten to actually guard it. Had let it slip free without noticing, had allowed herself to care, to hope, to want things that were never going to be hers.
She would not make that mistake again.
“You look like you have not slept in days.”
August lined up his shot, pulled back the cue, and sent the ball careening across the table. It missed the pocket by a solid inch. “Your observation is as keen as ever, Theo.”
Theodore Roth, April’s husband and August’s brother-by-marriage, chalked his own cue and studied the table with the concentration he usually reserved for Parliamentary debates.
“I am not merely observant. I am concerned. You have been throwing yourself into estate business with the enthusiasm of a man trying to outrun something.”
“Perhaps I simply take my responsibilities seriously.”
“Perhaps.” Theo took his shot, sinking two balls in quick succession. “Or perhaps you are avoiding something. Or someone.”
August did not answer. He moved around the table, examining angles that did not exist, looking for shots he could not make.
“How is married life treating you?” Theo asked, his tone carefully casual.
August’s hand tightened on the cue stick. “Fine.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer you are going to receive.”
Theo straightened and set down his cue. “August, we have known each other for five years. I have watched you charm rooms full of hostile peers, manage a dying father with strength, and take on a dukedom at an age when most men are still determining which tailor suits them best. I have never seen you look this miserable.”
“I am not miserable.”
“You are not happy either.”
August wanted to argue. Wanted to summon his usual deflection, the easy smile and self-deprecating joke that kept everyone at a comfortable distance.
But he was so tired. Tired of performing, tired of pretending, tired of lying awake at night replaying that argument and wishing he could take back every word.
He sank into a chair and pressed his palms to his eyes. “I am facing some challenges with Eliza.”
“What sort of challenges?”
“The sort where I may have ruined everything through my own idiocy.”
Theo pulled up a chair and sat. “Tell me.”
So August did. Not everything—he would not betray Eliza’s privacy by sharing the details of the letters—but enough. The growing distance between them. His suspicions. The argument that had ended with her walking out and barely speaking to him since.
When he finished, Theo was quiet for a long moment.
“You are afraid,” he said finally.
“I am not—”
“You are afraid of trusting her. Afraid of being vulnerable with her. Afraid that if you let her in completely, she will find you wanting.” Theo leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I recognize it because I felt the same way when I married April. She was so vivacious, so full of life, and I was convinced I would disappoint her. That eventually she would see through whatever it was she thought she saw in me and realize she had made a terrible mistake.”
“Did she?”
“Realize I was a disaster? Frequently. Usually when I left my boots in the middle of the drawing room or forgot her birthday.” He smiled.
“But she also realized that my disasters were hers to manage, and hers were mine. That is what marriage is, August. Not two perfect people maintaining separate perfections, but two flawed people choosing to be flawed together.”
August looked down at his hands. “I accused her of terrible things. Things I am not even certain I believe.”
“Then why did you say them?”
“Because I was angry. And frightened. And because believing the worst was somehow easier than hoping for the best and being wrong.”
“Then you will have to earn her forgiveness. But August, you must let her in. You must allow her to walk beside you, not behind you. Every man of greatness needs a good woman with him, and from what I have seen, Eliza is more than capable if you will let her.”
August thought of Eliza’s face when he had thrown that letter at her. The shock, the hurt, the way her expression had shuttered when he refused to believe her.
He thought of their kiss. The way she had gripped his coat, the small sound she had made when his mouth found hers. The way she had looked at him afterward, vulnerable and wanting and terrified.
She had been honest with him. Always. Even when the truth was painful, even when it cost her something to share it. She had told him about her mother, about the orphanage, about the fear and hunger and cold that had shaped her childhood.
And he had repaid her by believing the worst.
The letters were planted. They had to be. Someone was trying to drive a wedge between them, and he had let it work because he was too afraid to trust his own wife.