Chapter 17
Sybil had a terrible headache as she walked down the hall to her mother’s bedchamber.
She had spent the morning overseeing the packing of her belongings with the help of her lady’s maid and a chambermaid, taking a tray in her room for breakfast. Luncheon loomed, just about an hour away from its appointed time.
At last, everything was done.
Her bedroom was bereft of even the smallest hint she’d ever been there.
All the nights when Everett had come to her, all the kisses and embraces.
All the passion he had shown her. Every garment in the linen press.
All her shoes, her jewelry. Each scrap of silk. Her hairpins, her books, her stockings.
Packed neatly in trunks in preparation for her departure to Riverdale Abbey. After she and Mother reached their destination, she would have to consider where they could next go, what she could do. She couldn’t remain in London one more night. Not given her husband’s unrelenting coldness.
Not when he treated her so callously.
She had tried. Oh, how she had tried. She had agreed to his bargain. Had welcomed him into her bed, into her arms, and, somehow along the way, back into her heart. But then he had proven to her beyond a doubt that he could never, ever love her. His cruelty over Henry had been the final insult.
Perhaps somehow she could aid her half brother on her own. She didn’t yet know what she would do. But surely anything was better than staying here and awaiting her husband’s whims.
She reached her mother’s room, where Sybil knew she would likely be dressing for luncheon, and knocked at the door.
She was aware that delaying telling her about the necessity that they leave hadn’t made doing so any easier.
Mother’s health had finally improved over the weeks since their arrival in London.
She had seemed to regain her strength, and she thoroughly enjoyed the company of the dowager.
Despite her previous insistence otherwise, she had grown comfortable with the notion that she would not need to return to Father and Eastlake Hall.
Tearing her away from the cozy new life she had begun would not be easy.
But Sybil couldn’t very well leave her behind.
“Who is it?” Mother called.
“It’s Sybil, Mother,” she replied.
“Sybil darling, come in.”
With a deep breath, she opened the latch and stepped inside. Mother was seated at a writing desk by the window, a letter she was apparently in the process of writing laid out on its surface. She set down her pen and smiled brightly when she spied Sybil.
“Darling daughter, there you are. I missed you at breakfast.”
“Yes, I missed you as well.” Sybil closed the door behind her and ventured deeper into the room, noting that her mother had made it her own in various ways, from a few pictures hanging on the walls to the books and even the freshly cut flowers in a vase.
“I didn’t want to press the matter at the breakfast table before all the others, but I will admit that I was wondering if there was a reason you were indisposed. Tell me, am I to expect a grandbaby in my arms soon?”
Sybil’s heart ached at the thought.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry to disappoint, but no, that is not the reason for my absence. The true reason is that I am leaving.”
“Leaving where?”
“Leaving here,” she elaborated gently.
Mother frowned. “Surely not leaving London.”
“Yes, leaving London.”
Her mother’s confusion was yet to be assuaged. “Why would you wish to do so now? We have only recently arrived.”
Sybil wasn’t surprised by her mother’s response. This was the longest they had been in London in memory. Father had preferred for them to remain in the country, all the better under his rule.
Like Henry, a voice whispered inside her.
She would not forsake her half brother.
“We have been in residence for a few weeks,” she protested. “You always said you were far happier in the country. I thought you would welcome the chance to return to Riverdale Abbey, where everything is so much quieter and ever so much more peaceful.”
“Sweet girl, surely you must know I only said that because I hadn’t a choice then. I was forced to remain wherever your father wished me to be. Moreover, I needed to be where you were to protect you from his wrath.”
It was the first direct reference her mother had made to Father’s violent and cruel ways.
“I am indebted to you for everything you have done for me,” Sybil acknowledged solemnly. “I know that you endured much for my sake, and that you must have suffered even more after I married Riverdale and left Eastlake Hall.”
“I should have done more.” Her mother smiled fondly. “I would do it all again, only I suppose that if I were truly doing it right, I never would have married your father.”
No one knew what it was like to be trapped into an unwanted marriage with a husband who didn’t care for her better than Mother did.
“I can relate to that sentiment,” she told her mother.
“Whatever do you mean, dearest? I don’t understand. Is the duke not treating you well? The two of you seem so happy, so in love.”
They did? Sybil barely contained a bitter laugh at the notion.
“We are both of us quite miserable,” she muttered. “I do believe that he married me solely out of duty, whilst I married him because I was foolish enough to think myself in love with him.”
She hadn’t just thought herself in love.
She had been in love. She still was. But she was also willing to acknowledge that Everett would never return her feelings.
And whilst she had repeatedly told herself she could settle for a marriage of convenience with him and could love him enough to weather any storm, last night had proven her shockingly, stunningly wrong.
“And that is why I am not just leaving this town house and London,” she continued. “I am leaving Riverdale as well.”
“Leaving Riverdale?” Mother pressed a hand over her heart, clearly aghast at the prospect. “But you cannot do that.”
“I can, and I shall. It is what I need to do.”
“Sybil, you are the Duchess of Riverdale,” Mother protested. “Have you no notion of how fortunate you are? Your husband is kind and never raises a hand to you. He is incredibly wealthy. Not to mention that he is quite handsome. Any other woman would beg to be in your shoes.”
“My mind is firmly made on the matter,” she countered. “I didn’t come to you for a row. Rather, I came to tell you that you ought to prepare for our imminent departure this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?” Mother repeated, her tone one of abject horror. “I cannot leave this afternoon. I have an engagement with the dowager this afternoon.”
“I won’t leave you here without me,” she explained patiently. “So I am afraid that you must.”
“But why?” Mother threw up her hands, in such dudgeon that she knocked over her inkwell, sending black ink all over her letter and the desk. “Oh dear heavens, now look at what I have done.”
The ink was seeping fast, rolling toward Mother’s pale silk skirts with alarming speed. Sybil dashed across the room to fetch some cloths and returned, sopping up the spilled ink as hastily as she could.
“Forgive me for my clumsiness,” Mother was lamenting. “I shall clean it.”
“I will ring for a maid,” Sybil said, surveying the damage grimly. “But I am afraid your letter is quite ruined.”
Fortunately, the surface of the desk bore a thick finish that had kept the ink from seeping into the fine rosewood.
“It was only a letter to your great-aunt Margaret,” Mother said dismissively. “She probably wouldn’t have even read it. She can scarcely see without her spectacles, you know. But that is neither here nor there. You must tell me why you intend to leave your husband. What could have happened?”
Sybil looked down at her hand, dismayed to see that her fingers were now stained black from the overturned ink. “He doesn’t love me, and he never will. I told myself it didn’t matter, that I loved him enough for us both, but I’ve realized I was wrong. I cannot. Nor should I have to do so.”
She thought again of the virulence of Everett’s reaction to her simple request to provide Henry with a situation at either Riverdale Abbey or here in London.
Perhaps it had been scandalous of her, but she certainly hadn’t asked him to publicly acknowledge her half brother.
Nor had she asked for Henry to be given anything other than a position in the household for which he was fully trained to work.
“I don’t understand what has caused this.” Mother shook her head.
“I asked him to give Henry a situation,” she confided.
“I thought that it would be a small thing, but His Grace was furious that I dared to make such a request. He was quite clear about his feelings on the matter. I realized then that nothing shall ever change between us. I cannot bear for this torment to continue, Mother.”
“You have no notion of what torment is truly like,” Mother said, anger lacing her voice.
The vehemence of her response took Sybil by surprise. She clenched the ink-soaked cloth in her hand so tightly that her fingers ached, and she held her mother’s gaze.
“I think I have a small idea, having experienced my father’s fury firsthand.
You may stay here for as long as you are welcome.
However, I am returning to Riverdale Abbey this afternoon after I pay a call to the Children’s Foundling Hospital to tell the children farewell.
Then, we shall be off to the railway station.
Either pack your belongings or don’t. The choice is yours. ”
With that, she left the room, trembling with anger.
Anger for herself.
Anger for her mother.
Anger for Everett.
And most of all, anger for what might have been.