Chapter 20
“Imust insist you leave a card, Your Grace. Lady Maribel is not receiving visitors today.”
The butler’s tone brooked no argument, but Thaddeus had not travelled four hours from Blackwood to be turned away at the door.
He stood on the front steps of Lady Eleanor’s townhouse, rain dripping from his coat despite the umbrella he’d carried from the hired carriage.
The morning was grey and cold, matching the reception he was receiving.
“I will wait,” he said quietly. “As long as necessary.”
The butler’s expression remained impassive. “Lady Eleanor is indisposed. If you would care to return tomorrow—”
“Daniel, who is it?”
Lady Eleanor’s voice carried from somewhere within the house, sharp and imperious. The butler’s jaw tightened fractionally.
“The Duke of Blackwood, my lady.”
A pause followed the man’s words. Then Lady Eleanor spoke again, and he was certain he detected the smallest hint of amusement in her tone. “Show him to the drawing room. I shall be down momentarily.”
The butler stepped aside with obvious reluctance, and Thaddeus entered.
The townhouse was modest compared to Blackwood—genteel rather than grand, comfortable rather than imposing.
The sort of home built for living rather than display.
He followed Walcott down a corridor lined with watercolours and into a drawing room decorated in soft blues and creams.
“Lady Eleanor will join you shortly,” Walcott said, and departed before Thaddeus could respond.
The door closed with a decisive click.
Thaddeus stood in the centre of the room and tried to steady his breathing. His hands trembled slightly. He clasped them behind his back to still them, then thought better of it and let them fall to his sides. Control had been his refuge for too long. It was time to stop hiding.
The mantel clock ticked steadily. Minutes passed. Thaddeus did not sit. Did not pace. He simply waited, aware that this delay was intentional. He was not quite sure whether it was a test or a punishment.
He deserved both.
After what felt like an eternity but was likely only ten minutes, the door opened.
Lady Eleanor swept in, her eyes finding his almost instantly. Silence settled between them.
She did not offer her hand. Did not invite him to sit.
“Your Grace,” she said, her voice carrying all the warmth of winter frost. “I confess I am surprised to see you. I had thought you preferred isolation.”
Thaddeus inclined his head. “Lady Eleanor. I apologise for arriving unannounced. I hoped to speak with Lady Maribel, if she will consent to see me.”
“Will she consent.” Eleanor’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile.
“How kind of you to consider what it is that she wants—or needs. One might have expected such consideration earlier. Perhaps you made her feel like an obligation rather than a wife. Or—” Her voice sharpened.
“—before you allowed her to believe she mattered and then reminded her, quite brutally, that she did not.”
Thaddeus forced himself to meet her gaze without flinching.
“You are correct,” he said quietly. “I have treated her abominably. And I have come to acknowledge that. To her, directly, if she will allow it.”
“Acknowledgment.” Eleanor crossed to the fireplace, her movements deliberate.
“How convenient. And what precisely do you hope to gain from this acknowledgment, Your Grace? Absolution? The restoration of domestic convenience? Or merely the satisfaction of having apologised so that you might tell yourself you tried?”
“I hope to gain nothing,” Thaddeus said. “I came because she deserves to hear the truth. All of it. Without defence or justification. Whether she chooses to forgive me is entirely her decision.”
Eleanor studied him for a long moment, her expression unreadable. “You changed her. It was a… stubborn, strong-willed, brave girl who entered that manor. And you sent back a shadow of who she was.”
The words struck deeper than any rebuke. Thaddeus felt his throat tighten.
“I know.”
“Do you?” Eleanor’s eyes bored into him. “Do you have any idea how she must…” She seemed to change her mind, and shook her head. “You disappointed me, Your Grace.”
Thaddeus’s hands clenched at his sides. “Lady Eleanor, I—”
“I am not finished.” Her voice cut through his attempted response.
“When she came back here three days ago, she did not weep. Did not rage. She simply sat in that very chair—” Eleanor gestured to the wingback near the window “—and she never spoke. I had last seen her that way when her sister passed. I worked… spent all my days picking her up after Margaret’s death and you let her fall again. ”
The image made something crack in Thaddeus’s chest. He could see it so clearly—Maribel sitting in that chair, composed and hollow. Broken.
“I convinced myself that she didn’t matter, but I was wrong,” he said hoarsely. “She matters. More than—more than I knew how to tell her. More than I allowed myself to acknowledge.”
“Pretty words, Your Grace. But words are cheap when actions have already spoken.” Eleanor crossed to the door, her hand resting on the handle.
“I will ask if she wishes to see you. If she refuses, you will leave immediately and not return. If she consents...” She paused, her gaze hardening.
“Then you will listen. You will not interrupt. You will not defend yourself. And you will accept whatever she chooses to say to you with the grace she deserves. Are we understood?”
“Yes.”
Eleanor opened the door, then stopped. Without turning, she said quietly, “She loves that boy. Loves him as though he were her own. The thought of losing him terrifies her. And yet, she left. How heartbroken she must have been to do that.”
She left before he could respond.
Thaddeus stood alone in the drawing room, his heart hammering against his ribs. The clock ticked. Rain pattered against the windows. He tried to prepare himself for what was to come—for Maribel’s anger, her pain, her perfectly justified refusal to grant him a moment of her time.
But he could not prepare. Could not construct a strategy or plan his responses. All he could do was stand in this borrowed drawing room and pray that she would give him the chance he did not deserve.
The door opened again.
Maribel stepped inside.
She wore a simple day dress of charcoal grey, her dark hair pinned back with severe practicality.
No jewellery. No ornamentation. Nothing to soften the stark lines of grief that had settled into her features over the past three days.
She looked thinner. Paler. As though some essential vitality had been drained from her.
And she looked at him with eyes that held no warmth. No hope. Just a terrible, composed emptiness that was worse than any rage.
“Lady Maribel,” he began.
“You wished to speak with me.” Her voice was steady. Flat. “Lady Eleanor said you claimed to have something important to say. So speak.”
Thaddeus’s carefully rehearsed words evaporated.
He had planned this conversation during the long carriage ride from Blackwood.
Had constructed apologies, explanations, admissions of fault.
But standing before her now, seeing the damage he had caused written in every line of her posture, the words felt inadequate.
Still, he had to try.
“I came to apologise,” he said. “And to listen. If you will allow it.”
“An apology.” Maribel’s mouth curved into something bitter. “How very civilised. Shall I ring for tea? Make this a proper social call?”
“Maribel—”
“I do not have all day, Your Grace.”
The formality stung, but he accepted it. “Of course... I apologise.”
She crossed to the window and stood with her back to him, her arms wrapped around herself in a posture of self-protection.
“What exactly do you wish me to say? That I forgive you? That I understand you were protecting yourself and cannot be blamed for your fear?” She turned, and her eyes blazed with suppressed emotion.
“I will not grant you absolution, Your Grace. You do not deserve it.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She took a step toward him. “Do you have any comprehension of what these past months have been? I came to Blackwood believing I could help Oliver. That was all. I did not expect—I did not want—” Her voice cracked. “And then you kissed me.”
Thaddeus felt the words like a physical blow.
“That kiss in the library,” she continued, her composure fracturing.
“Before the ball. You kissed me as though I mattered. As though you wanted me. And for one foolish moment, I allowed myself to believe it was real.” Her laugh was hollow.
“But it wasn’t, was it? It was simply...
convenient. I was there. You needed a wife to deflect scandal.
And I was foolish enough to imagine there might be something more. ”
“It was real,” Thaddeus said hoarsely. “Maribel—Lady Maribel—that kiss was—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Don’t tell me what I experienced. You made me feel wanted. And then, as though it were easy to do so, you withdrew. You made it abundantly clear that I was an obligation. A duty to be managed rather than a person to be—” She stopped, pressing her lips together.
Thaddeus remained silent, forcing himself to listen despite every instinct screaming at him to defend, to explain, to make her understand that he had been terrified rather than indifferent.
But Lady Eleanor had advised him to let her speak.
So he did.