Chapter 30
“Where is Beatrice?” Helena asked at breakfast.
Owen did not know what to say. He had not expected her to truly leave, but she had. Their carriage had disappeared in the night, and as Helena and George did not have one, he was stranded until it returned for him.
“The footman knows,” he grumbled. “I suppose he will tell me when he comes back.”
“You ought to fire him,” George said. “He should know to listen to you.”
“Alas, I wanted my staff to treat my wife as they would me. Besides, for all he knew it could have been an emergency and he did not have time to think. I cannot blame him for helping her.”
“And just why did she leave?” Helena asked, eyes narrowing. “More to the point, why do you not seem terribly concerned?”
It was an unfair accusation, for he was.
He was frightened about Beatrice’s safety and confused as to where she could have gone.
It was not that she had nowhere else to go, for that would have meant she had to return home, but that she had too many places.
There was her family’s home, and then her three friends and all their properties too, as well as their own estates.
She could have been anywhere in England, and he could not go after her.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I have no way of chasing her, and I do not know where she has gone.”
“And that should make you terrified, but there you are sitting at the table seemingly without a care.”
“That is not true.”
“George?” she asked.
Her husband placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she softened.
“Come now,” he said kindly, “Beatrice is a capable lady, and you know that. Owen cares for her, you know that, but all this fretting will not bring her back. For whatever reason, she has seen fit to leave, and we will not know why until either she has returned or the carriage has and His Grace can search for her.”
“But–”
“Helena, this is not good for our child. Do not worry yourself so; she will be all right, and this will all be mended.”
Helena seemed to give in at that and nodded sadly.
Owen was pleased that his wife had a good friend, one that cared enough to speak her mind to a duke, but he wished that the vitriol was not directed at him.
He had done what was necessary, and Beatrice had not liked it.
It was not his fault that he did not change his mind.
“I must work,” George explained. “Do tell me if she returns.”
When Helena and Owen were alone, he noticed that she was trembling. He went to speak, but he did not know what to say to her without angering her more.
“She could be in danger,” she said after a while. “I know that you and my husband think she is a perfectly capable lady, but she is a lady all the same, and a wealthy one at that.”
“I know the risks,” he sighed, “and so does she. This is what she wanted, Helena, and there was no changing her mind.”
“No? And how hard did you try?”
“How is it my fault that she chose to leave? She is not a child. I told her before our wedding day that I had no intention of forming an attachment, and she cannot be angry with me for not having done so regardless.”
“Is that so? Have you truly not formed an attachment? Because I saw how you looked at her yesterday, when it was clear that she had been crying. You care for her, Owen, and there is no hiding from that. I would wager that that is what has hurt her– the way you are forcing yourself to keep away.”
It was a reasonable suggestion, but Owen felt it was all the same. If she was upset that he refused to tell her he loved her, then it did not matter whether he loved her or not.
And, given the pain in his chest at her absence, he knew precisely how he felt for her.
“Helena, if you only knew why I had to do all of this, you would understand.”
“Then tell me. For that matter, when you see your wife, you ought to tell her too.”
He bit his lip. It was true; he had to say what had happened, but he had not talked about it in years, since he told Lord Stanton of it all. He cleared his throat, hands trembling.
“I will explain everything to you,” he said carefully. “But first, I must know why my wife was crying.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem to believe that I do not care about her, except you saw with your own eyes that I do. Given that, it is understandable that I would want to know what had happened, is it not?”
Helena sighed, leaning forward.
“Beatrice was crying,” she explained, “because she feels lost. She feels as though she has no home, nor any real place in the world. Her family have not asked after her, and her friends all have husbands and children, and after not being invited to my wedding she seemed to think that it was because she was unwanted.”
“Which is not the case.”
“Of course not! We only married at Gretna Green because it was the most convenient, and it meant that our child would be legitimate. She understood that much, at least. When it comes to everyone else, on the other hand…”
“Yes, well, her family never deserved her in the first place. They treated her as lesser-than, even I could see that.”
“And how, pray tell, did you show her that you did not feel that way yourself?”
“I did what I could. I let her do as she pleased with the house, and I did not forbid her from doing anything needlessly. I am a good husband, Helena. I might not be dashing or doting, but I am good to her.”
“Then why have you made her so miserable that she left?”
He sighed. He had gotten his answer, and now it was his turn.
“Last night,” he explained, “Beatrice and I had a dispute. In the end, she learned why I was so determined to help you.”
“Because I was a lady in distress?”
“Because you looked like my sister.”
Her eyes widened gently.
“You do not have a sister. Everyone knows that.”
“I did. Her name was Lydia, and when you came to see me that day you looked just like her, wild and unpredictable. She was but fifteen when she passed, and I have blamed myself for it ever since. I am not the man that Beatrice deserves, because I cannot protect her like a husband should. I do not deserve her love, Helena.”
The lady was silent for a moment. She rose and began to pace the floor. Every so often, she looked at him like she no longer recognized him.
“Is that to say that you never told Beatrice about her?”
“Indeed.”
“But she was bound to learn of her eventually. She lived in that house.”
“I had everything taken away. She found some articles, but I managed to mend that, and she saw a portrait that looked like her, and you for that matter, but I had it removed.”
“So she might have found out easily enough, but you kept the truth from her. Do you have any idea what she must have thought?”
“No, Helena, I do not. I have been able to think at all since the day I met her. She confuses me, and she makes me realize what an awful man I am, and she smiles at me like that is not the case. I do not know what to do with her kindness, and it is killing me.”
“Why not reciprocate it?”
“Because this kindness, this ability to let people do as they please, is what killed Lydia. I should never have let her leave that day, but I did because she asked me to and that caused her demise. My keeping Beatrice at arm’s length is because I cannot allow anything to happen to her, because I love her. ”
The words came spilling out before he could understand what he had said. He stopped, mouth open, and looked down at the ground. When he met Helena’s eye again, she was at last smiling.
“And now,” she said gently, “you are ready to face her. Go to her and tell her the truth. You must tell her everything, and then once you have done that you must apologize profusely for doing what you did.”
“But I cannot,” he huffed. “I do not know where she is.”
“You know where her friends are. You know how to procure a carriage, if that is what you truly want. You are a duke, Owen. It is time for you to act like one.”
“But what if she does not want me?”
“If you let her slip away from you now, she never will. Stop being cowardly and find her.”
Nobody had ever spoken to him in such a manner, with the exception of his sister. He laughed, in spite of himself. Clearly, it was what he needed to hear.
“I have been such a coward, haven’t I?” he confessed.
“You have done what you thought was best. Now that you know it was not, you can change. Give it until tomorrow morning, and if she has not returned, go to her. She will be somewhere you know of, I can assure you.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because I know my friend,” she laughed.
“She would never admit it, but she has always wanted to be loved. She has always been too proud to say it, and she has never seen herself as worthy of it, but it is the truth. Beatrice wants to be adored, and I know that you can give her the affections she needs, because I am also a friend of yours.”
Owen hoped that she was right.
For the rest of the day, he waited for Beatrice to return. He waited for her to walk through the door again and say that she had done wrong, but she did not. She had clearly decided that it was for the best that she disappeared altogether, and he could not allow that.
“I am going to find a carriage in the morning,” he said firmly at dinner.
“See to it that you do,” Helena nodded. “And when the two of you have mended everything, you simply must come back to see us again. We will have our child soon, and I would hate for you to not meet them for a long time.”
“Of course. I can only hope that I find her soon, for I am terrified that something has happened to her.”
“I can see that,” George agreed. “You look the way I did when my wife was considering marrying you.”
“It is awful. Every minute that she is not here, I feel as though the worst is happening to her, and I cannot do anything to help.”
Suddenly, the pounding in his chest stopped, replaced by a sense of calm.
The truth was that he could help, and he had every power to do so that a man could.
He had to stop hiding away, blaming everyone else for what he had done.
He did not have to wait until morning to find his wife and confess that he loved her; he could do it then and there.
“I must go,” he declared. “I will leave now, to find a carriage, and bring her home.”
He rose from his seat, and George and Helena did the same.
“This will all be fine,” Helena promised. “Speak from the heart, and she will understand.”
And, though Owen did not fully believe that he let himself have the slightest bit of hope. If it meant having Beatrice back, he would have clung to any amount of hope that he had.
He ran out into the night, knowing precisely where he would go first.