Chapter 22 #2
She noticed how nervous he had suddenly become.
She noticed how much he focused on her ankle, unable to meet her eyes.
She thought back to what had happened just now with Carrowell, the Duke’s apparent anger when he thought that Carrowell was stealing her away.
And she knew, as she knew anything, why that was.
For weeks now, Yvette had dared to imagine that there might be more between herself and the Duke than what should have been possible. She had sensed it there. She had felt it beneath the surface of their interactions, a force waiting to explode, should she let it.
But how could such a thing happen if she ran from it whenever it presented itself? How could she get to know the Duke better if she refused to give him the chance? If she refused to give herself a chance, for that matter,
I do not know what the Duke wants. I do not know what might happen. But I do know that nothing ever will, unless I take the risk…
It was time that she stopped running. It was time that she stood up for what she wanted, whatever the cost might be.
“I have not married before,” she said with a deep sigh. “Nor have I ever meant to. But it has nothing to do with being unable to find the right man. In fact…” She laughed bitterly. “I do wonder sometimes if there is something wrong with me.”
“It is not your fault.” His head snapped up, and he fixed her in a determined look. “What man would not have you?”
She rolled her eyes. “I never said that. The reason is…” Her heart started to race as the memories took hold of her. “You have no way of knowing this, but my mother died when I was very young.”
“She did?”
“I was close with my mother,” she answered with a soft smile. “She was my hero, and I wanted to be just like her. And when she fell pregnant, I was so excited…” Her smile grew at the memory. “A sister or a brother, she promised me. Another addition to our happy family.”
She let that sit between them, expecting the next question, while hoping it was not asked.
“What happened?”
Her chest tightened. “She died giving birth…” Her breathing grew heavy, and she felt as if the walls were closing in around her. “I was there when it happened. I…” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I saw it… the pain it put my mother through… the suffering… the blood…”
As always happened when she thought of that moment, memories of what was the worst day of her life crashed upon her. She could hear her mother’s wailings. She could hear her father’s cries of misery. And she could remember how she felt when she realized that her mother had slipped from this world.
A cold shudder ran up her body.
“The child died.” She spoke into the void, unable to look the Duke in the eyes. “And it broke my father, as it did me. He started to drink, while I…” She laughed bitterly. “I convinced myself that I would never allow such a thing to happen again.”
“That is why…” He did not finish the question.
“It is not about marriage or love.” She sniffed as her throat became clogged. “It is about what comes after. To marry is to have children, and to have children is to invite death.”
“Miss Norleigh…”
“That too is why I am so good with the orphans who come to my father’s parish. I will never have children of my own, so in them I am able to… to live the life that I am too scared to have for myself.”
“But you want to have children?”
“I do,” she admitted. “I just don’t want to do what is necessary to have one.
” She laughed as if she had said something funny.
“For a time there, my father tried to find me a husband, and I constantly found excuses as to why each one was not for me. Not that there was anything wrong with them. Not that I even gave it a chance. I was afraid, is why.”
“It is natural to be afraid.”
“The truth is…” Her heart still raced, and her body still shook, and when the Duke found her eyes, she had to force herself not to look away; that was despite the shame that she felt in the pit of her soul.
“I do want that for myself. I do want to find someone to fall in love with. I just don’t know if I can. ”
“That is nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Who says that I am ashamed?”
His smile was earnest. “You did. At least you look as if you are.”
She laughed. “True enough.”
“I know a little of fear…” He went back to examining her ankle with renewed determination. “I told you of my father already.”
“You did.”
“He is why I have never wished to marry. The way he treated me was one thing, but the way he treated my mother…” He sighed and shook his head. “In my mind, marriage is akin to torment, and I never wanted to do to a child as he did to me. “
“You are not your father.”
He shrugged. “And just because your mother died in childbirth does not mean you will.”
She did not know what to say to that. It was a truth too loud to deny, and one that she had dealt with her entire life. The knowledge that if she ever wanted to be happy, she had to take such a risk, paired with the knowledge that she was too afraid to do so.
Committing myself to be unhappy, and all because I am too afraid…
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” the Duke continued, his voice soft and reflective.
“How we let these falsities control us. Things that may never come to pass, that cannot be proven to happen… we latch onto them like armor, and we convince ourselves that they are our protection. I wonder sometimes if they do us more harm than good.”
“You… you regret not marrying?”
“No.” His head snapped up, and his expression cut right through her. “What I regret is not giving myself a chance in the first place.”
There was no need to say anything else, because the Duke’s words were enough. Alone as they were, sitting so close, Yvette felt utterly exposed and vulnerable like she never had before. But she also felt safe and understood, as if the Duke alone knew what she was going through.
The room around them vanished. His final words rang so loudly that it was as if he screamed their truth. For so long, she and the Duke had danced around the obvious, ignored it, denied its existence. But it felt now, at this moment, that such a truth could be denied no longer.
He was talking about her. She knew that for fact. And while Yvette still feared marriage and childbirth both, she started to wonder what the true reason was.
Of all the men she had ever met, the Duke made her feel safe like nobody else had; he made her feel seen and heard. He would protect her, he would care for her, and he alone might give her a reason to no longer be afraid.
Had she wasted her life? Or had she just been waiting for the right man to come along and save her?
Her heart thumped. Her leg trembled. Her lips moistened. She glanced at his lips, she felt her heart swell, and slowly, surely, she started to lean forward as the Duke tilted his head and licked his lips…
“We’re back!” Carrowell strode into the room.
Yvette’s eyes widened and she lurched back, just as the Duke did the same. He looked away, cleared his throat, and turned his back on her as much as he could.
“How is the ankle?” Carrowell had a small container that she saw was filled with a white cream; a salve of some kind.
“Is it swollen,” the Duke grumbled into his chest.
“Obviously…” Carrowell shuffled in close and dipped his fingers into the salve before applying it on her ankle.
Yvette winced from the pain, and the salve burned at first before cooling, and soon she began to relax as her ankle turned numb.
“Thank you.” She watched the Duke, who had his head turned away.
“It is the least I can do,” Carrowell said.
She had not been speaking to Carrowell, and she hoped the Duke knew it.
As Carrowell continued to attend her swollen ankle, Yvette watched the Duke closely. She wished he would turn and look at her. She wished that he would speak what she knew was in his heart. She wished… she wished that it had not taken so long for her to realize what was so plainly obvious.
The Duke was falling for her, she was certain of it. He was awkward about it. He was scared of what it might mean. But she heard it in his voice, she understood it in his words, and she felt it in her heart.
As I am falling for him…
The very notion terrified her. Never before had she admitted such a thing. Then again, never before had she wanted to. There was a litany of reasons for this, that he was beyond her, that she did not want to marry, that a happily ever after was not hers to covet…
Finally, she was done with all the lies. Just as she was through with caring what people thought. The fear was still there, her natural aversion to marriage and childbearing, but where the Duke was concerned… he was the one person who she might be willing to risk it all for.