Chapter Twenty #3
He turned to face her, and his expression was unreadable. "Does it matter? If I could free you from this marriage, would you want it?"
The question hit her like a physical blow. Would she want it? Freedom from this cold house, this impossible situation, this man who looked at her and saw only problems and disappointments?
"Would you?" she asked instead of answering.
"I asked you first."
"And I'm asking you now. If you could dissolve this marriage tomorrow with no consequences, would you?"
They stared at each other across his study, two people trapped by law and circumstance and their own inability to bridge the gap between their worlds.
"My brothers were right, weren't they?" she said when he didn't answer. "I'm disappearing here. Becoming less myself every day, trying to fit into your world, your expectations. And you're helping me disappear because that's easier than actually seeing me."
"I see you," he said quietly.
"No, you see a Coleridge. A problem to be managed. You don't see Ophelia."
"And you see what? A tyrant? A monster? The villain in your story of common virtue versus aristocratic vice?"
"I see a man so afraid of feeling anything that he's turned himself into stone. And now you're trying to turn me into stone too."
"I'm trying to help you adapt."
"You're trying to erase me! Every correction, every reminder about proper behaviour, every disapproving look when I show warmth or kindness or humanity—you're trying to sand away everything that makes me who I am until there's nothing left but the perfect, empty duchess you need me to be."
"That's not true."
"Then why are you meeting with solicitors? Why are you looking for a way out?"
"Because you're miserable!" The words exploded out of him, loud enough to make her step back.
"Because every day I watch you become smaller and quieter and less alive, and I know it's my fault.
Because your brothers were right; you're disappearing, and I'm the one making you disappear, and I don't know how to stop it. "
The admission hung between them, raw and unexpected. Ophelia stared at him, trying to reconcile this emotional confession with the cold duke she thought she knew.
"So your solution is to end the marriage?"
"My solution is to explore what's possible. To understand what options exist."
"Options for you or for me?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes! It matters whether you're trying to free yourself or free me. Those are very different things, Alexander."
He was quiet for a long moment, then said, "Your brothers think I'm destroying you."
"My brothers think a lot of things."
"But they're not wrong about this, are they? You are disappearing. You are becoming less yourself."
"And whose fault is that?"
"Mine," he said simply. "Which is why I'm trying to find a solution."
"A solution that involves solicitors and secret meetings and decisions made without consulting me?"
"A solution that gives you choices."
"I had choices. I chose to marry you."
"You had no choice. We both know that."
"I had the choice to make this work or make it fail. I chose to try to make it work. But you never did, did you? From the moment I arrived, you've been looking for ways to maintain distance, to keep me away, to preserve your perfect world from Coleridge contamination."
"That's not..."
"That's exactly what you've done. And now, when it's becoming clear that we can't exist in the same space without destroying each other, your solution is to run to solicitors instead of talking to me."
"Would talking have changed anything? We've been talking for weeks, and all we do is hurt each other."
"Because you won't let me in! You won't trust me, won't see me as anything other than a threat to your ordered existence."
"And you won't stop trying to change everything! The way the household runs, the way the servants behave, the way we interact with tenants. You want to revolutionize everything without understanding why things are the way they are."
"Because the way things are…. they are cold and lifeless and cruel!"
"The way things are has worked for five hundred years!"
"For whom? For the dukes who never have to see the suffering their rules cause? For the nobility who can ignore poverty and illness as long as the rents keep coming? Your way works for you, Alexander, but what about everyone else?"
"Everyone else depends on this estate's stability. If I run it into the ground with sentiment and compassion, hundreds of families lose their livelihoods."
"And if you run it without sentiment and compassion, families like the Wheelers lose their lives. Which is worse?"
He didn't answer, but she could see him struggling with something, some internal battle she didn't understand.
"What aren't you telling me?" she asked. "About the solicitors, about this supposed search for options, what are you really doing?"
"What needs to be done."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I can give you right now."
"Because you don't trust me."
"Because I don't trust myself," he said, and the admission seemed to surprise him as much as her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that every decision I make regarding you seems to be wrong.
I try to help you adapt, and I stifle you.
I try to maintain boundaries, and I isolate you.
I try to protect you, and I hurt you. Your brothers were right, I'm destroying you by degrees, and the worst part is I can see it happening and can't seem to stop it. "
"Then stop trying to control everything. Stop making unilateral decisions about our lives. Stop meeting with solicitors in secret and start talking to me."
"About what? About how we're fundamentally incompatible? About how this marriage was doomed from the start? About how we're both trapped in something neither of us wanted and both of us are too proud to admit is killing us?"
The words hung in the air like a confession and a condemnation simultaneously. Ophelia felt tears threatening but refused to let them fall.
"Is that really how you see this? As something that's killing us?"
"Isn't it? Look at us, Ophelia. We can't have a conversation without fighting. We can't make a decision without conflict. We can't even help a sick child without it becoming a battle about authority and compassion and class differences. What kind of marriage is this?"
"A difficult one," she admitted. "But that doesn't mean it's doomed."
"Doesn't it? Tell me honestly...are you happy?"
"No," she said quietly. "But I wasn't happy before either. At least now my unhappiness has purpose."
"What purpose?"
"The Wheelers have their home. Lucy will live. The feud between our families is technically ended. Those aren't small things, Alexander."
"But they're not enough to build a marriage on."
"No," she agreed. "They're not."
They stood there, facing each other across his study, two people who had just admitted their marriage was failing but couldn't seem to find a way to either fix it or end it.
"I should check on the household," Ophelia said finally. "My unexpected departure this morning probably caused some disruption."
"Ophelia..."
"Whatever you're planning with those solicitors, I'd appreciate being informed before you make any final decisions. I may be just a Coleridge, but I deserve that much courtesy."
She left before he could respond, closing the door carefully behind her when what she wanted was to slam it hard enough to shake the portraits off the walls. In the hall, she encountered Mrs. Morrison, who was clearly waiting for her.
"Your Grace, I wanted to say... that is, the staff wanted me to convey... what you did for the Wheelers was very kind."
Ophelia looked at the housekeeper in surprise. "You approve?"
"I think, Your Grace, that this house has perhaps been lacking in kindness for some time. His Grace means well, but he sometimes forgets that rules and tradition must occasionally bend for humanity."
"He thinks I'm undermining his authority."
"You're reminding him he's human, Your Grace. That's different."
"Is it? Because from where I stand, it looks like I'm just causing problems."
Mrs. Morrison hesitated, then said carefully, "If I may be frank, Your Grace?"
"Please."
"His Grace has been alone for a very long time. Not just unmarried, but truly alone. He's forgotten how to let people close, how to trust, how to be anything other than the Duke. You're asking him to remember how to be Alexander, and that's... difficult for him."
"And in the meantime, he's asking me to forget how to be Ophelia and become only the Duchess."
"Perhaps, Your Grace, the answer isn't for either of you to forget or remember, but to find a way to be both."
Before Ophelia could respond, James appeared, looking flustered. "Your Grace, there's been a development in the village. About the Wheelers."
Ophelia's heart clenched. "Is Lucy worse?"
"No, Your Grace. But the news of what you did has spread, and there's a... gathering."
"A gathering?"
"People are coming to the cottage, Your Grace. With food, medicine, offers of help. They're saying the Duchess has shown them what true nobility means."
Ophelia felt tears threaten again, but this time they weren't from frustration or hurt. "They are?"
"Yes, Your Grace. And there's more. Several other families have come forward, asking if you might hear their troubles. Nothing as serious as the Wheelers, but... difficulties."
"His Grace won't approve," Ophelia said automatically.
"Perhaps His Grace doesn't need to know everything that happens in the village," Mrs. Morrison suggested carefully. "A duchess has her own sphere of influence, after all."
Ophelia looked between the housekeeper and footman, seeing something she hadn't expected; alliance, or at least the possibility of it.
"I need to think," she said. "This is all... I need to think."
She retreated to her rooms, her mind racing. The villagers were responding to her kindness, seeking her help, seeing her as separate from Alexander's cold authority. It was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? To be useful, to matter, to make a difference?
But it was also exactly what Alexander feared; that she was building a power base, creating divided loyalty, undermining his authority. If she continued helping the villagers independently, it would drive the wedge between them deeper.
Through her window, she could see Alexander in the garden below, walking alone among the formal beds. Even from this distance, she could see the weight he carried in the set of his shoulders, the isolation that wrapped around him like armor.
Her brothers had been right about one thing.
..she was disappearing. But they'd been wrong about another; Alexander wasn't the villain of this story.
He was just as trapped as she was, perhaps more so because his cage was of his own making, built from duty and tradition and the fear of feeling too much.
The question was whether two people in cages could find a way to free each other, or whether they'd simply rattle the bars until they both broke.