Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Felix stared at the greenhouse, wishing that Miss Alden was there and working on her paintings. It would be the only time he would be allowed to admire her before she got married. It would be from afar. She would be none the wiser and he would do everything he could to put her from his mind.
But she wasn’t there that morning.
He had grown so used to seeing her and the dog working together in the early morning that he hadn’t thought there would be a day that he didn’t.
If he were honest with himself, he could admit that he never thought there would be a day when she left him.
Perhaps it had been a foolish hope. One that was born out of Felix finally finding someone who saw him as he was, and not just as the duke of a duchy.
It did not matter anymore. Isabelle would be married to that odious man and she would leave.
Even publishing Lord Milton’s crimes to the scandal papers may not be enough to show Miss Alden that she couldn’t trust Lord Milton, but Felix had to try. If she heard others speaking about the scandal, she might realize how truly terrible her life would be with a man like that.
The loud knock on the door drew Felix from his study. He stood and rounded his desk, striding across the room and hauling open the door, only to be met with Lord Milton.
Felix sighed. “Why are you here?”
If it was to gloat, then Felix had no interest in hearing it. He would rather spend the rest of the day looking over the books for his duchy and trying to find a way to convince Isabelle that she didn’t need to go through with the wedding.
Lord Milton scowled and stormed into the room. “You’ve ruined my life!”
“I’ve done nothing to you, Lord Milton. Nothing that you didn’t deserve.”
“If you had truly done nothing to me, you would’ve kept my gambling to yourself! You wouldn’t have sabotaged my marriage to Miss Alden, yet it seems that you’ve done everything you possibly could to ensure that we wouldn’t be married!”
Felix’s brows pulled together, and a thin thread of hope formed in his chest. “She left you?”
“She left her ring with a note. She couldn’t even tell it to me herself.” Lord Milton scoffed and stepped closer to Felix. “You’re behind this and I know you are.”
“She just came to her sense,” Felix said, smug and already leaving the room in search of her.
“You are nothing but a ruthless cad doing everything you can to ensure the money comes to you.”
“Ruthlessness would have been marrying a good woman like Isabelle to pay off your gambling debt.” Felix spat the words at him as if they were daggers plunging deep into Lord Milton’s loathsome body.
“You would do well to make yourself scarce around London. The truth about you will be known once the morning scandal paper has been distributed.”
Lord Milton wasn’t worth his time. One of the servants would see him out.
In the meantime, Felix was going to find Isabelle.
He stormed up the stairs and to her room. His heart hammered in his chest as he rushed down the hall to her room and knocked on the door.
No sound came from inside, not even Rose’s welcoming yip.
“You’ve missed her,” Victoria said, opening the door to her own room and stepping out into the hallway.
Felix’s world came crashing down around him. “She’s got to be here. Where else would she go?”
Victoria leaned back against the wall and shrugged. “Don’t know.”
He fumed. “You need to tell me.”
“No, I don’t.” Victoria scowled at him, her face pinching close together. “Why would I tell you? You’ve done nothing but upset her. Even I could see that she was head over heels for you, and yet you never told her that you feel the same.”
“Look, I want to fix this with her, but if I’m going to be able to do that, then you need to tell me where she is, now!”
“Do you love her?”
He threw his hands up in the air. “What kind of question is that? Of course I love her.”
Victoria reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “She’s at the docks. Supposed to be getting on Our Lady Morning and heading back to New York in the next two hours.”
Felix snatched the letter before kissing Victoria’s temple. “I’m going to bring her home.”
“I don’t care if you bring her home right away, just don’t let her leave us forever,” Victoria said, tears glistening in her eyes.
“I’m not losing her.” Felic spun and walked down the hall, already opening the letter.
Dear Windham,
I love you.
I know that it is unkind of me to tell you in a letter and crueler still when I know that you will not find this until I am on the ship and on my way back to America.
As I cannot have you for my husband, I have decided it would be best to live out my life as a spinster.
I would like to thank you for all that you have done. You and your loving family have shown me nothing but patience, kindness, goodness and generosity, even when you were comparing me to a goose. I will always cherish the memories we have shared together.
I want you to know that I will press my father to uphold his end of the agreement. You and your family deserve to live in happiness. You should not be faulted for my leaving, especially when you did nothing less than your best to find me a suitable match.
The truth is that I could never compel myself to love another in the way that I love you, nor would I want to. You have shown me that I can be accepted by others, and that I can open up my true self, even to a world in which I do not belong.
I would have married you one thousand times over. I would happily spend the rest of my life with you without one second of doubt in my heart and mind.
You are the air I breathe. The first person I think of when I wake in the morning and the last person I think of before I go to sleep. You haunt my dreams and it is there that I will look back on us and all we could have been together.
I wish you nothing but the best, and you should know that I will always love you, even if you have never felt the same way about me.
With love,
Isabelle
Felix ran down the dock, looking for Our Lady Morning, his heart hammering in his chest and sweat beading on the back of his neck. When he finally spotted the ship, it was at the other end of the marina and the last passengers were boarding.
Too far away. I’m never going to make it.
I have to try.
He needed to be with Isabelle. If nothing else, he had to try. She was the only thing in his life that made sense. She had taken up residence in his heart and there was no longer anything he could do to force her out.
Felix knew that he would never want her to be without her. In her, he had found his home. She had made him whole. He could only hope that he would be enough for her.
She stood on the deck of the boat, leaning over the side, her long hair blowing in the breeze. She looked as beautiful as the day she had first arrived. Rose sat patiently at her feet, enjoying the ocean air.
“Isabelle!”
She didn’t react. There wasn’t a single look in his direction, not a hint that she heard him shouting for her. He ran faster, nearly tripping as he dodged a woman with her two young children.
“Isabelle!”
As she reached down to pet Rose, Felix panicked and ran even faster. The sailors were already pulling up the gangplank.
Too late.
I was too late.