Chapter Twenty-Seven
Marlow
I turned the square leather ring box over in my hand.
All that anger. The resentment I’d harbored for months after a failed engagement. But I’d had no idea what it felt like to be truly rejected until this moment.
My chest was empty. Clawed out. I was gutted. The pain so raw and all-encompassing I’d nearly gone numb from it.
I couldn’t move from her bed.
Gabriel flew past the open door, then quickly backtracked. “In here,” he said over his shoulder. Our eyes locked, and his flashed with worry. “Margaret,” he called out from the doorway, frowning. “Come, quickly.”
“What is it?” she asked, hurrying past him inside the room. Georgiana’s room. Now empty. “Lucas,” she crooned. “What is wrong?”
“She’s gone,” I choked out. Lud, what was wrong with me? My throat was painfully clogged. An awful burning rose into my throat, pricking the corners of my eyes.
“What has happened?” Maggie sat beside me on the bed.
Mother entered, red-faced and grim. I couldn’t stand, I was shaking so suddenly, so forcefully. I was left with nothing but rubble. That was all I had, all I’d ever have if I could not create a path that led Georgiana straight back here.
What was all of this without her?
“I cannot do this.” I swallowed hard, determined to speak.
“The duchy?” Maggie took my hand. Her eyes locked on mine, serious and worried.
I tried to breathe. “It is too much,” I whispered.
“That’s my fault,” Gabriel grumbled from the doorway, shifting his weight from side to side. “I ask for too much. I’ve made your life difficult.”
I tugged out of Maggie’s hold and dried my wet cheeks with my sleeves. “No. It’s not you. It’s me. I—I am inadequate. I have ruined everything.”
Mother sat on my other side. “Lucas, my son, that is the farthest thing from the truth. Why would you say such a thing?”
Because it was true. “Why else would Georgiana leave?”
My family deserved the truth, the whole of it, so I started from the beginning. “Before Father died, he told me to do whatever it took—whatever it took—to restore the dukedom. For our family line and all who depended on us.”
Mother nodded, patient. Gabriel leaned against the door, watching his feet.
“But he wasn’t here.” My voice broke. “He wasn’t here to tell me how to see it through, and it’s been so difficult. I have sacrificed my integrity in the pursuit of keeping my promise, and still I have failed him.”
“You have had to make some difficult decisions. We all see that.” Mother squeezed my arm. “But you have not failed him.”
I shook my head. She had no idea. “I’ve been selfish. I’ve made deals advantageous to myself and harmful to others. I’ve used information against . . . I’ve blackmailed—”
“Darling,” Mother said solemnly. “Is any of this irreparable?”
I shrugged. I supposed with time I could heal fractured relationships. Balance my greed with generosity in other ways. “No.”
Despite her calm demeanor, her shoulders visibly relaxed. “Then it seems you have learned a lesson in how you wish to do business, and namely in how you do not. That is good.”
Not good enough. “I hate myself for forcing—”
“You hate your choices. You must never hate yourself. Am I quite clear? You, Lucas, are not a bad man. You are my son. You are your father’s son.
The Duke of Marlow. And from your very core, you are good.
The difference between who you want to be and who you are is merely a measure of daily progress. ”
My head hung. She took my face in her hands and swiped my tears with her thumbs.
“You are the greatest pride of my life, Lucas.” She kissed my cheeks one at a time, then my forehead. “The burden is heavy. But you are not inadequate.”
I wanted to believe her. She understood. Of anyone, she did. She’d carried this weight beside my father. Slowly, I raised my gaze to hers, to a face as familiar as my own. Wisdom in every line. Her eyes measured with empathy I did not deserve.
“Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
She did not hesitate. “What does your heart tell you?”
“That after having her, I cannot do this alone,” I whispered.
“Miss Wood.” Mother swallowed. “She would make a fierce partner, to be sure.”
“She doesn’t want it. Me.”
“She loves you,” Gabriel argued. “Anyone with eyes can see it.”
I shrugged. “She left.” And nothing in my life had cut so deep. I’d never wanted anything this much.
“Then go after her,” Maggie said with feeling, as though the answer was obvious. “Show her how serious you are.”
I wasn’t sure anything I said or did would matter. “I do not know how to convince her to want this . . . this part of me I cannot renounce.”
Gabriel crossed his arms. “What is it, exactly, that discourages her from staying?”
“London life,” I said.
“Then live in the country most of the year. Hire more management. You certainly have the funds.”
I had offered. “She doesn’t think that is wise for the dukedom.”
“When have you, the Duke of Marlow, ever let anyone tell you what is wise?”
True, but I had never faced anyone as wise as she. “This is Georgiana. She doesn’t like it when I . . . try to bend things to my will.”
Mother’s lips twitched. She squeezed my arm, then stood. “It sounds like you have much to think about. Find me when you have made your decision.”
“So, don’t bend things to your will, then.” Gabriel moved out of Mother’s way as she quit the room. “Or better yet, bend them without her noticing.”
Gabriel, as usual, wasn’t making any sense. But I was desperate. I’d try just about anything. “How do I do that?”
“Well, to start, give her a few days to calm her nerves. Deuces, you just beat a man senseless in her honor. She’s bound to be a little skittish.”
Maggie nodded. “And with good reason. She’s had a very difficult year, Lucas. No one could blame her for feeling distrustful of the future.”
Was that it? “You think she does not trust me?”
“I think she needs a safe place to fall when she’s scared. Right now, that safe place is her brother’s home. Your task is to change that safe place to you.”
Yes. That was exactly what I wanted. To be the place she ran to when she was scared or sad. To hold her until she felt capable again. I’d do anything to be Georgiana’s refuge.
“How?”
Gabriel stood tall and nodded. “You must go to her.”
“But you just said—”
Maggie stood and began to pace. “Befriend her brother. Show Georgiana you mean to be a permanent fixture in her life too.”
“She won’t like me forcing my way—”
“If she loves you, it won’t feel forced. Right now, she truly thinks she’s doing you a favor. She’s making the decision for the both of you, and that isn’t fair.”
“Not one bit,” Gabriel agreed.
Maggie hovered over me. “We need to make a plan. You need to prepare.”
“I’ll go to Hampshire,” I said. “I’ll meet with her brother first.”
Maggie shook her head. “You’ll rent a room at the inn. Stay apart from her so she knows your aim is not to force things.”
“I’ll help with business around here,” Gabriel offered.
“I can ask my steward to come.” My mind raced with possibility. “But what about the rumors?”
Maggie’s lips turned up. “Let your mother and I take care of the papers. Go and win Georgiana.”
Could I? Would this actually work?
“And for heaven’s sake,” Gabriel muttered, “marry her and secure the heir.”
The afternoon went by in a frenzy of paperwork, beginning with a rushed meeting with my steward and ending with Toole closing the door behind himself in my study.
Only a few tears escaped the man when I agreed to allow him his marriage. He grinned wider than I’d ever seen him in all our years together.
“Thank you, Your Grace,” he said. “You have my word, the marriage will not affect my work nor my dedication here.”
I nodded once. “If I had any reservations on the matter, Toole, I assure you this would be a different conversation entirely. Tell the staff to take the day off to celebrate, when it comes.”
At dinner, Mother and Maggie told me the plan.
The new plan.
When, inevitably, the papers wrote about my altercation with Lord Reynolds, my family would pay the editor to publish an article from a different perspective in the crowd.
A nameless friend who’d tell the world that I had loved Georgiana since the moment I’d met her.
That ours had been a friendship, and only a friendship, until we’d taken a chance and learned it was far more than either of us could bear to part with.
“Then, with the wedding announcement in the papers, we’ll write, ‘His Grace, the Duke of Marlow, formally apologizes to anyone and everyone he misled in his pursuit of marriage. He did not know, until it was almost too late, that the love of his life had been standing beside him all along.’”
Gabriel took a long swig of his wine, then started to clap. “Brava! I think that that will do very nicely.”
A slow smile turned my lips.
For once, a story in the gossip papers would be entirely true.