Chapter Sixteen #2
And perhaps the thought that had occurred to him back in the vault was true—his father’s rigidity had been, in part, a reaction to his grandfather’s excesses.
What a strange familial chain successive generations wove.
Then, Harbury did something he’d never done to the real man—he touched his father’s face. He had to reach up to do so, too. Had the stone statue been built to his father’s accurate height, they would have stood nose to nose. His father had ordered his monument to be taller.
Ruefully, he shook his head. “How like you,” he spoke to the statue.
For the first time, he was glad he hadn’t ever “earned” the man’s approbation. He exhaled, yanking off the ridiculous hat and wig. He didn’t belong in the past. He wanted to get home to his future.
He made his way back to the hall and then promptly submitted himself to Marsden. Only after his valet had removed every trace of the old duke, did he cross over to Cassandra’s door.
Bracing himself for whatever was to come, he knocked.
“Enter,” she bid.
Tentatively, he peered into the room. She’d changed into her nightclothes, but she was not in bed. Resting on the mattress were two packed valises. A third, still open, sat on the other side of the room.
His heartbeat slowed. His limbs grew heavy. Some part of him had known she would be preparing to leave.
“Sally,” she said, “would you please have these collected? And tell the coachman to be ready to leave at first light.” She dismissed her maid, then asked, “Is Mr. Anderson safe?”
“Yes. Lady Pennington has taken him back to Rose Cottage.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m glad.”
“I should have acted sooner,” he said.
“I know,” she replied.
“I didn’t see the changes in him because I didn’t want to see the changes in him.”
“I know that, too.”
She turned away from him and went over to study the contents of the open valise on the chair in front of her dressing table. The table where he’d brushed her hair. The table where she’d been seated when he’d placed a necklace around her neck.
Had that only been this morning?
“You’re leaving me.” His voice rasped as he spoke. “Aren’t you?”
“Taradiddle,” she replied without looking up.
“Pardon?”
“Taradiddle. Something I say with Eliza, or, rather, when we hear nonsense, I say taradiddle and she answers twaddle, if the nonsense is particularly egregious, we add bilgewater.” She paused and shook her head. “Something you would know about me…if you had courted me properly.”
She was paler than she’d been before. Her mouth tight.
“Eliza,” he echoed.
“You remember Eliza. My sister. My twin. Whom I miss. Desperately. Yes, I’m leaving. But I am not necessarily leaving you. I am going to visit Eliza.”
“You’re still angry…and you are placing your things into a valise. Pardon my confusion, but such things make it look as if you are leaving me.”
She placed her brush carefully into the valise.
“Well?” he prompted. “Chastise me if you must. Just tell me what I can do to make you stay.”
“There’s nothing you can do.” She flashed him a pointed glance. “You wouldn’t challenge a clearly incompetent man because he’s your—”
“—Because he was my father’s man,” he interrupted. “And also due my regard.”
“Don’t even try to convince me your failure to act had nothing to do with his relationship to Lady Pennington. To Viv.”
“Very well, you’re right. But only in part. I hesitated because my father had relied on him, and I didn’t yet trust my own judgment. But, yes, I did feel a debt to him. And, yes, having him here kept a distant connection to Lady Pennington.”
Admitting as much was painful even to himself. He’d been so damn foolish.
She stared at him long and hard. “I am not sure what you expect me to do.”
“I want you to stay.”
She shook her head. “I’m exhausted, Harbury. More than exhausted. Shattered. I don’t even know what I want anymore.” Tears shimmered in her eyes. “The only thing I can think of that would give me some small measure of peace is to go to my sister.”
He could demand she stay, forbid her to travel. He could keep her here physically. He’d every right. By law, she belonged to him. But he couldn’t make her want to stay any more than his father had been able to remake him in his own image.
No. He didn’t want her to be here against her will.
He wanted her voluntarily present, not just in body, but in soul. And he sensed that, if he forced the former, he’d forever lose the latter. An awful paradox…if he truly wanted to keep her, he had to let her go. And this time, he felt like he was losing not just a rib, but an entire arm.
“I’ll set things to rights here,” he promised. “When you come back, things will be very different.”
Bleakly, she met his gaze in the mirror.
He came up behind her. “But before you go, kiss me.”
She appeared to deflate.
“Please,” he added. “Just a kiss, I swear.”
She bit her lips, studying him doubtfully. “Kissing me won’t make me stay.”
“I’m not trying to make you stay.”
Slowly, she turned around. “You aren’t?”
Ah, Cassie. Why hadn’t he appreciated what he had found in her sooner?
He took her hand into his. “I’m only trying to remind you of the reasons you should plan to come back.”
She stared up into his eyes, a weary, helpless expression on her face.
But the softness he’d glimpsed once or twice before remained, if dimmed.
In that softness he read a message he should have understood long before.
One he might have responded to if he’d been open, if he had not believed his heart had been given to someone else.
She loved him.
He swayed back on his feet, moved by the realization’s power.
Possibly against her will.
Bittersweet revelation, considering. But something he could hold onto in the coming days.
Gently, he bent his head and brushed his lips lightly over hers. Even brief contact kindled an invigorating rush, a sudden awareness of the wonder of being truly and fully alive. He wanted to linger, to deepen it, to hold her tight. But this wasn’t a kiss of passion.
This was a kiss of promise.
He kept his eyes closed as he pulled back. Eventually, he must open them, but for now, he wanted to savor her taste.
She turned away and then resumed packing.
“Will you be taking Mercy?” he asked.
“He’s not mine to take, is he?”
He couldn’t answer.
His time at the Church and at the cottage had been so tense, so chaotic, he’d completely forgotten to discuss the pup with Viv, or, rather, Lady Pennington.
He would only think of her thusly from now on, he resolved.
He looked down into Mercy’s sweet face.
One way or another, he would make sure they were able to keep their dog.
“Cassie?”
She turned.
“I promise we’ll both be here when you return.”
“Don’t make promises you aren’t sure you can keep.”
“I intend to keep every vow I ever made to you…especially the ’til death do we part.”
He scooped Mercy up from the bed, then buried his fingers into his fur. He’d thought watching her walk away had been the hardest thing he’d ever done.
Voluntarily walking away from her was far worse.
*
Cassie arrived at Ravenswood Hall only to discover that Eliza, Adrian, her sisters, and their guests, Lord Neville and Lord Asquith, who remained guardian to her younger sisters, had all gone to dine at a neighbor’s home.
Her sister’s housekeeper, however, delivered her to a suite of chambers, exclaiming all the while at the remarkable resemblance between her and Lady Redver.
Her cheeks hurt from maintaining a false smile throughout the conversation.
Alone again, she opened her valise, looked down at her hairbrush, and only just managed to hold back a sob.
And then, the door flew open.
“Cassie! The porter told me you’d come and come alone, but I didn’t believe him. Where is…”
Cassie turned.
Eliza raised her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, dearest!” Eliza exclaimed between her fingers.
The familiar sound of Eliza’s voice—her twin sister’s voice—nearly reopened the floodgates.
Cassie held up her hand. “Don’t.”
Eliza closed the door behind her and then held out her arms. “Come here.”
Cassie stepped quietly into the welcome circle of her sister’s embrace. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” she warned. “And don’t say I told you so.”
“I would nev—” Eliza stopped herself. “Well, actually, I would absolutely say I told you so.”
Cassie snorted reluctantly. “You have done often enough.”
“Yes, well, I couldn’t in this case. Little more than a month of marriage is hardly enough time to make any sort of judgment about compatibility. Besides, you two make a handsome couple. And I’ve grown accustomed to saying my sister, the Duchess with an air of great importance.”
Cassandra responded with a half-hearted chuckle.
“And with my husband as close as brothers to yours, we’re sisters twice over,” Eliza continued. “Plus, Harbury’s estate is huge. And—”
“Stop trying to make me feel better!”
“What would you like me to do, then?”
Cassie wiped the damp from her eyes and glanced sheepishly through her lashes. “Hate him?”
“Oh, let’s!” Eliza clapped her hands together. “Let’s hate the Duke of Harbury.”
Cassie chuckled half-heartedly.
“He’s horrid. Hideous! On the inside, of course. To make a proper assessment, we will ignore, for the moment, his Adonis face. But there must be some evidence of perfidy on his person.” Eliza squinted. “Did you get a look at his feet? I’d wager ten to one he’s got cloven hooves instead of toes.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose as Eliza mimicked the clip-clop of hooves with her hands.
“He does! Doesn’t he? Oh, I’m certain Harbury is not human at all, but a right demon. Shouldn’t be allowed to live!” Eliza folded her arms. “Oh, yes! Let’s hate him!”
Cassie broke into a true laugh. “That’s enough!”
Eliza lifted a brow. “I’m right about the cloven feet, aren’t I?”
Cassie groaned. “He’s got fine feet to go with a very fine figure. His looks have never been the problem.”