Chapter Eleven #2
“I transformed her into something as damaged as I am. She just wears her scars where they don’t show—on her soul, her spirit, her ability to be happy.
” He caught Marianne’s wrist as she reached for him, his grip not quite painful but firm enough to stop her.
His thumb found her pulse point with unerring accuracy, a habit he’d developed that both thrilled and unnerved her. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Comfort my husband? Show affection to the man I married?”
“Don’t try to fix this. Some things are meant to stay broken. Some wounds are too deep to heal. They just... exist. We learn to live around them, not through them.”
“Like you?” She twisted her wrist free with a quick movement. “Like this marriage? Like everything you touch?”
“Yes.” The word was flat, final, carved from stone and just as cold.
“Coward.”
The word had barely left her lips when his hand shot out, catching her throat—not choking, just holding, his thumb pressed against her racing pulse while his fingers curved around her neck in a possessive collar of flesh and bone.
She knew she should be frightened. Any sensible woman would be. Instead, she felt that familiar heat pool low in her belly, that dark thrill that came from being held by someone who could destroy her but chose not to.
“Careful, duchess.” His voice was velvet over steel, a purr that promised consequences.
“Or what?” She lifted her chin defiantly, the movement pressing her throat more firmly into his grip. “You’ll storm off to your study? Shut me out again? Find new ways to punish yourself while everyone who loves you suffers? How terrifying. How original.”
“No one loves—” he started, that familiar refrain of self-loathing she’d heard too many times.
“I love you, you impossible fool!”
The words hung between them like a blade suspended on a thread, sharp and irrevocable, ready to fall and cut them both. Adrian’s hand fell from her throat as if burned, and he actually stepped back, something like fear flickering across his features.
“You don’t mean that.” His voice was hoarse, disbelieving.
“Don’t I?” She laughed, wild and slightly hysterical, the sound bouncing off the music room’s walls like a mad thing seeking escape.
“Why else would I endure this? The hot nights where you worship my body and cold mornings where you can barely look at me? The passion that burns us both and the distance that freezes? The constant push and pull of you wanting me desperately while holding me at arm’s length like I’m something too precious to truly touch? ”
“Marianne—” He reached for her, then stopped, his hand hanging in the air between them like a question.
“Breakfast. Half an hour.”
She turned on her heel, needing distance before she said something even more catastrophic, like how she dreamed of him saying those words back, how she touched herself to the memory of his voice in the darkness whispering endearments he’d never say in daylight. “Don’t be late.”
She left him standing there next to the pianoforte—surrounded by the potential for harmony he couldn’t seem to find.
***
The breakfast room, where they assembled precisely thirty minutes later, thrummed with the kind of tension usually reserved for treaty negotiations or declarations of war.
The footmen, well-trained in the art of invisibility, seemed to sense the charged atmosphere and moved with even more careful silence than usual.
Adrian sat at the head of the table, every inch the duke in his severe black coat and pristine cravat tied in an Oriental so complex it must have taken his valet ten minutes to achieve.
His hair was still damp from his ablutions, swept back from his face in a way that emphasised both his classical bone structure and the brutal scar that marred it.
He’d shaved with particular care, she noticed—no hint of the shadow that sometimes graced his jaw by evening.
Catherine had dressed with obvious care in a morning gown of soft lavender that made her look younger than her twenty-two years.
The colour brought out the cream in her complexion and made her eyes seem larger, more vulnerable.
Her hair was arranged in a simple chignon that emphasised her elegant neck, and she wore small pearl earrings that trembled when she moved.
She looked, Marianne thought, like a debutante at her first breakfast after a ball—nervous, hopeful, and trying desperately not to show either.
Marianne had chosen deep blue silk, needing the armour of her duchess status, the reminder that she belonged here despite her merchant blood.
Sarah had laced her stays a bit tighter than usual, understanding without being told that her mistress needed the structure, the containment.
Her hair was arranged in an elaborate crown of braids—every strand a declaration that she was exactly where she belonged.
The footmen served in studied silence—kidneys glistening with butter, eggs perfectly coddled, toast in silver racks, tea in Sevres china so fine you could see light through it.
The normal rhythms of morning felt surreal given the circumstances, like actors performing a play where everyone had forgotten their lines.
“The weather looks promising,” Catherine ventured after several minutes of nothing but the clink of silver on china and the whisper of linen napkins.
Her voice was bright, brittle, the kind of false cheer that made everyone wince.
“Perhaps fair enough for riding? I haven’t seen the grounds properly in so long. ”
“Perhaps.” Adrian didn’t look up from his newspaper, though Marianne noticed he’d been staring at the same paragraph for five minutes.
“I thought I might call upon the Ashfords,” Catherine continued with determined brightness, spreading marmalade on her toast with mechanical precision.
“It seems only right. I never managed to visit them before I left, and they were always kind to me. Lady Ashford used to send me novels from her library—she had the most wonderful collection of Gothic romances.”
“The Ashfords are in Bath.” Adrian turned a page with deliberate precision, the paper crackling like fire. “Lady Ashford takes the waters for her rheumatics. They have been gone six weeks—due back soon, no doubt, though still away at present.”
“Oh.” Catherine’s face fell, the false brightness dimming. “I didn’t know.”
“Five years bring many changes.” The words carried a subtle accusation, each syllable weighted with resentment.
Marianne set down her teacup with enough force to make both siblings look at her. The delicate china rang like a bell, a clarion call to attention. “The Weatherbys are receiving tomorrow. We should all attend.”
“I think not,” Adrian said, his tone suggesting the matter was closed.
“I think yes.” She smiled sweetly, the expression she’d learned from watching society matrons deliver devastating cuts with honeyed words.
“Unless you’d prefer the ton speculate about why the Duke of Harrowmere hides his sister away?
I’m certain Lady Venetia would craft something appropriately salacious.
You know how creative she can be with her storytelling. ”
Adrian’s expression darkened at the mention of his former mistress, storm clouds gathering in his eyes. “Lady Venetia can—”
“Is still received everywhere despite her reputation,” Marianne interrupted smoothly. “While Catherine’s only sin was travelling abroad for her health. Which would you rather have whispered about in drawing rooms? The truth, or whatever fiction Venetia concocts?”
“You’re playing with fire,” Adrian warned.
“I’m playing with truth. There’s a difference.
” She turned to Catherine, who was watching their exchange with wide eyes.
“The Weatherbys would be delighted to see you. Their daughter Emma was a particular friend of yours, wasn’t she?
I believe she married Lord Harrison’s second son while you were away. ”
“Yes.” Catherine looked between them uncertainly, like a child watching parents argue. “But if Adrian doesn’t wish—”
“Adrian wishes many things that aren’t necessarily wise.” Marianne kept her tone light despite the weight of the words, spreading clotted cream on her scone with deliberate casualness. “Isolation chief among them.”
“You forget yourself, Marianne.” Ice crystallised in Adrian’s voice, the kind of cold that burned.
“I remember myself perfectly, Your Grace. I’m the Duchess of Harrowmere, your wife, and the only person at this table willing to speak honestly.”
“Honestly?” Adrian’s laugh was bitter as black coffee, twice as dark.
“You want honesty? Fine. The ton doesn’t whisper about Catherine travelling for her health.
They whisper about her mind breaking when she saw what her brother became.
They say she went mad with fear, that she had to be confined, that she tried to—”
He cut himself off, but too late. The words hung in the air like smoke from a snuffed candle, acrid and choking.
Catherine had gone white as paper, her hand trembling so violently her teacup rattled against its saucer. “How did you know about that?”
The silence stretched taut as piano wire, ready to snap and leave them all bleeding.
“Know about what?” Marianne looked between them, dread pooling in her stomach like ice water.
“Nothing.” Catherine’s voice was barely a whisper, thin as morning mist. “It was nothing.”
“It was not nothing.” Adrian’s control finally cracked like lake ice in spring, anger blazing through in a torrent. “You tried to harm yourself. Don’t deny it—Aunt wrote me everything. Every sordid detail. The laudanum you hoarded. The letter you left. The maid who found you barely breathing.”
“Once!” Catherine cried, her composure shattering completely. “Once, in the first month, when I couldn’t stop seeing it happen over and over. When every time I closed my eyes, I saw the carriage bearing down. When I couldn’t stop hearing the sound your body made when—”