Chapter 32
LUCIEN
Lucien had never known such loneliness in his life. It was most bizarre, that feeling deep in his chest, like a gaping hole that swallowed everything up. He still spent much time with Henry, but even those hours felt hollow compared to before.
Yes, Henry made him happy as he always had, but he knew now that there could be another kind of happiness. One that he had always sought but not found with Arabella. One that he had had for the briefest of moments with Marianne.
If he had not been so harsh with Marianne the day Henry called her Mama, then perhaps that happiness would still be his.
If only he could’ve recovered from the pain inflicted upon him by Arabella.
If he could’ve left behind the guilt... If he had only given Marianne a chance. If he had told her the truth...
Ifs were what governed his days since she left.
The price for his failure was steep. Again.
It had been three weeks since she left. Three weeks in which he had woken at night, wishing to find her beside him again.
Weeks in which he had walked into the breakfast room, hoping to see her with Henry, slicing his roll, laughing as he spilled egg yolk.
Weeks in which he had walked past Henry’s chamber and hoped to find her voice again, trying in vain to mimic the voices of the characters in the books.
But of course, it wasn’t going to be.
He was on his way to the drawing room when Mrs. Greaves found him.
“My lord,” she said, some heaviness in her voice that he hadn’t noted before.
“Yes?” he asked.
“My lord, there’s something I must say.”
“Go on. It has never been like you to not tell me what was on your mind.”
“I think you should go after Lady Wexford. I think you should find her at the convent and tell her everything you have not told her. Confess everything that has held you back from being happy.”
“Mrs. Greaves, Lady Wexford has left us. She said her goodbyes. She has returned to the convent, and from there she will make her own decisions. Our marriage is at an end. I know that you wanted me to have a wife and for Henry to have a mother, but that was never why I married. I wanted to be free from societal constraints. Now I am. I am free, and she is free.”
The words rang hollow, and Mrs. Greaves did not humor him by pretending they sounded anything but.
“But you are not free. You are more bound now than ever to your guilt. Misplaced guilt, if you ask me. And she is not free either. She does not want this. She does not want to be apart.”
“And you know this how?” he asked, slightly amused as he looked at the woman who had been like a second mother—or maybe grandmother—to him.
“I know it because I received a letter from the convent. As you may remember, long ago, I was a lady’s maid to a baron’s daughter. She is a nun now at that very convent.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “I remember you mentioned it.”
Mrs. Greaves nodded.
“And she knows my wife?”
“She knows her well. And she believes that Lady Wexford is as wretchedly unhappy as you are. That she may regret having run away, but that she does not wish to return out of fear of how she will be received, and how your future might look given your reluctance to allow happiness into your heart.”
“It is not that I will not allow happiness into my heart,” Lucien said. “It is that I am guilty of wrecking the life of one young woman, and I do not wish to—”
“But you are,” Mrs. Greaves said bluntly.
“You are wrecking it at this very moment. I am blunt, I know it. And you may dismiss me from service if you like, but you must hear this. It was never your fault that what happened to your wife. Your marriage was an ill-conceived one from the beginning. Lady Arabella was an ill fit for you, and you for her. It was neither one of your faults. It was not her fault for seeking happiness, even if she did it in the wrong way. And it was not your fault for letting her go.”
“I could’ve stopped her that night,” said Lucien desperately. “I could’ve forced the carriage to stop, asked her to stay until the storm had passed. I could’ve told her that I would let her go to be with her lover if she wished, if she waited until morning when it was safe.”
“You could have, but she never listened to you. She made up her own mind. She would likely have gone anyway. In any case, you couldn’t have known what was going to happen. How could you have known that the carriage would turn over and she would die? You couldn’t have. Nobody could have.”
He knew this was true. He had heard Rhys tell him this. He had heard Mrs. Greaves tell him before as well. And yet somehow, this time, the words landed differently. Because the truth was, he had already understood this. He had known it.
He couldn’t have prevented Arabella from leaving, and he couldn’t have prevented the carriage from crashing.
However, he had already repeated the mistakes he had made then with Marianne.
Because he could have stopped her from going.
He could have acted differently. He could have been honest with her.
He could’ve told her what was holding him back. And he hadn’t.
“Mrs. Greaves, I am grateful for your kindness and that you are trying to fix what has been broken yet again. However, Lady Wexford and I do not have a future.”
“But you could. And you’re throwing it away over old guilt.
You and she both. You have both been foolish.
She ran away instead of trying again. And you pushed her away because the walls around your heart have grown so high that you can barely see past them.
You have a chance. She thinks of you still.
Sister Bernadette told me. Go to the convent and speak to her. Win her back.”
Lucien chewed the inside of his lip. He couldn’t go, could he?
He couldn’t arrive and confront her once more.
See her again when all she wanted was peace and quiet.
When she wanted solitude. He could not force his presence upon her.
And yet... What if she loved him as much as he loved her?
What if she missed him as much? He hadn’t had a chance to tell her the truth.
He would have. He would’ve revealed the depth of his heart to her, but she had already made her decision. And he had given up.
Arabella had rejected him so many times, and then the moment he had heard that Marianne was going back to the convent, he had been reminded of all that pain and all that rejection.
How must she have felt the many times he rejected her?
He closed his eyes. He had done to her what Arabella had done to him.
But then, there hadn’t been a chance for him and Arabella to reconcile because they never had anything between them.
Nothing truly. Nothing but duty. But there was a chance here, wasn’t there? And he would be a fool not to take it.
He looked up. “Will you look after Henry for a few days?”
“Of course I will,” Mrs. Greaves said. “And if I may say so, going after her is the only right thing.”
He nodded and got up, hoping that he was right to take her advice.