Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ROWEN
Ignoring the ripple of whispers and the sort of glances he despised, the Duke, his arm around his pale wife, swiftly made their farewells to their friends and whisked his Duchess into their coach and back to Oakley House in Mayfair.
In their front drawing room, the fire blazing, he settled her in an armchair and brought her a glass of brandy.
Kneeling before her, slid his hands under her gown and removed her velvet shoes from her feet.
She sipped the drink, and her body fell limp against the chair as he rubbed her cold feet.
His chest tightened at her sudden frailty.
“Rowen, I cannot do this any longer.”
His hands stilled. “Explain.”
“Everything around me is swirling, rushing, moving forward, only I … I am not. I am stuck fast.”
He stood up and poured himself a brandy. Suddenly, the grand drawing room seemed small, the intricate gold designs dancing across the walls too busy, the paintings in their ornate frames heavy.
“Are you angry with me? I’ve ruined your triumph today, haven’t I?”
“I’m not angry with you. And today was hardly my triumph.” He sipped from his glass. “We were in attendance. The after is—”
“Yet another party. So many parties.”
He went to the hearth, his hand gripping the smooth marble mantel. “What did you mean by ‘I cannot do this any longer’? Are you referring to…” He couldn’t bring himself to utter his name. He would not give that ghost power.
“It’s not Hugh,” she said. “And yet it is.”
Rowen only stared into the flames, his lips a stony line.
She sat up straighter. “When he died, I expected to feel the kind of grief that consumes one whole. I did not.”
The air left his lungs.
“His murder was shocking, of course,” she continued.
“But more shocking was the realization that came after. That my sentiments for him were not what I had assumed they were. I did not share his feelings. I never did.” A breath dragged from her.
“His murder, the truth of the necklace he had given me, this absurd wedding. Georgina with child…” Her voice was steady, almost colourless.
“Each of them stripped something away.” She pressed her fist to her chest. “And what remains is hollow.”
That which Rowen had braced to hear dissolved, but in its place came something far worse. “Zandra—”
“Life moves forward, flourishes as it ought,” she whispered. “But I…I am not…I am standing still.”
The room tilted half a degree. “Tell me what it is you want, whatever it is you need, and I shall—”
“You can’t, Oakley. You cannot provide it, buy it, send for it.” She let out a ragged breath. “I am ill at ease with all. You cannot fix it.”
There was one thing he could fix. One truth he could give her. But not now, not yet.
“It must sound extremely foolish and frivolous to a man like you, who have always understood your place in the world. I only know I can no longer flit from one diversion to the next.” Her voice ached.
“I am surrounded by pleasures and artifice and polite fictions. None of it satisfies. All of it wanting.”
His fingers tightened around the stem of his glass. The crystal creaked in his grip.
“I cannot stay here, Rowen. I wish to leave.”
“What the devil are you saying?”
“I cannot do this.”
“Divorce is out of the question,” he bit out.
“I’m not asking for a divorce. The season here in town, I cannot…everything here is so loud.”
Rowen pulled on his necktie. “Go then to Tidesfar.”
“I thought to visit Lady Rosamund for a time. Her husband recently died, and—”
“I know. But you cannot go to Naples now with the war.”
“She’s left Naples for the Channel Islands.”
His pulse spiked. The Channel Islands were now thick with soldiers and privateers, smugglers trading rumours, and restless French émigrés who had carried secrets across the water.
Rowen forced that unease down and seized on another danger. His fingertips dug into the marble mantel. He had shown her liberties, indulgences, and now… “Do you intend to take a new lover there?”
“Have you not been listening to me?” Her shoulders tightened, her voice louder. “That novelty has been exhausted.”
He stilled.
A harrowing silence simmered between them.
“Some time ago, Lady Rosamund wrote to me and invited me to visit, but I had declined her invitation as we had so many obligations with His Highness’s wedding. But now I would very much like to go.”
“Those social obligations are not yet over,” he pointed out. “And I must stay on in London now that I have undertaken the investigation into—”
“I know.” She took in a tight breath. “I beg you, Your Grace. I cannot stay. You must allow it. I beg you.”
Rowen scowled at the word ‘beg’ on her tongue, despising the formality in her voice. The sudden clatter of carriage wheels on the street outside intruded.
He took in a short breath. “How long? A month? Two? Through the summer?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Cassandra.”
She blinked at his commanding tone, at his use of her full name. “I must go.” Her voice was a raw whisper that pierced his chest.
“You have never before made such a request of me. Nor have I ever forbid you from doing anything.”
“You never have.” She bowed her head.
The sides of his jaw pulsed, and he cupped her trembling chin and lifted her pale face to his. “I ask one thing of you. Write to me. I need to know you are safe. That you are well. Your thoughts, whatever they may be. I require the truth of you.”
“You shall have it.” An odd quiver flashed across her beautiful lips, her watery eyes gleaming. “Here’s a truth for you now—from the very first, you ruined me for any other man.”
His breath cut. A triumph. Yet dread lit a fuse and blasted it all to smithereens.
Pulling her roughly into his body, Rowen kissed her, his tongue claiming hers.
She returned his kiss with equal fervour.
He took every sensation in, and committed it to memory in a way he never had before.
Her scent of iris and green leaves, the slight moan unfurling in her throat, the press of her curves against his body. The taste of her.
Was he marking her or pushing her away?
He knew if he held onto her now, he would lose her forever.
Abruptly, he released her from his embrace, his pulse kicking up as he stared at her, at the woman who had changed his life, at the woman he knew he could not live without.
His voice snarled, “Go.”