Chapter Eighteen
William heard about the engagement at his club.
He was sitting in his usual chair by the fire, a glass of brandy in his hand, pretending to read a newspaper that had held no interest for him for the past hour.
Around him, the familiar sounds of White’s filled the air, the clink of glasses, the murmur of conversation, the occasional burst of laughter from the card room.
Normal sounds. The sounds of a world that had continued turning despite the fact that his had stopped.
“Have you heard the news?”
Lord Halberden dropped into the chair across from him, his florid face alight with the particular excitement of a man who had gossip to share.
“What news?”
“The Hayfield girl. The one you were so… attentive to earlier in the Season.” Halberden’s smile had an edge to it, the knowing smirk of a man who suspected more than he could prove. “She’s engaged. To Edmund Alcott, of all people.”
The words landed like a blow to the chest.
William kept his expression carefully neutral, decades of practice serving him well even as his heart seemed to stop beating.
“Is she indeed?”
“Announced just this morning. The banns will be read starting Sunday.” Halberden leaned back in his chair, clearly enjoying William’s reaction, or lack thereof. “Rather a step down from a duke, wouldn’t you say? But I suppose a country gentleman’s daughter can’t be too particular.”
“I suppose not.”
“Still, one has to wonder what happened. The girl seemed quite taken with you, from what I observed. And you were certainly paying her marked attention.” Halberden’s eyes glittered with malicious curiosity. “Did something occur to change her mind? Or yours?”
“Nothing of consequence.” William’s voice came out flat, emotionless. “Miss Hayfield is a pleasant young woman, but hardly the sort to hold a rake’s interest for long. I wish her well in her marriage.”
“How very gracious of you.”
“I am known for my grace.”
Halberden laughed and moved on to other gossip, other scandals, the endless churn of society intrigue. William sat in his chair and stared at the fire and felt something cracking inside his chest.
Engaged. She was engaged. To Edmund Alcott.
William had encouraged her to find someone respectable.
Had pushed her toward this exact outcome with deliberate, calculated cruelty.
Had convinced himself that this was the best possible result: Eliza safely married to a good man, protected from the destruction William would inevitably have wrought.
He had wanted this.
So why did it feel like dying?
He left the club without finishing his brandy.
The London streets were crowded with the usual afternoon traffic, carriages and pedestrians and the endless bustle of a city that never stopped moving.
William walked without direction, without purpose, letting his feet carry him through familiar streets while his mind churned with thoughts he could not escape.
Engaged.
The word repeated in his head like a drumbeat.
In a few weeks, she would be Edmund Alcott’s wife. Would share his bed, bear his children, build a life with him in whatever comfortable house his shipping fortune had purchased. She would be safe and settled and utterly beyond William’s reach.
Which was what he had wanted. What he had insisted upon. What he had sacrificed everything to achieve.
He found himself in front of a jeweller’s shop.
It was not a conscious decision to stop. His feet simply halted, his gaze fixed on the window display where rings and necklaces sparkled against black velvet. Engagement rings. Wedding bands. The glittering symbols of commitment that he had spent his entire adult life avoiding.
There was a ring in the centre of the display. A simple band of gold with a small emerald surrounded by tiny diamonds. Nothing ostentatious. Nothing that screamed wealth or status or ducal pretension.
It was exactly what Eliza would have chosen.
William stared at it until his vision blurred, and then he turned and walked away as fast as his legs would carry him.
He ended up at his townhouse, though he had no memory of making the decision to return.
The butler greeted him with the practised neutrality of a servant who had learned not to comment on his master’s moods.
“Your Grace. Lord Worthington called earlier. He left a card and asked that you—”
“I am not receiving visitors.”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
William climbed the stairs to his study, closed the door behind him, and poured himself a drink with hands that would not stop trembling.
Engaged.
She was engaged.
And William was alone.
The glass shattered against the fireplace before he realised he had thrown it.
He had seen her three nights ago.
At the Ashworth ball, he had spotted her across the crowded ballroom. She had been standing with her cousin, wearing a gown that made her skin glow like porcelain, her hair swept up in an elegant arrangement that exposed the graceful column of her neck.
The neck he had kissed. The neck he had marked, in those secret hours at his country house, when she had been his, and he had been fool enough to let her go.
She looked beautiful.
She also looked broken.
He had watched her from across the room, cataloguing the changes their separation had wrought.
The shadows beneath her eyes. The careful stillness of her expression, as though she was afraid that any movement might shatter the fragile composure she had constructed.
The way she smiled at something her cousin said, and how the smile never reached her eyes.
He had done that to her.
He had taken that vibrant, hopeful woman, the one who had looked at him like he was worth believing in, and he had crushed her spirit with his lies.
And then Edmund Alcott had appeared.
William had watched as the other man approached Eliza, had watched as she turned to greet him with that same careful, empty smile. Had watched as Alcott led her onto the dance floor, his hand at her waist, his body moving in the familiar patterns of a waltz.
The jealousy that had surged through William was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
A hot, choking rage that made him want to cross the room and tear Alcott away from her.
Made him want to claim her in front of everyone, scandal be damned, reputation be damned, everything be damned except the desperate need to have her back in his arms.
But he had not moved.
He had stood there, frozen, watching the woman he loved dance with another man. Watching her go through the motions of a courtship that would lead to an engagement that would lead to a marriage.
A marriage to someone else.
The evening passed in a blur of alcohol and self-recrimination.
William sat in the darkness of his study, bottle after bottle emptying as he tried to drown the thoughts that would not stop circling.
The knock on the study door came sometime after midnight.
“Go away.”
The door opened anyway.
Worthington stood in the doorway, his expression cycling through concern, exasperation, and something that looked uncomfortably like pity.
“Your butler sent word. He was concerned you might be…” He stopped, taking in the scene. The empty bottles. The shattered glass. William slumped in his chair, still wearing the clothes he had put on that morning, looking like a man who had been to war and lost. “Goodness, Will.”
“I told you to go away.”
“And I told your butler I would check on you regardless.” Worthington crossed the room, stepping carefully over the debris, and took the chair across from William’s. “I heard about the engagement.”
“Everyone has heard about the engagement. It’s apparently the most interesting thing to happen all Season.”
“Is that why you’re sitting here in the dark, drinking yourself into oblivion?”
“I am not drinking myself into oblivion. I am reflecting.”
“On what?”
William laughed, a harsh, broken sound. “On the fact that I am exactly like my mother.”
Worthington was silent for a long moment.
“Explain.”
“I pushed her away.” The words came out slurred, rough with alcohol and grief.
“I looked at the woman I love and told her I could not give her a future. I watched her heart break and did nothing to stop it. And now she’s engaged to Edmund Alcott, and I’m sitting here in the dark realising that I did exactly what my mother did. ”
“Your mother abandoned your family.”
“And I abandoned Eliza.” William reached for the bottle, but Worthington moved it out of reach. “I had her. I had everything I had ever wanted, and I walked away because I was afraid. Because I convinced myself that leaving was the decent thing to do.”
“That is not the same as what your mother did.”
“Isn’t it?” William met his friend’s eyes.
“She must have told herself something similar. That staying would only make matters worse. That her absence would be kinder than her presence.” His voice roughened.
“But it was not kind. It left wreckage behind. And I have done the same to the only woman I have ever loved.”
Worthington was quiet for a long time.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do? She’s engaged. To a perfectly respectable man who will give her a perfectly respectable life. A man who won’t break her heart, won’t destroy her with his fears and his failures and his bloody inability to be what she needs.”
“You could fight for her.”
“Fight for her?” The laugh that escaped was bitter, hollow. “She accepted his proposal. She made her choice. And I don’t blame her, I gave her no reason to choose differently. I pushed her toward this exact outcome. What right do I have to fight for her now?”
“The right of a man who loves her.”
William looked away.
“Love,” he said bitterly. “That was the danger all along.”
“No,” Worthington said. “Fear was. Love merely gave you something worth losing.”
William closed his eyes.
“She deserves better than a man who hurt her because he was afraid.”
“Then become better. Tell her the truth. Not to claim her, not to force her hand, but because she deserves to make her choice knowing what is true.”
William said nothing.
“She is engaged,” Worthington continued, quieter now. “Not married. If you remain silent, you will lose her without ever having given her the one thing you withheld from her.”
“What?”
“The choice.”
***
William sat in the dark long after the door had closed. Eliza had accepted Alcott because William had urged her towards respectability, towards safety, towards a future he had insisted he could not give her. He had called it kindness. It had been cowardice.
He had spent his life fearing that love would make him helpless. Instead, fear had made him cruel.
By morning, the truth was plain.
He was not condemned to repeat his mother’s leaving, nor his father’s ruin. He had made a choice. A terrible one. Which meant he could choose differently.
He went to his desk.