4. A Bad End #4
Noble hoped for this, and it had left him hurt. Someone had replaced his heart with a single melting candlestick. He swayed where he sat in his brown leather saddle. He might have fallen if not for the stirrups that held his boots.
Morgan, seated on his own horse, made a pained sound. “Ah, how I wished it would not be true.”
Noble tried to reply and found he could not.
He watched as Virginia and her beau walked out of sight, deeper into the manor.
Lights flickered on in other rooms on the upper floor, and Noble saw his country home half-alive at midnight.
They were the same, this place and Noble.
The lights within him flickered dimly. Virginia used him, too.
She’d even been the one to style his damn hair—just like the drapes. “Well.” Noble said, voice strained.
Morgan said, “We can go in. It’s your home. You can confront her for this. Maybe you should.”
“No. We’ll talk at breakfast tomorrow. Her and I.” Noble hoped she was an adulterer because he hoped it would end the love he felt for her. It hadn’t. He tapped his horse, turning away from the monstrous vision he’d hoped to see. “Let’s go home, Morgan.”
Noble had always been attracted to intellect.
And he figured out Virginia was whip-smart within the first thirty minutes of their first date, when she casually calculated the net worth of the bar owner.
It’s simple math, she said. You spent fifteen hundred gold on that bottle of wine.
It cost no more than two hundred to import.
Multiply that by the number of lords, ladies, viscounts, and so on, that are presently in the establishment.
He hadn’t loved her then, but he definitely liked her. And he wanted to go to bed with her right away. He thought himself lucky that she was amenable to his touch by date number two.
And even now, inside Cafe DuLonde, as he finished the cappuccino she’d ordered for him, he found himself impressed. Because Virginia was smart.
She knew to say these lines in public: “You refuse to even acknowledge your role as prince. You’re obsessed with living a lie as a commoner. Why, you don’t even employ staff within our home. You’re ashamed of who you are, and I refuse to be pulled down with your disdain for your peers.”
Noble simply replied, “That’s not true,” but he knew that wasn’t good enough. The eyes of the other patrons wandered to their table. He could practically feel the ears that stretched this way. “Virginia, I’ve always—"
“You can lie to yourself all you want, but you’re a prince who refuses to even make an appearance at his cousin’s birth. You’re a prince, Earl Yves. I’m done living in near-poverty while you play like an average man.”
He winced. She was good. She was eviscerating him. Publicly. “Please stop.”
This particular cafe hadn’t been chosen randomly, or for its convenience, like Noble originally thought.
Cafe DuLonde sat at the heart of several well-to-do rowhomes at the edge of New Hieroph.
Even if the dukes and counts didn’t make it in for coffee this morning, their many servants and friends no doubt overheard everything Virginia said.
It was ten-thirty, and by noon, Earl Yves St. Clair would be known as a terrible husband, and an even worse noble. Ignoble Noble, the gossip rag would proclaim.
He would have shuddered if he’d the energy. But Noble had not slept a wink since she asked him for a divorce the night before, and he was utterly spent.
Virginia carried on with her intelligent charade.
“I’ve never belonged with you. I’m not even sure you’ve ever even really loved me, but instead valued my background.
” The way she said background—imitating his voice.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever used that word around her, ever, but she had it prepared, and knew what it would mean to the other patrons pretending not to hear.
“You only wanted me because I was a peasant, once.”
“Why are y—” he almost asked. But he stopped himself, because he knew.
Silently, he peered at Virginia. Taking in the high collar of her red velvet jacket.
He nearly said, I know that you’re doing this hoping that I will give you all that you ask for in our divorce, because if I don’t, every rumor you start here will seem true.
But instead, he remained silent, and let her go on.
“I don’t want your money, if that’s what you mean to ask,” Virginia said, squaring her jaw.
“I want my home. My home. Our estate out of town.” The one he’d chased her to last night.
The one she already used for her own deeds.
“And I want the title within it. Simply sign the documents here, and I will take them to court to verify. And then it’s done.
” She leaned close and said, quietly, “I told you that this didn’t have to be hard.
Don’t make it hard.” Hard for himself, she meant.
“You don’t even like the title earl anyway. ”
If Noble dared to bring up her adultery—without evidence—he’d seem even more desperate than he was. Tightly, he said, “I can keep the townhome in the city, then. If I give up my earldom. If I give it to you. I can keep the place in New Hieroph?”
Virginia’s eyes narrowed. She nodded once. “You may save yourself from some guilt for all you’ve put me through, and you may save your townhome here, should you give me that plot of land. I’ve never wanted your coffers, my lord.”
And as much as it hurt—
“I understand,” said Noble. “Hand me the papers to sign.”
It would hurt worse to fight back.
He loved her for this reason, and he blamed no one but himself for all of this. He had always hated his title, and hated the sound of Earl Yves as his name, and still he had given in to the pull of high society. He’d allowed it to become his identity.
And really, part of her argument was true. Noble didn’t like the snobby elites. He didn’t like being referred to as a prince. By Elys—he was twelfth in line for the damn throne. He was no prince.
He took the title Earl reluctantly, gave her the title Lady enthusiastically, and now, in their divorce, he gave her an estate that would bring her generational wealth. Her and her lover.
Noble had done everything right, followed the proper path of a noble marriage and estate planning, and lost it all anyway.
If he never wanted to be Earl, why did he feel so much shame at this failure?
Virginia handed over the stack of papers, and while he signed each one—Earl, Earl, Earl, for the last time—she signaled someone waiting by the window outside.
A man came in, holding a briefcase, looking a bit green around the face.
Was this her beau? He must have been. He'd the same silhouette Noble witnessed the night before.
Virginia introduced him as, “My lawyer, Kip.”
“Hello, Kip,” said Noble. “I’m Earl Yves St. Clair. For probably an hour more.” Until the papers were filed by the court. Elysium above, Noble needed to send a missive to his mother. If she found out about his loss of title and the divorce in the paper, she may never forgive him.
“H-how do you do?” said Kip. He had straight white hair cut precisely around the crown of his head, almost like a hat. His round spectacles had a crack in one corner, and his beard was trimmed shorter on one side, like he’d been in a rush to get it done. This was her man?
Noble knew then how utterly lost Virginia was to him. Noble was a descendant to the Sun God. Twelfth in line to the throne. He stood tall. He had warm hands. And he was charming almost to a fault. But Virginia didn’t love him.
She loved Kip. A pale little squirrel with a nervous grin.
“I’m not doing great, Kip. Thanks for asking,” said Noble, tone flat.
Virginia hid a laugh behind a scoff. “Here are the papers for you. The estate just outside New Hieroph is yours.” Noble gathered his coat, and Morgan manifested at his side as he approached the door.
Noble paused and turned to Virginia before he left.
“If I don’t see you again. I want to say: I hope you have a good life. ”
She looked up from the paperwork she scanned. “Come now. We’ll see each other again. I’m sure of it, Noble. You may pretend you’re not one of us—” Yes, she would don her title as Lady quite permanently— “But you are. We’ll cross paths at a ball, or a wedding, or the king’s next birthday.”
Only if she hadn’t ruined his reputation beyond repair. Noble stepped onto the street, breathing in the crisp, fresh air of autumn, and tried not to think too far into the future. Oh, the things that would be said about him and his failed marriage…
He left before the heartbreak and fear made him do something absurd like rush back into the cafe and beg for Virginia to take him back.