Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
“So, that’s it, then,” Victor muttered to himself. He was standing in his study, gazing out of the window, although in truth the view before him was only incidental. He was in too much of an introspective mood to notice the shifting sky above.
Lydia was leaving.
John had already gone.
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to part with the boy. It had been too hard after opening up that cavity in his chest to even hold John although now, he stared at his empty hands and wished that he had held the child one more time.
He would see John again, of course, but it would never be the same, only in his capacity as the boy’s uncle.
As for Lydia, well, perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised after the way he’d treated her.
Shouting at her, berating her, grabbing her…
He had acted shamefully at the theatre, and it had only proven to him that he was not a man made for marriage.
It was time for him to return to his own ways, to be the man he had always been destined to be.
A lonely one.
The following morning, Lydia was ready to depart.
She looked lovely as always with the sun reflected in her eyes.
As he looked at her, he admired the shining cheeks, the way her skin was so soft under his touch, the loose strands of hair, and how she had trembled close to him.
In that moment everything inside him thrummed with an urge to be close with her, to protect her, but at the last, she had stepped away and doused the flaring emotions with ice-cold water.
The arrangement was over, and she clearly wanted to extricate herself as quickly as possible.
“I am sorry for how you become embroiled in this situation. I hope that the resolution will be swift and that the ton shall be merciful,” Victor said.
“I’m sure they won’t be, but now that this matter is settled, and they have the truth, it will be far less interesting to them. I hope that I was not too much of a bother, Victor.”
“Of course not.”
“Then I suppose that all there is left to do is say farewell.”
“Farewell Lydia,” he said. She stared at him, as though waiting for him to say something else. However, what more could he say? He thought he had made everything clear when he tried to be close to her. Lydia pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes before turning on her heels.
She disappeared into the carriage, and the door slammed behind her. The horses carried her away from him, and he knew he would never see her again.
“Godspeed, Lydia. I hope you find a man worthy of you,” he said. The words were carried by the wind and disappeared high in the air among the clouds. Victor turned, the tails of his jacket billowing as he marched back into the house.
Victor walked through the empty halls of the house.
Never before had he been so affected by silence.
Usually, there was a sense of tranquility about it, a relief that he was surrounded by peace and a joy that he could get on with his own business without being disturbed.
However, now everything changed. The silence was neither companionable nor comforting.
It was a haunting thing, reminding him of all he had lost.
There was no laughter, no crying, no gentle chatter, nothing. Every room was silent.
Empty.
He was empty.
Restless and unable to concentrate, he ended up standing in the room that had been John’s nursery.
He closed the door behind himself and stood alone in the middle of the room.
It was empty now, seeming bigger than before, without the cot and the chairs and all the other things that were needed to take care of John.
And yet, paradoxically, it was smaller. Victor’s heart was moved when he thought of John, despite his best efforts to keep those feelings buried deep inside.
One of his greatest strengths, at least he considered it so, was to be able to distance himself from his emotions, to look at them as though he was an outside observer.
Now, he was mired in them. His feet were rooted in a thick, swampy sludge of remembrance and guilt.
At first, he had seen the child as a nuisance, an unwanted obligation, but over time, he had grown to care for John, and while he was happy for Harry, he also felt a deep sense of loss.
For the first time in his life, he considered becoming a father himself, and yet there was no path for him to achieve this because…
… because he wouldn’t want anyone but Lydia to be the mother of his child.
“I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay,” he said aloud, quietly, as though she were in the room with him. He closed his eyes, remembering the ghost of her presence, the scent lingering in the air. The thoughts were so vivid, he could imagine she was standing right behind him.
“I know that I was not the most agreeable man. Yet somehow you were patient with me, and you helped me become more open, more… caring. I thought that I had everything in my life arranged just as I wanted it, then this happened and threw everything in chaos… but now, I find I don’t want to go back to the way things were.
If I had acted differently, if I had been more open, if…
” He sighed then opened his eyes. He turned around and stared at the empty space, feeling her absence keenly.
There was an unsettling feeling that crawled across his skin, and he hung his head.
A deep, sorrowful breath left his lungs as he realized that he had lost everything that had mattered to him. He might have protected his family’s reputation but at what cost? What did that matter to him now that Lydia was gone?
Something caught his eye in the corner of the room.
He bent down and picked up a small cloth that Georgia had used when she fed John.
He held it in his hands, smiling at the small size of it.
A tremor passed through his heart. His lower lip wobbled.
Then, something happened that was completely uncharacteristic for him.
Tears rolled down his cheeks as he pressed his palms around the cloth.
He clenched his fist around it and then marched out of the room.
For the next two weeks, he threw himself into work and the business of managing the duchy.
He wore a stoic mask, pretending that he accepted the change without any difficulty at all, and the servants may not have noticed any difference, but there was a difference.
He was muted and drawn, the life having been sapped from him, and all he could see was that every day would be like the last.
It was a kind of living death from which there was no escape, and he thought himself condemned to this, for he could never have what he genuinely wanted.
Lydia made it clear that she did not wish to be with him, and there was no sense in harassing her and making her life more difficult than it already was.
So, he existed, but he did not live.