Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Lord Finch did what?” Euphemia asked, halting her steps along the path of the promenade. Her parasol tilted slightly, forgetting its duty to shield her from the afternoon sun as she stared at her sisters in sheer disbelief.
A short distance away, near the edge of the pond, Cordelia and Georgianna were giggling as they fed a family of ducks, their governess watching them attentively.
The serene, picturesque beauty of the park felt at odds with the cold dread currently settling in Euphemia’s chest. It had been weeks since the shattering confrontation in Nathaniel’s study, weeks during which she had thrown every ounce of her energy into the children and her duties, trying to numb the persistent ache in her heart.
Desperate for a distraction, and remembering the twins’ persistent requests to see them, she had written to her sisters, begging them to visit the estate.
Now, her worst fears from London were creeping back into her sanctuary.
“He approached us at the Countess of Danbury’s ball,” Seraphina explained, as she linked her arm securely through Euphemia’s. “We were standing near the terrace with Emily when he materialized out of the crowd. He was too bold, Euphemia.”
“Bold is a polite term for it,” Leonora interjected sharply. “He was downright venomous. He threw the most disgraceful backhanded compliments about you, pretending to praise your... adaptability in your new role as a duchess.”
Euphemia felt the blood drain from her face. She forced herself to continue walking slowly, her knuckles whitening around the handle of her parasol. “What exactly did he say, Leo?”
“He asked, with that insufferable, mocking smirk of his, if the Duke truly knew the full extent of your upbringing,” Seraphina said softly.
“He kept implying that you were not a proper lady, that you were entirely unsuited for the title, and he practically demanded to know if the duke was aware of the... gaps in your history.”
“We told him to leave, of course,” Leonora added, lifting her chin. “Seraphina and I managed to send the man away before he could cause a scene in front of the entire ballroom, but his tone was almost threatening, Effie. He was deliberately trying to intimidate us.”
Euphemia felt devastated, a cold, hollow sensation expanding beneath her ribs.
She looked blindly toward the pond where the girls were playing, her mind racing.
It was clear that what she had done in the past to offend Lord Finch, the man was completely incapable of letting it go.
He was still holding a bitter grudge, and the secret surrounding his hostility remained a shadow hanging over her head.
If he continued to whisper these malice-dripping insinuations to society, it was only a matter of time before the rumors reached the very worst corners of the ton.
“You must not let him frighten you,” Seraphina whispered, squeezing her arm reassuringly. “We handled him. He is nothing but a bitter, small-minded man.”
Euphemia offered a tight, fragile nod, though her thoughts were miles away. The threat of Lord Finch only magnified the profound isolation she had been enduring for the past month.
“Let us change the subject,” Seraphina said gently, adjusting her posture. “Tell us, Effie... how are you faring with everything else? Truly?”
Euphemia looked down at her hands, the energy draining from her entirely. She was at a point where she did not even have the strength to hide the truth. She was too exhausted, too thoroughly worn down by the warfare of the past month to weave a comforting lie for her family’s sake.
“Nathaniel and I are in a terrible place,” she confessed straight off, her voice cracking slightly before she steadied it.
“He is not speaking to me, and I am not speaking to him. I am strictly keeping my distance because that is what he insists works best for us. It is what he wants. The truly maddening part is that I do not understand why. He refuses to tell me anything.”
Seraphina and Leonora immediately exchanged a long, heavy look... a silent communication that Euphemia caught instantly.
Her eyes narrowed, her defenses rising. “What does that mean? Why did you look at each other like that?”
“Well,” Leonora began slowly, smoothing a hand over her skirts. “It is odd.”
“Odd?” Euphemia asked.
“Yes,” Seraphina added. “It is not at all what we would have imagined would happen between you two, given how he reacted the day you swooned.”
Euphemia halted on the path, staring at them. “What do you mean? How he reacted?”
Seraphina drew closer. “We were not able to explain it to you properly at the time, Effie. Everything was so chaotic, and we had to leave the estate the next day. But the afternoon you fainted in the drawing room... when Nathaniel rushed into the chamber, he called you Effie.”
Euphemia felt her breath catch in her throat. Her heart gave a sudden thud. “He... he called me what?”
“Effie,” Seraphina repeated with a firm nod. “I mean, that nickname has only ever been reserved for the three of us. You can imagine our absolute astonishment when he burst through those doors using a name he had no business knowing, let alone speaking with such familiarity.”
“He did,” Leonora chimed in. “Also, he looked entirely beside himself with worry. The moment he saw you pale, all his grand composure simply vanished. He scooped you up into his arms and carried you all the way up the grand staircase to your bedchamber. Effie, it looked like something straight out of a romance book. He was completely frantic. He was yelling at the servants to fetch the family physician immediately, his voice booming through the corridors. Once the doctor arrived, he refused to leave your side. He stayed right there, watching over you.”
Leonora sighed softly. “It was just so deeply surprising. He looked like a man terrified of losing something precious.”
Euphemia stood entirely frozen on the gravel path, the warmth of the afternoon sun suddenly feeling entirely detached from her skin. Her mind raced backward, vividly painting the scene her sisters had just described.
For a wild, traitorous second, a tiny ember of hope flared to life in the deepest, darkest corner of her heart.
Why would he do such a thing if he truly felt nothing?
Why would a man so utterly obsessed with distance and protocol allow his walls to fracture so completely in front of the entire household?
But almost as quickly as the questions rose, Euphemia ruthlessly snuffed them out.
She was not going to do this to herself again.
She refused to read grand, romantic meanings into a momentary lapse in his behavior.
She had already learned the agonizing cost of building castles out of his fleeting warmth.
When it truly mattered, when they had stood face-to-face in his study, he had made his desires painfully clear.
He had told her that he was incapable of giving her anything more, that he refused to be responsible for her happiness, and that distance was the only path forward.
Perhaps his panic during her swoon had merely been a reaction to the sudden disruption of his orderly world, or a basic sense of duty to the woman who managed his household.
It didn’t matter.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said to her sisters.
“Perhaps that is the problem entirely. He does not want to care. Even if, deep down, he is capable of being that kind of person, the man who would carry me or call me by a name meant only for those who love me, it is simply not who he wants to be. He has made his choice abundantly clear, so I refuse to read any meaning into what happened. It changes nothing.”
Seraphina and Leonora stopped walking, exchange another look before turning fully toward her. Seraphina reached out, gently grasping Euphemia’s hands.
“Effie, listen to me,” Seraphina said quietly. “If this is how it is to be, if he intends to remain this unyielding, you do not have to endure it. It is entirely acceptable if you want to end this marriage.”
Euphemia blinked repeatedly before lowering her head.
“You are not that far into the arrangement,” Leonora joined in, stepping closer. “It has only been a matter of months. If it is already causing you this much misery, we can simply go back home together.”
Seraphina squeezed her fingers reassuringly.
“Lady Byron finally writes letters to us, and she spends half of them asking after your well-being because she suspects how difficult this society can be. She would never hold this choice against you. You do not have to sacrifice your youth and your spirit to this. You could come back to the life that we knew, where you are loved, and where you are certain of the ground beneath your feet.”
Euphemia looked past her sisters, her gaze drifting back to the edge of the pond where Cordelia and Georgianna were now laughing, their voices carrying across the water.
The offer of escape was a beautiful, tempting thing, a return to a life where she was safe and understood.
Yet, as she looked at the children, she could not decide.
“I promise I shall think about it,” Euphemia said softly, offering Seraphina and Leonora a grateful, fleeting smile as she gently withdrew her hands. “But I am not sure that I want an annulment.”
Leonora frowned, looking as though she wanted to argue. “Effie, you cannot mean to stay in a house of ice.”
“I do,” Euphemia replied, her voice growing firmer as she turned back to the path, forcing them to resume their slow walk.
“I think I want to stay. Even if Nathaniel and I are never to be a true family, even if he remains entirely distant from me until the end of our days, I cannot leave the twins. They have lost one mother, and I will not allow them to feel abandoned by another.”
“What of your own life, Effie?” Leonora burst out, stepping in front of her to halt their progress once more, her brow furrowed in deep frustration.
“Are you truly prepared to sentence yourself to a perpetual winter for the sake of martyrdom? Now, I have come to adore the twins, but you speak of them as though you are their only hope, but you cannot pour from an empty cup.”
“It is not martyrdom, Leo, it is a duty I gladly accept,” Euphemia countered, her jaw setting into a stubborn line. “I have grown to love them. They are innocent in all of this.”
“We are not questioning your love for the children,” Seraphina chimed in, her tone gentler but no less urgent as she walked closely at Euphemia’s side.
“We are questioning your sudden disregard for yourself. You know that we did not necessarily grow up with love. We did not grow up with affection or the kind of warmth we eventually managed to build in our home, so we know exactly how it feels to not even know how to love. It was an entirely foreign language to us for so long, Effie, which is why we firmly believe that if someone has worked as hard as you have to find it for yourself, you deeply deserve to have it reciprocated.”
Leonora nodded fiercely in agreement. “Exactly! It is not your burden to spend the next forty years teaching a grown man how to be human. If he is terrified of developing the smallest of feelings for his own wife, so much so that he freezes out the entire household just to keep you at bay, then he does not deserve the pieces of your heart you are so willingly throwing at his feet.”
“I am not throwing my heart at him,” Euphemia muttered, looking away as a telltale flush crept up her neck.
“Oh, please,” Leonora scoffed, throwing her hands up slightly.
“Do you take us for fools? We can see it written plainly across your face, Effie. You have developed deep feelings for His Grace. That is precisely why this situation is torturing you so. If you did not care, you would be perfectly content spending his money, ignoring his existence, and living as a grand Duchess in your own wing of the estate.”
Euphemia swallowed hard, the accusation hitting too close to the absolute truth.
“You deserve some form of reciprocation,” Seraphina pressed softly, reaching out to touch her sister’s arm.
“You have worked so hard your entire life to find happiness, to carve out a place for yourself. You deserve a gentleman who will look at you and not be afraid of what he feels. Someone who will welcome your affection, not treat it like a threat to his precious peace. You must truly consider the annulment, Effie. You can find your life again. The world did not end when you got married.”
“I have already found a life here,” Euphemia insisted, as she looked back toward the pond, where the twins’ laughter echoed like a painful reminder of what she would be giving up.
“A life that matters. If I leave, I abandon them to the same coldness you are warning me against. We’re happy.
I am happy with them. That can be enough. ”
Seraphina sighed. “Euphemia –”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, cutting her off. “I already said I’ll think about it. We should join the girls now.”
Leonora opened her mouth to protest further, but Seraphina placed a restraining hand on her arm. They had pushed as far as they could for one afternoon.
Euphemia did not wait for them to agree.
She smoothed the front of her skirts, took a deep breath to lock her emotions away, and forced a seamless smile onto her face.
Turning away from her sisters, she stepped off the path and onto the grass, walking toward the pond where the twins were still eagerly waving at her.