Chapter 22 #2
He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “A lady of true breeding accepts her circumstances with grace and submission.
She does not react with the violent, unbridled savagery of a common street brawler when confronted with her own deceit.
Your actions proved exactly what you are, a wild, uncultivated creature with no sense of decorum, entirely unfit to hold any position of leadership in polite society. “
“You are a bitter man,” Euphemia rasped. “I would be bitter too if I was in your shoes. You are a coward. You hide behind your title, but you are nothing more than a bully. I do not fear you. If anything, I feel pity for you, greedy man.”
“A bully?” Finch scoffed, stepping even closer, his shadow completely enveloping her against the hedge. “I am a gentleman who values the truth. I wonder... how long do you think it will take for me to share this truth with His Grace? How long do you think he will tolerate a woman who lacks —”
“You will remove yourself from my wife’s presence this instant,” a calm voice boomed through the darkness.
Finch froze, the smug grin instantly vanishing from his face as Nathaniel stepped out from the shadows of the pathway.
Nathaniel scoffed, shaking his head. “I cannot believe you possess the sheer audacity to corner the Duchess of Greymoor in a dark garden. Pray tell, what gave you the impression that such behavior would ever be tolerated?”
Finch took a half-step back, his composure faltering for a fraction of a second before he smoothed his features.
“Your Grace, I am merely illuminating a few dark corners for you. I am only insisting to the duchess that she be honest with you. She is not the refined lady she pretends to be. She is aggressive... wild, even. Ask her yourself about her conduct during our acquaintance. She forgets herself so entirely that she throws her hands. She struck me! A woman who resorts to such low, unrefined violence is utterly unfit to be a lady of society.”
Euphemia’s blood ran hot, the shame evaporating into a sharp fury.
She stepped out from behind Finch’s shadow, her eyes flashing in the moonlight.
“What of your own conduct, Lord Finch? The only reason my hand ever met your face was because you had the unmitigated gall to put your hands on me first!”
Finch’s face flushed an ugly crimson. “You encouraged me! You played the part of a wealthy heiress, letting me believe you had a great fortune —”
“I did no such thing!” she cut him off, her voice filled with absolute scorn.
“You made baseless assumptions about my wealth, assuming you could get a grand fortune from my late father. Perhaps you did not care to learn that the reason my father died in the first place was because he lost all his wealth, you greedy old man! He was not the sort of man who hoards money to buy the company of vultures like you. But tell me, Lord Finch... does your disappointment over a missing dowry truly give you the right to have access to my body? You tried to force yourself on me. You should be glad a bruised eye is all you got.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Euphemia turned her gaze toward Nathaniel, expecting to see disgust, or perhaps the cold disapproval he so often wore. Instead, she felt a thrill of terror at the expression on her husband’s face.
Nathaniel was entirely rigid, his jaw clenched so tightly the bone looked as though it might snap. His eyes had turned nearly black with an absolute, towering rage. He did not look at Euphemia, his stare was locked entirely onto Finch.
“You put your hands on her?” Nathaniel whispered. The words were quiet, but they carried the weight of a death sentence.
Finch saw the look in the Duke’s eyes, and the final remnants of his bravery withered instantly.
A look of fear washed over his face. He began to stammer, throwing his hands up in a desperate bid to defend himself.
“Your Grace, you must understand, this was months ago! It was well before you ever married her, before she was under your name. I was merely trying to explain the type of uncultivated woman you brought into —”
With a swift, brutal movement, Nathaniel stepped forward and drove his fist straight into Finch’s face. The crack of bone against bone echoed sharply through the garden and Euphemia let out a loud gasp, throwing her hands over her mouth.
Finch stumbled backward, crying out in pain as he clutched his bleeding nose, his composure completely shattered. He stared up at the Duke in absolute horror, his breath coming in ragged, panicked gasps.
“If you ever speak to my wife again,” Nathaniel rasped as he shook his head, invading Finch’s space until the smaller man had to tilt his head back.
“If you ever breathe the same air as her, or if I so much as catch a whisper of your presence anywhere near my family ever again, I will do far more than hit you, Finch. I will utterly ruin you. I will strip you of your standing, your wealth, and your place in this town until you are nothing more than a ghost begging for scraps on the street. Do you understand me?”
Finch swallowed hard, his skin turning a sickly shade of gray. He looked at Nathaniel, then glanced at Euphemia, almost as if he was trying to make sense of it.
“Do you understand me?” Nathaniel asked again, this time, louder.
Finch immediately offered a terse, panicked nod. Without another word, he turned on his heel and fled, disappearing back toward the lights of the ballroom.
The heavy silence of the night rushed back into the path, leaving Nathaniel and Euphemia entirely alone in the shadows of the garden. She stood entirely frozen, her chest heaving as the cold air bit into her lungs.
Nathaniel let out a ragged breath. The terrifying, murderous energy that had just consumed him began to shift, his massive shoulders dropping as he slowly turned around. He took two steps toward her, then stopped dead in his tracks, standing directly in front of her.
“Euphemia,” he called her name, his voice incredibly gentle.
“Do not,” she whispered, her voice cracking as she took a defensive step back.
“You cannot keep doing this to me. You cannot keep secluding me, treating me like an unwanted stranger in your house, and then... and then rushing into the dark to play this fierce protector! Your actions are entirely at war with your words, and I cannot bear to be confused like this anymore. This is the most confused I have ever been in my entire life, and believe me, I have been confused a good number of times! It is too much. It is simply too much, and I do not want to handle it.”
Nathaniel opened his mouth to speak, but she pressed on, the dam completely breaking.
“Yes, it is the truth. I was engaged to Lord Finch as you know. But he had courted me under the false assumption that I possessed a grand fortune. I do not know where he got that assumption from. But I have no wealth. My father did not leave me a fortune. He left debts that were paid for with every single property he owned. The rumors in London say I came to the city because of an inheritance, but it is a lie. My father left me with absolutely nothing. I was not brought up with love or affection, nor was I raised the way the other ladies of the society were raised. My sisters and I were never prepared to debut as ladies of the ton. There are so many things about marriage, about being a proper lady and a good partner to a husband, that I simply never learned!”
She wiped a hand fiercely across her cheek, her shoulders trembling.
“When Lord Finch found out that I was entirely penniless, he became enraged. He grew terribly upset and insulting. When I tried to leave the room, he refused to let me go. He put his hands on me, trying to force his way, and in my desperation to pry myself out of his grip... I punched him right in the face and ran away. That was when he left London and called off the engagement. For months, I carried the shame of knowing I hit a gentleman of the ton. No proper lady would do that. I know it is deeply wrong, I know it reflects terribly on my character, and I know it makes me unfit for the title you gave me. But that is what happened, and I do not wish to speak of it ever again.”
Exhausted, stripped of her armor, Euphemia gathered her skirts to brush past him and flee back to the ball.
But Nathaniel moved instantly, stepping into her path to block her escape.
“I do not care about any of that,” he said.
“In fact, if I had been in your shoes, I would have done far more than punch him. Knowing what he did to you, I feel inclined to go back into that ballroom and punch him in the face all over again right now.”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide and shining with unshed tears.
“What you did was brave,” Nathaniel insisted, his voice softening as he reached out, though he kept his hands respectfully at his sides. “You defended yourself against a craven beast. I would never, ever hold something like that against you.”
He stepped a fraction closer, his gaze locked onto hers, desperately trying to assure her of the truth.
“I do not care that you did that. I would have never cared. It matters not at all to me that you did not grow up or get raised like the other ladies of the ton. That is completely irrelevant to your station now. You are my wife now. That is all I think, and that is all that matters. I...”
“I am in love with you,” Euphemia said, cutting him off entirely.
The confession hung in the air for a few seconds. Nathaniel froze in shock. He looked at her, with wide eyes and his lips slightly agape.