Chapter 16
Pierce didn’t know how to make Nancy stop.
She couldn’t seem to stop. He followed her about the house, but she was lost in lists. The fact that she was so devoted to her work and role as a duchess wasn’t the problem.
He didn’t need to be tended to. He wasn’t a pet.
But Pierce was growing worried. Her cheeks were growing gaunt.
Her eyes looked shadowed, and she wasn’t eating properly, no matter how hard he tried to ensure that she ate cake and meat and drank tea.
She was working at such a breakneck pace that he was terrified that she was going to grow ill, and he didn’t understand what was driving it.
If it had simply been that she loved the work, he would have happily cheered her on. He was a driven fellow himself, and he had no desire to make his wife follow him step by step, doing what he enjoyed.
But there was something else behind her need for perfection.
Her need to please him with her accomplishments.
If the accomplishments had been to please herself?
He doubted he’d be so alarmed. But it was more.
It was coming from somewhere deep inside her that seemed…
frightened. And for the first time in a long time, he felt lost. For he did not know how to help her.
And that was a feeling he could not fathom.
He sat on their bed, the big bed that she belonged in. He understood hard work. He had worked hard all his life, but this was something else. He admired her work ethic. He always had, and he didn’t want to take that away from her.
He stared up at the ceiling, his mind whirring.
Frightened.
The big duke who had traveled the world, faced pirates, faced wars, faced continents that seemed to be splitting apart with the revolutions on them, and now his wife was making him frightened because she wouldn’t come to bed.
After the ball, she’d claimed that she was not done with her work, and she had gone to her office, which was adjacent to their bedchamber, and she was still scribbling away.
Her trunks were packed to leave the next morning.
And what was worse, he knew that she had scheduled for the coach to depart before six in the morning, which meant she would not sleep at all.
And her writing desk was ready, which meant she planned on working in the coach.
He folded his fingers together. He had never wanted to stop her from working. He still did not, but this could not be good. He threw the blankets back, strode to the office, and very gently opened the door.
“Come to bed, my love,” he urged softly.
“I can’t,” she replied, bent over her desk, her hair draped like a curtain over her work. “I have too much work to do. You go to bed. You rest.”
“I don’t want to sleep without you,” he said gently.
She did not look up. “That is so sweet, but I’m sure you’re capable.”
“I am capable,” he returned, stepping into her domain. “It’s that I don’t want to. Please come to bed. I love you. I want to have you in my arms.”
She still hadn’t even looked up from her ledger. She was scribbling so furiously.
“You will love what I have done with what Eileen, Pansy, and Victoria have found in the country. I am organizing a collection and have already reached out to a building in Manchester. They are going to—”
“Yes,” he cut in, his hands flexing as he felt powerless to make her see. “I understand. Of course, my love. You will do a magnificent job of it, but you will do a better job if you rest.”
She laughed. “Rest. Who needs to rest? I’m young and I’m strong.”
“You need to rest,” he insisted. “Everyone does. What is this?”
“Please,” she said as she lifted her gaze to his and smiled, but the smile was brittle. “Let me show you that I…”
“What?” he asked. “Show me what?” he demanded.
And then the smile vanished, and she snapped, “That you didn’t make a mistake.”
“Make a mistake,” he echoed.
“In marrying me,” she said.
He stilled.
She licked her lips and sat straighter. “You picked me because of what I can do. You picked me because of the work I’m capable of, and I can’t let you down, or else you might…” She swallowed then. “You might not want to be…”
He crossed to her. He grabbed her hands, the ink spilling across her pages.
“What have you done?” she exclaimed, yanking her hands from his and trying to fix the damage.
“I’m trying to make you listen to me,” he whispered, his heart breaking.
He tried to pull her into his arms, but she was too busy now, mopping up the ink.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that, but please, Nancy, you’re frightening me.”
“Frightened?” she said. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to show you.”
“I know how capable you are, but that’s not why I picked you.”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “No matter what you say.”
“I love you,” he said. “You’ve done something to my heart, and I want you to understand how much I love you.”
She tensed. “You say that, and I love you too, but I know what it’s like.”
“What?” he asked, trying to understand.
“My father used to say it all the time that he loved me, but it wasn’t enough,” she said. “I wasn’t worthy of his love. He clearly didn’t think so. He didn’t think me worthy enough to protect me or my mother. And so I must…”
The words crashed through him, and he felt horror creep up in him. Horror as he began to understand why she drove herself so hard. “What?” he rasped.
“I have to show you that I am worthy. Show you that your love for me means something.”
“Oh, Nancy,” he said gently. And he tried again to pull her in his arms, but she backed away.
She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “You don’t understand what it was like. You’ll never understand.”
“Let me try,” he begged, but something had taken over in her. Something like a frightened little girl who could not see sense.
“No. No, you don’t,” she protested. “I know you are ashamed for what you think you did with your father, but you loved him, and he loved you. You both tried to take care of each other. And I know that you feel that you failed him, but you did the right thing. You did the best. My father could never do the right thing. He abandoned us. Because we weren’t enough. And I need you to see that I am…”
He stilled then as her voice died off and she stood alone, unwilling to be comforted. Unwilling or unable to see his love had no conditions.
“I don’t know how to convince you,” he said softly, gesturing at her desk. “That I love you without all of this. If you couldn’t do another day’s work,” he said softly, “I would love you. I would love you with all my heart, and I would never let you go.”
She shook her head. “It’s not true,” she said. “You would withdraw from me slowly as you realized that I have no value.”
She winced and her face hardened. “I have no real value, Pierce,” she said, “without my work. My father didn’t think so, and you will see that one day too.”
His heart sank. All this time, he had been so afraid of his own heart, his own disappointment of his father, but now he understood. She was the one. Her father, with his selfishness and carelessness, had done this.
She was the one with the broken heart, and that was why she mended everyone else’s.