And on it had went. The pair shredded their canvas of perfection with malicious glee, hurling the strips of their discontent at one other. Finally, Severin had cut in to ask if anybody planned to help Imogen, who’d been sitting by quietly, her expression resigned. Luckily, Imogen’s older brother Roger had arrived and said that he would talk to Cardiff—do more than talk, if necessary, to keep his sister safe. Seeing the resolve in Roger Hammond’s eyes, Severin knew his time with the Hammonds was done.
Imogen had seen him to the door…and she had apologized.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she whispered. “I hope it will not ruin things between us.”
Things between them were already ruined, Severin had realized. Had been the moment he’d seen their relationship for what it was: an illusion. He had mistaken his boyish idealization of Imogen for love. As a man, what he felt for her was gratitude for the years of friendship, for her kindness to him when he had had no one else.
“You have been a good friend to me,” he said. “I wish you well.”
And Imogen had given him that sad, beautiful smile he’d adored as a boy.
“You love her, don’t you?” she asked.
“With everything that I am,” he said simply.
“But we will still be friends, won’t we?” She put a hand on his arm. “You will still be my knight?”
Seeing the desperation in Imogen’s eyes, Severin had felt a tug of pity and fondness. The concern he would have for a friend. Yet he did not think her fantasy was doing her any favors—and, out of respect for Fancy, he could not let it stand.
“My protection belongs to my wife.” Gently and firmly, he removed Imogen’s hand. “She will always come first. If you wish for us to remain friends, then you must honor that.”
Imogen’s eyes shimmered. “Then this is…goodbye?”
He nodded. “If your brother needs help dealing with Cardiff, he knows how to contact me. Take care, Imogen.”
He had left and spent the early morning hours wandering through the streets. He passed the tenements where he and his maman had lived, the alleyways where she’d sacrificed herself for their survival, the gin palaces where she’d obliterated her sorrows and lost herself. He walked the streets that had birthed him, where he had bled while his mother had been torn away, where he had known loneliness and hunger and despair. When he emerged at his own house, he finally left all of it behind.
Or, rather, the past was a part of him, but it no longer drove him. He was no longer running like a terrified, powerless guttersnipe. Because, as a man, he’d found what he needed: Fate had bestowed a gift upon him, giving him the love of a lifetime.
He let himself in, walking past his startled butler.
“Is Her Grace up yet, Harvey?” he asked.
“No, Your Grace.” The butler’s gaze flicked to the poesy Severin had bought from a flower girl. “When Her Grace returned last night, she asked not to be disturbed.”
Severin continued heading up the stairs. It had been a late night, and Fancy had looked tired when she left the soiree. His chest expanded with tenderness and pride as he thought of how entrancing she’d been last night. How she’d won over even a stickler like Princess Adelaide. His only regret was that he hadn’t been a husband worthy of her…but that was going to change.
Now that he understood his own heart, he would tell Fancy everything, bare his past and his soul. He would beg her forgiveness. Give her anything and everything she desired if she would let him.
Reaching the next floor, he ran into Eleanor, Toby, and Aunt Esther.
Disapproval glinted in his aunt’s eyes. “Are you just arriving home, Knighton?”
“I had business to attend to. Have you seen Fancy?” He tried but failed to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
“Francesca is still abed. She wasn’t feeling well after the party.” Aunt Esther sniffed. “Likely she overexerted herself doing her duty to this family.”
Remorse constricted his chest. “I’ll check in on her.”
“Are the flowers for Fancy?” Toby beamed at him.
“Yes.” And because his wife had helped him build a bridge to his kin, he thought to ask, “Do you think she will like the violets?”
“She will.” Although Eleanor’s tone was serious as usual, her new white frock with pink ribbons made her appear more her age. “All ladies like flowers…except me.”
“You do not like flowers?” he asked.
“I prefer books. Flowers last a moment, books forever.”
“I shall remember your advice the next time I get Fancy a gift,” he said, amused.
“You don’t have to worry,” Toby reassured him. “Fancy isn’t hard to please. She even liked the picture I drew of Bertrand, and I’m not a very good artist. I could only fit three of his four legs onto the paper.”
Talking about Fancy, seeing the changes she had sown with her warmth and love, made Severin all the more impatient to get to her.
“Come along, children,” his aunt said briskly “Your brother has matters to attend to.”
“Thank you, Aunt Esther.” Severin paused. “For everything you have done for this family.”
Emotion flashed in her eyes, which she quickly covered up by herding his siblings along.
Finally, Severin was free to go to his wife. Arriving at her bedchamber, he felt as nervous as a bridegroom. Gripping the flowers in one hand, he knocked softly. He did it again, louder when there was no response.
When silence still greeted him, he wondered if he should leave her to rest. He should, probably, for as his aunt had said, his wife had exerted herself last night…but, hell, he couldn’t wait.
Finding the door locked, he went into his own chamber. The knob to their private door turned in his hand and, heart thudding with anticipation, he entered his wife’s room, still darkened from the drawn drapes. He headed toward her bed.
“Chérie?” he said softly, not wanting to startle her. “Are you awake?”
No reply. Arriving at the bed, he saw it was empty.
“Fancy?” he called, heading to her sitting room.
It, too, was unoccupied.
Brows drawn, he circled his gaze around the room…and then he saw it. On her escritoire, the ruby ring and necklace he’d given her sat atop a folded piece of paper. Dropping the flowers, he strode over, pushing aside the expensive paperweights to grab the note. A vise clamped around his heart when he saw that it was written in Fancy’s painstaking hand and blotched…by her tears.
Knight,
* * *
Seeing you with Imogen, I know now that you cannot give me the marriage I want. The love and respect that I deserve. No matter how hard I try, I will never be her—and I should not have to be. There is only one solution, and I’m sorry for the pain it will cause the children. I will miss them. Please do not come after me.
* * *
Take care of yourself,
Fancy
* * *
P.S. Please tell Toby to take good care of Bertrand.
Pain lashed Severin, his scar an agonizing burn. Once again, his world was torn apart, but this time he had caused the damage. Fancy had given him everything, and he had repaid her with callousness.
“Don’t leave me, Fancy,” he said in an anguished whisper.
But she had left him…because he deserved to be left.
Heat singed his eyes, and he closed them briefly, letting the pain and helplessness flood him. Letting the loss of his beloved permeate every fiber of his being. Everything he felt now and the grief of his past merged as one, and when he opened his eyes, his vision was burning but clear.
He had no idea where his wife had gone.
No idea where to begin looking.
But he would move heaven and earth to find her and win her back.
35
“Fancy, I be wanting a word with you.”
“Yes, Da?” Fancy asked.
She paused in the act of making dough in the kitchen of the ca
ravan. Her brothers had brought home a brace of plump pheasants that had “wandered” from a neighboring lord’s estate, and she was getting rid of the evidence by making a big pie for supper.
Her father sat down at the table where she was working.
“’Ow long be you planning to ’ide from your ’usband, petal?” he asked.
The mention of Knight brought a piercing pain. In the week since she had found her way to Derbyshire, where her family always camped this time of year, she’d tried not to think about her husband at all, burying her sorrow in work. Her family knew, of course, why she’d come back. The afternoon she’d shown up, Da had taken one look at her…and opened his arms. She’d run into them, that safe haven that had protected her all her life, and wept.
Afterward, she had told her father the essential details about why she’d left Knight. He had not questioned her, just let her talk and sob and talk some more. When she was done, he’d patted her hand and told her to take her old bunk, and he hadn’t mentioned Knight again.
Until now.
“I’m not hiding from him, Da.” She attacked the dough with her rolling pin.
“You didn’t tell ’im where you’d gone.” Her father raised his brows. “’Ow’s ’e supposed to find you in the wilds o’ Derbyshire?”
“He is not supposed to find me.” She grimly pushed the pin into the dough. “And you’re assuming he’ll bother to look.”
“’E’ll be looking for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Was at your wedding, wasn’t I?” Da snorted. “Saw the way the fellow was with you. Wasn’t the manner o’ a man who planned to let go o’ ’is bride anytime soon.”
Fancy’s chest knotted as she thought of her wedding. How things had changed. Back then, she’d been full of hope for their future, even though he’d told her about Imogen. She couldn’t even blame him, she thought with angry despair. He had never lied to her; she’d simply been a stupid fool for believing she could win his love.
“Careful, me Fancy, or you’ll o’erwork the pastry.”
Annoyed, she realized her father was right. She was overworking the dough.
Blooming hell, I should’ve made bread instead.
Blowing out a breath, she finished rolling out the pastry and fitted it over the pan of pheasant and vegetables.
“I don’t know why you’re taking Knight’s side,” she muttered. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I like the cove well enough. I just wasn’t sure ’e was the ’usband for you.” Da’s bespectacled gaze was wry. “But you went and married the toff, and now you be a duchess with a ’ousehold depending on you.”
Her heart ached as she thought of Toby, Eleanor, Jonas, and Cecily. She’d told her family about Knight’s siblings and even his aunt. How far they’d come…how much she’d grown to care for them.
She stabbed holes in the crust. “They’ll forget me in time.”
“Ain’t like you to sulk, me Fancy.”
She frowned at her father. “I’m not sulking.”
“You are, and I be understanding why. You ’ad your ’eart broken, and you need to lick your wounds. Which is why I’ve left it until now. But you can’t ’ide forever.”
Her throat thickened. “Are you saying…I can’t stay?”
“I want you to be ’appy. If staying would make you so, then I’d be telling you to stay for as long as you like.” Her father’s smile was sad. “But it’s plain to see that you ain’t ’appy, me girl.”
To her horror, she felt heat push behind her eyes. Her father was right: she wasn’t happy. She was angry at Knight and pining for him at the same time. When she left him, she had taken only two mementoes, her wedding band and his button, both of which she wore on a string around her neck. Beneath her bodice, she felt their comforting weight.
“What am I supposed to do, Da?” She slumped into the chair beside him. “Knight loves another woman. A beautiful woman I can’t hope to compete with. I’ll never be the lady she is.”
“Well, o’ course you can’t be ’er, and, more importantly, why would you want to be? You’re yourself, Fancy, and if that ain’t good enough for your duke, then ’e’s got bacon for brains. But I don’t take your fellow for a fool.” Da gave her a keen look. “From what you’ve told me, the two o’ you were rubbing along fine until you saw ’im with the other lady at that ball.”
She nodded morosely.
“But you didn’t actually talk to ’im about it, did you?”
“What was there to say, Da?” She clenched her hands together on the table. “I saw them…embracing.”
“I’ve lived long enough not to always trust me own eyes,” her father said sagely. “Even if it were a lover’s tryst, running from it does no good.”
His words stirred the memory of what Princess Adelaide had said about being a hardy bloom. After everything Fancy had endured in life, why had she balked at confronting Knight? Why had she fled instead of talking to him?
“You remind me o’ your ma. Sweet as ’oney, me Annie, a dreamer and the most capable woman I e’er knew. Weren’t anything she couldn’t do if she put ’er mind to it, and being a loving wife and mama, she put ’er mind to looking after us. But for all that, she ’ad a flaw.”
“She did?” To Fancy’s mind, her mother had been perfect.
“She lacked confidence in ’erself. She never asked for what she wanted, always made do with what we ’ad and never once complained.” Da’s voice grew scratchy. “It was a part o’ ’er charm, no doubt about it, but it also kept ’er from ’er ’eart’s desires.”
“You were what she wanted, Da,” Fancy said softly. “She loved you.”
“Aye, and what I wouldn’t ’ave done to give ’er more.” Da’s eyes suddenly glittered. “Did you know your ma ’ated those ironstone dishes I bought ’er?”
Fancy blinked. “No, she didn’t. She mended them again and again, so well that the cracks didn’t show. We used those dishes for years.”
“She fixed ’em because she knew I couldn’t afford to buy more,” Da said heavily. “But before she breathed ’er last breath, I asked ’er if there be anything she wanted to tell me, any last thing she would regret ’olding back. And she said to me, Milton…I always ’ated those ugly dishes.”
Awareness prickled through Fancy, her throat thickening.
“We both laughed and then we cried because our life together ’ad been so blessed that the worst thing about it was those damned dishes.” Da took off his spectacles to briefly wipe his eyes. “But you see, petal, if I’d but known ’ow much me Annie longed for a bit o’ real porcelain, I’d ’ave moved ’eaven and earth to get it for ’er. All she ’ad to do was ask.”
“Oh, Da.” Fancy reached over and grasped his hand.
“Me point being, don’t sell yourself short. Don’t be afraid to make demands o’ your ’usband, especially when what you want be more important than dishes, more important than anything. I know you thought that by making yourself into a duchess, you would win ’is ’eart, but that ain’t what you need to do, petal.”
“Then what?” she asked achingly. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Believe in yourself, me Fancy. Trust that you’re the woman your fellow needs. The truth is, you’ve always been a lady in ’ere,”—Da pressed his palm to his heart—“where it counts. If your duke don’t see that, then ’e’s the one who ain’t deserving o’ you.”
Later that afternoon, still mulling over her da’s words, Fancy went to help her brothers pick apples at a nearby orchard. Da had fixed up the farmer’s pots and pans, and in exchange the farmer had said they could take as many of the last harvest fruit as they could carry.
Sam Taylor, whose family was camping nearby, decided to tag along.
Fancy was glad to see Sam again and especially glad that no tension lingered between them. She’d always thought of him as a brother, and it was a relief to have him acting that way again. The moment they arrived at the orchard, S
am and her brothers began pelting fallen fruit at each other. When she told them they had work to do, the nodcocks started aiming at her. To defend herself, she joined in, and by the end of it, they were all sticky and laughing like lunatics.
It felt good to laugh, she realized. To play in the sun and fresh air. She thought with a pang that Toby and Eleanor would love apple picking.
“Oi, Fancy,” Sam called. “You want to ’elp me with this tree?”
He was standing at the end of the row, pointing at the tallest tree.
“The apples are the biggest, but they’re ’igh up, and we ain’t got a ladder,” he said. “I’ll ’oist you up, and you grab ’em.”
She went over, craning her neck to look into the leafy branches. Clusters of red, plump fruit beckoned. Sam was right; these apples did look the best.
“Can you lift me that high?” she asked dubiously.
Sam grinned and held up an arm, flexing. “I’m strong as an ox.”
“And dumb as one too,” her brother Liam said with a snicker.
Before the lads could start another battle, Fancy said hastily, “All right, then. I’ll climb on your shoulders, but you be sure to hold me steady, Sam Taylor.”
“I’ll treat you like me ma’s finest china.”
“Your ma doesn’t have any china,” Fancy pointed out.
Sam got down on one knee and gestured at her. “Stop arguing, will you, and climb up.”
Taking off her shoes, she clambered onto Sam’s shoulders. True to his word, he held her steady. Stretching upward, she was able to reach several ripe apples, dropping them into the burlap sack that he held.
“I can’t reach the biggest ones.” She gazed at the remote fruit, which seemed redder and larger than the rest. “I’ll have to stand on your shoulders.”
“I ain’t sure that’s a good idea—”
She managed to balance on her knees. “Quit complaining and hold still.”
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