by Ashley March
She looked up at him then—a quick glance—then down again. “But none of it was true,” she said softly. “And you didn’t care, anyway.”
“I did care,” he countered fiercely. “I hated seeing you with one man after another. With any man but me. I wanted to kill each and every one of them for daring to dance with you, to touch you.”
But there had been a time when he hadn’t cared about anything she did, when he only scoffed at her attempts to provoke him. It had been easier to ignore her, just as it was easier to ignore his conscience.
Her silence told him that she remembered that time as well.
She gathered the gown into her arms. “I almost took a lover.” She said it matter-of-factly, without the slightest hint of taunting in her tone.
He quickly forgot his transgressions as a black rage consumed him. “Who?”
She shook her head, went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But I couldn’t. I was to send for him, but when the time came, I ...”
“What, Charlotte?” he pressed. “Tell me.”
“I could only think of you.” She paused, staring ahead. “I hated you for that.”
“Because you love me.”
“Yes.”
He was the only man she had ever known.
Realizing that he was the only man who had ever possessed her, slept with her in his embrace—it sent a primal thrill running through him, an uncivilized joy he’d known before only in her arms.
It was humbling to realize she loved him so deeply. That even after he had betrayed her in so many ways, she had remained faithful to him. He would never deserve her, no matter what he might do to try to atone for his deeds.
But surely, if they loved one another, he could convince her not to leave. He grasped Charlotte’s elbow to help her stand again.
She tensed beneath his touch. “Release me.” Her voice shook.
He withdrew his arm, but stepped toward her. “Stay, Charlotte. I love—”
She lurched away from him, crashing into the armoire. “Can’t you see?” she cried. “It doesn’t matter. I thought it would—God, how I wished all these years I could have been someone different, someone better—then you might have loved me.”
He reached for her, needing somehow to bridge the distance she was trying to put between them. “I was blind. A fool. I—”
“Stop. Just stop, Philip.” She skirted around him, laid the gown beside the valise.
He followed her movements, crisp and efficient, as she paired the sleeves together, then carefully began to fold the top over the skirts.
Something settled in his chest, something hard and heavy. “I will not beg,” he said finally.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
And somehow he knew even if he did, it wouldn’t make a difference. She would still leave.
A thick silence pervaded the room as she continued to pack. She took everything, filling one valise after another. An assortment of bandboxes, three trunks—all of her belongings, including everything he had bought for her, disappeared into their vast depths.
It was as if she didn’t want to leave anything behind. As if she never planned to return.
“You must take the harp,” he said.
She stilled. “It’s too big.”
“Then I will send another coach with you.” He couldn’t bear to have it here. Even if he didn’t enter the music room, he would know it was there, untouched, un-played. And he would believe she might come back to Ruthven. He would torment himself by imagining Charlotte as she sat at the harp, strumming the strings with her fingers, her head bent just so.
“If you don’t take it, I shall have it destroyed.”
She dipped her head. “Very well.”
Philip breathed again.
Once she closed the last trunk, he walked to the door opening onto the corridor and unlocked it. Then he rang the servants’ bell.
Her maid appeared immediately. The girl must have been waiting just outside. Hovering, no doubt. Hoping to overhear their conversation.
In the past, Philip would have dismissed a servant for such an offense. Now, he couldn’t find the interest to care. “Have Fallon prepare the carriage and another coach. Send someone to carry Her Grace’s baggage. She is ready to depart.”
The maid curtsied, her eyes wide, and slipped away.
“She seems well mannered,” he commented idly. “What is her name?”
“Anne. She’s been my lady’s maid for two years.” Her tone implied he should have known this.
“Hmm. Is she the one who dresses your hair?”
“My hair?”
“Yes.” He made a whirling motion at the back of his head. “I like when she does this.”
Charlotte looked at him as if he had momentarily lost his mind, her brow wrinkling. “A bun. You like when she puts my hair into a bun.”
“Yes. It’s very pretty.”
“Oh.” She lifted her hand as if she would pat her hair, then slowly lowered it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
And that was the extent of the only conversation they had until the footmen came to carry her belongings outside.
There was nothing left to say.
They watched together as the footmen trekked in and out of the bedchamber. The valises, bandboxes, and trunks disappeared. Philip counted each of them in his head. He memorized their shapes, their colors, the small details which distinguished each from the other—the stripes of red on one bandbox, a pattern of leaves on another.
Somehow it seemed important to be able to remember this moment clearly.
As the last piece of luggage—a trunk with a sovereign-sized dent near the latch—was carted away, Charlotte turned to him.
“Once again, I bid you farewell.”
“Charlotte—”
She disappeared, exiting the room and rounding the corner before he could finish his reply.
He ought to be grateful. Although he’d said he wouldn’t, he knew he would have begged her to stay.
Her slippers made no noise on the stairs, so he imagined her flying down them. Fallon would be standing at the open door, would bow as she passed by him. He imagined her entering the carriage, settling her skirts for the long ride back to London.
Philip heard the shout of the coachman outside, the rumble of wheels.
She would part the curtain at the window. Perhaps her fingers would tremble as she did so. She would look out, try to glimpse him at the window of her bedchamber, remember when she couldn’t find him that her window overlooked the garden.
Philip started toward the corridor.
Perhaps she would panic and change her mind, pound on the carriage roof, order the coachman to stop—
He halted on the stairway landing, his left foot hovering above the first step down.
The rumbling of the carriage wheels continued, gradually fading away.
Philip lifted his foot next to the other. He stood that way for a long time, staring at the marbled tile down below, straining to hear the rumble return.
It never did.
Chapter 19
Fallon set the breakfast tray on Philip’s desk.
“Shall I open the curtains, Your Grace?”
“No.”
Philip blinked wearily at a point beyond the butler’s head. Sometime during the night the shadows on the wall had transformed into grotesque faces.
Thank God, he had yet to begin to talk to them.
“I hope you won’t think me impertinent, Your Grace . . .”
Philip blinked again, this time trying to focus on the gray blur where Fallon’s face should have been. This could prove to be an interesting diversion. He waved his arm in a magnanimous gesture.
“I wonder if I shouldn’t send for Dr. Barrow.”
“I’m not ill,” Philip replied, scowling.
“Of course not, Your Grace,” the butler quickly agreed.
“Do you hear me coughing?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“Do I appear sickly to you?”
Fallon remained silent.
Philip tapped his fingers on the desk. To be honest, he felt ill. Weak.
Over the past three days, he’d rarely moved from this chair and when he did he’d stumbled, the muscles in his legs quivering with each step.
Fallon opened his mouth, paused, and closed it.
“Speak,” Philip commanded.
“Perhaps Dr. Barrow will be able to provide a tonic to help you sleep.”
He didn’t have trouble sleeping. It was the dreams he needed a cure for. The dreams which had kept him in his study for the past three nights, determined to stay awake. Or to exhaust himself to the point where he fell into a sleep so deep he would be unable to dream.
But he’d failed at both. Despite his efforts, he continued to doze off—intermittent naps that kept him just short of becoming delusional. Yet it was still a state where his mind was free to torture him with images of Charlotte.
Sometimes she was laughing, her arms spread wide as she twirled beneath the sky. Or she would moan as he kissed her, caressed her, undressed her. And she would lead him to her bed, her eyes dark and sultry as she glanced at him over her shoulder.
But it was worst when she was silent. She just stared. Her mouth never moved, but still he could hear her voice softly accusing him, reciting all the ways he’d wronged her.
He always managed to wake himself up before she began to cry. He didn’t understand how he knew she was about to, but he did.
No, a sleep tonic would be of no use to him. He needed something to help him stay awake.
“Sending for Dr. Barrow would be unnecessary.”
Fallon inclined his head, then motioned toward the windows. “Please, Your Grace, at least allow me to draw the curtains. You are far too pale—”
“That will be all, Fallon,” Philip said, his syllables clipped.
The butler froze, then executed a sharp bow. “Your Grace.” He exited the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
Philip glared at the shadowed faces on the opposite wall. Then, reluctantly, his gaze shifted to the bank of windows. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep from seeking them out. As if he could see through them to the path a carriage would take in coming to Ruthven Manor.
He’d ordered the curtains to remain closed so he wouldn’t be tempted to watch for her return, and yet he kept opening them, stealing glances at the drive beyond.
It was pathetic, really.
He’d thought it had been the worst sort of hell to love her before, when he believed she hated him.
But this—knowing she might be with him now if it hadn’t been for his own bloody pride—it was unbearable.
With a low curse, Philip planted his hands on the desk and stood from his chair. He grunted, satisfied when he wobbled only a little.
The pungent smell of kippers and poached eggs wafted through the air, and he curled his lip in disgust at the sight of the covered breakfast tray.
The less he slept, the more the sight and smell of food seemed to turn his stomach.
Surely Fallon had noticed that each tray he returned to the kitchen was mostly untouched. And yet the man continued to deliver Philip’s meals at regular intervals. Yesterday he had even brought a tea tray.
A tea tray, replete with sugar and milk and an array of biscuits, scones, and tarts. As if Philip had ever taken tea unless the rituals of polite society required him to do so.
The entire household was coddling him, treating him like an invalid. Even his valet had entered once, asking if he would like for him to bring a change of clothing to the study.
He would change his clothes when he damned well liked.
Perhaps he would run through the entire house naked, even.
He could do as he pleased. He was the bloody ninth Duke of Rutherford.
Shuffling around the desk, he caught sight of his grandfather’s portrait. Philip returned the old man’s imperious stare with a glower of his own.
“You wouldn’t like that very much, would you? No, of course not. It wouldn’t be proper.”
He was still lucid enough not to expect a response from the inanimate object, so he continued toward the door, his arms spread to either side for balance.
He turned around. “I wasn’t proper the day I took off my clothes and swam nude in the pond. Anyone could have seen me. The servants or Joanna or anyone in the whole bloody world could have seen me in all of my bare-assed ducal glory.”
His gaze drifted to the windows, and when he began to shake, it wasn’t from weakness but from rage. He narrowed his eyes at the portrait again. “Damn you,” he muttered low.
It bore repeating.
“Damn you.”
He shouldn’t have stopped with Charlotte’s bedchamber. He should have taken down every last painting of the old duke.
His grandfather didn’t deserve to be recognized or honored. He had never done anything to merit Philip’s respect or love. Everything he’d done had been to manipulate him, to control him.
Philip wove his way back to the desk and flung aside the domed cover of the breakfast tray. It bounced and rolled across the carpet, finally careening into the leg of the sofa. Steadying himself with one hand, he speared a kipper with the fork and crammed it in his mouth, glowering at his grandfather’s silent sneer as he chewed.
At length, once he’d cleared away all of the kippers and eggs, he sank back into his chair and waited. Tapping his fingers together, he contemplated the portrait.
Hanging it in the gallery wouldn’t be sufficient. Neither would moving it to the attic, to be tucked in some dark, hidden corner.
Minutes passed. He could feel his strength returning, his mind clearing as if a fog had been swept away.
Standing up, he walked to the portrait and removed it from the wall. It was large, and heavy, and though he tried to carry it, he wasn’t yet strong enough.
He ended up dragging the portrait to the door, where he leaned it against the wall. He would have a footman put it somewhere out of sight until he could determine what to do with it.
His face itched, and he rubbed his jaw. The thick stubble didn’t scrape his palm, but tickled softly. He needed a shave. And a bath.
And a change of clothes, though he might dismiss his valet if the man so much as smirked.
He made his way along the corridor toward the stairway, halting only a few times to steady himself.
He would find Charlotte. If she wouldn’t return to him, then he would go to her. He wasn’t certain what he would do then, but at least she would be near.
She wouldn’t welcome him, of course. She’d made that clear. But perhaps if they crossed each other’s path—not too frequently, and never for too long—she might begin to detest him just a little less.
As he passed the library, his grandfather’s bust caught his attention. He’d never before realized how very arrogant a man the old duke must have been, to have commissioned an artist to sculpt his likeness.
But then again, he had also hung countless portraits of himself throughout the house.
“Arrogant” might not be a strong enough word.
Philip stopped in front of the bust, surprised at how much it resembled the actual man. He reached out to smooth his hand over the wig, the grooved texture of the clay cool beneath his palm. The nose was too short, the slight hook at the end noticeably absent. But the mouth and the eyes were the same. Thin lips, though not curled, still somehow gave the appearance of a sneer. Narrowed eyes, the gray clay as cold as the silver ones they were meant to duplicate.
Philip dropped his hand.
Except for the wig, it could have been a bust of himself.
Was this what Charlotte saw when she looked at him?
Once again he studied the replica of the man he had feared but never loved. He had the same haughty arch to his right brow, the one Philip used when a condescending stare didn’t send London’s fops scurrying away fast enough.
H
is grandfather had raised him to be a proper duke. Observing all social niceties to a fault. Scorning those who deemed themselves his equal.
Arrogant. Callous. A man to despise.
Philip began to breathe faster, the air rushing in and out of his nostrils. The darkness of his childhood, the pain he’d thought had disappeared, returned to grip him.
With a low oath, he clutched the bust between both hands and lifted it above his head. Hurling it to the ground, he watched it shatter into pieces against the tile. Although a shard ricocheted, slashing across his cheek, he didn’t flinch.
He was not the same man as his grandfather.
He never would be.
“You are a horrible friend,” Charlotte muttered to Lady Emma Whitlock.
“I only introduced you.” Emma stared after Lord Forshaw, a frown drawing her blond brows together. “I still don’t understand how he could step upon your toes so many times. It was a quadrille, for heaven’s sake.”
“Yes,” Charlotte said drily. “Apparently my bosom is most distracting.”
Emma looked down at her own bodice and sighed. “I should like to be distracting.” She glanced up quickly. “Not for the sake of any suitor, of course, but simply for my own vanity.”
And that was why she and Charlotte were friends. The earl’s daughter was the only woman in London who didn’t suspect Charlotte of trying to steal her beau, fiancé, or husband. Emma far preferred her own imaginary heroes and villains to any of the men of the ton.
“Your bosom is delightful,” Charlotte said. “There, now that your vanity is appeased, you may either go with me or I will leave you stranded here.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “You must admit, the evening hasn’t gone as poorly as you thought—”
“Everyone is staring at me.”
“Everyone always stares at you,” Emma pointed out. “And besides, he did kidnap you. If I weren’t looking at you already, I’d stare at you now. You are far more interesting than I.”
Charlotte’s laughter stuck in her throat as a tall man with dark hair walked across the room beyond Emma. Her heart raced.