Page 61 of Married to the Ruthless Duke

“You are not fine, and we both know it. You returned from your matrimonial home a fortnight ago, and every day you sit at that window, staring off into the distance. We are your family, and we will always welcome you when you come, but you need to tell us what is wrong, so we can help you. You are becoming a shadow of yourself, and frankly, it breaks my heart to see you this way.”

“I will be fine. Do not worry about me,” Helen replied and looked away, back to the window.

“I’ll take a card out of your book then,” Margaret said with a determined tilt to her chin. “If you will not tell me, I could just go confront that husband of yours because I could bet my last coin that he is the root cause of all this… hopelessness.” Her voice rose in anger.

That got Helen’s attention, and she turned back to Margaret, giving her full attention.

“You will do no such thing, Sister. Alexander has nothing to do with this,” she said in a raspy voice, the clear proof of many days of disuse.

“Then who did this to you?” Margaret asked in a mellow voice.

“I did this to myself,” Helen replied, looking up at Margaret, her eyes filled with tears. “I made the mistake of falling in love with the Duke, so I don’t really have the right to cry and complain when I found out that he had no romantic feelings towards me.”

“He did warn me that our marriage was one of convenience, but somehow, I believed that in time he would come to love me at least half as much as I came to love him, but I was wrong, and it hurts so much. Maggie, it hurts a lot,” she said, dissolving into more sobs.

Margaret drew her sister to her chest and held her while she cried. Unrequited love was simply the worst. She should know after pining after George for the better part of one year. The heart could be foolish that way, but she believed that her sister’s situation was better because she definitely did not believe that the Duke held no feelings for Helen. The man was already halfway in love with Helen even before the wedding, if the calf-eyed looks he gave her when he thought no one was looking was any indication. But then, it was common knowledge that men could be quite daft sometimes, unable to see what was right before them.

It was quite unfortunate that both of them had to go through heartbreak so early in life, and Margaret really thought it was time that they took some time away from London, the Season, and the men to find themselves and recuperate. She knew the perfect place that guaranteed peace, quiet, and maybe a little magic for new beginnings.

When her sobs had subsided, Helen pulled away, wiping her tears she apologized.

“I’m so sorry, Maggie, for blubbering all over you like a little child,” she mumbled with a rueful smile.

“Do not worry about it. What are sisters for? Besides, we have really been through a lot at the hands of men. And you looked after me while I mourned my broken engagement with George. As someone who has been through the heartbreak of the romantic sort, I think it was terrible to waste much time dwelling on it. You will lose so much time that way. I don’t know about you, but I would rather use that time to find happiness for myself. Besides, I think with everything that happened this year, we deserve a break. What do you say we go visit Grandma Agnes in the Highlands?”

“Really?” Helen asked, her face brightening up with a smile. “It has been so long since we last visited. I really miss her a lot. I would love to see her,” she said in excitement.

Agnes was their maternal grandmother and their only living grandparent who’d spoilt them silly after their mother had passed. They hadn’t seen her since she withdrew from London to the estate her late husband had gifted her in Scotland.

“He hated me so much that he wanted me to get as far away from him as possible,” she used to say when they discussed her moving there, but they knew her words held no heat, as the two were madly in love with each other, which then turned into a friendship before his passing.

“Yes, I am sure she would love to have us as well,” Margaret replied, happy to see that Helen was gradually returning to her cheerful self. “She had sent several invitations over the past year, but between the Season and everything else that happened over this year, it thoroughly escaped my notice. I think that this is as good a time as any to set out on an adventure,” she said, intoning the last word theatrically.

Helen chuckled in response.

Margaret smiled back in happiness. Maybe there was hope still of getting cheerful Helen back. Hopefully, by the time they returned, the rock-headed Duke who married her sister would have come to his senses.

* * *

Alexander had felt the profound pain of loss once when he had lost his mother, and it became clear to him that he was alone in the world despite having several family members. When his father had died and his stepfamily had abandoned him, rather than feeling a sense of loss, he had felt relief to be free of their tyranny.

But the feeling he experienced this time felt even worse than that long-forgotten feeling of loss. It felt like a limb had been cut off from his body, the wound fresh and unhealing. It had taken days of him being completely distracted and unproductive for him to accept the truth. He, the Fifth Duke of Blackhill, nicknamed the Ruthless Duke, was in fact missing his wife.

He missed her presence, her laughter and bright aura that enlivened the cold walls of the Blackhill castle, and her enthusiasm and mischievous smile. He missed the feeling of her skin beneath his fingers and her haunting scent and the taste of her lips. He was addicted to Helen, and he was finding it difficult to recover from the withdrawal.

Since the day she had left, he had become unable to perform his duties. Reading and replying to correspondence had become a daunting task he avoided with everything in him. Any sound of carriages around his estate had him hurrying to the window just in case she had decided to return home.

He downed whisky in the hopes of dulling the pain in his chest, but it only made matters, since he woke up in the morning with even worse pain and a splitting headache. He was a mess and wondered how on earth he had survived without her because it seemed now that he had gotten the taste of what it felt like to have her in his life—he could no longer live without her.

He didn’t need anyone else to confirm what he knew. He loved her, and she loved him, and it was that love that he’d been too scared to see that had led to her leaving him behind. His little wife was selfless in that manner. She’d have left him just to keep herself from suffocating him with her feelings.

That should have felt surprising, but it felt relieving to admit it to himself. He suspected he had started the free fall of love the moment he had gone to the Ludlow house to ask for her hand in marriage and seen the spitfire she truly was, and every day with her only fanned the flames of that love.

It was little wonder he had become scared with the increasing intensity of his feelings. The more he fell for her, the more he became vulnerable, and for someone who had lived behind emotional walls most of his life, it was a scary thing to be so exposed. So, he had pretended that he felt nothing, hoping he could suppress such feelings to death. He had allowed Helen to leave him, and now he was miserable.

It was quite clear to him that he had to go back to Helen and tell her about the love in his heart and beg her to return to him, as she was the only thing he needed to feel the peace he’d secretly longed for all his life. No longer would he suffer just to appease his ego.

Helen had stolen his heart one heart-stopping smile at a time, so it was foolish to pretend he was still in possession of it. He was going to confess to her and perhaps persuade her to give him her heart again in return.

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