Page 88 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

Grace nodded fast.

“There’s no past tense involved, Diana,” she whispered. “I love him. I do.” She sniffed. “At least, I love the idea of him. I love the man I thought him to be but not the man who he was yesterday.” She shook her head firmly. “He was a different man.”

“Oh, Grace. I’m so sorry.” Diana put down her port glass and wrapped an arm around her, embracing her tightly.

Grace buried her head in her friend’s shoulder, wishing she could hide there for a long time and forget the world. When she eventually pulled away, there were tears in Diana’s eyes too. They clutched hands as they drank their port.

“Is there any way you can make sense of his behavior yesterday? Is there a reason behind why he would be so quick to accuse you of selling such a story?”

Grace sighed, trying to remember everything Philip had said. Most of the reasoned arguments had been lost in anger. It was like trying to dig for something valuable in sludge, very difficult indeed to find.

“He said that only my father knew about the gambling. As my father had told me, there were just the two of us. It had to be one of us,” Grace whispered. “He was right in one thing — my father could not have left the house to sell such a story, and he also wouldn’t give a story like that away.”

“Of course not,” Diana said, shaking his head. “The article accuses your father of being a blackmailer.”

“Exactly. So, Philip felt the logical conclusion was me.” In sudden anger, she leaned forward, nearly spilling her port. She would have done too if Diana hadn’t snatched it from her and rescued it in time. “But how could he think that? How could he not trust me after all that has passed between us? He didn’t even trust me enough to listen to my protests?”

“Eleanor says he’s a man with a temper. Is there any chance when he’s calmed down that he would listen to reason and come around?”

“Pff, I doubt it.” Oddly, Grace was upset at the mention of Eleanor. It seemed no matter what, all of her friends would always think of Philip as Eleanor’s brother and not Grace’s husband. “There was something he said a couple of days ago. Something curious.”

“What’s that?” Diana urged her on, passing her the port back as Grace sat still again.

“He talked of pain when scandal sheets were published about his father’s affairs. Gossip. Whispers. He spoke of pain and not wanting to relive it. It suggested to me that it wasn’t just a matter of reputation but of heart too.”

“Could that be the reason for his anger, Grace?” Diana asked softly. “A desperate man. He wasn’t just angry at the story but having to suffer the pain of seeing his family’s name in the scandal sheets all over again.”

“Oh, Diana, why do you have to sound so wise?” Grace slumped back in her seat. “Yes, that makes sense.”

It all made a lot of sense. It explained why Philip was so fixed on his mother, about persuading her to retreat to the country seat. He thought of his family, of putting them first, and couldn’t bear the pain to be relived all over again.

“God, he must hate me,” Grace whispered. “I understand something now. Whether he truly thinks I’m behind leaking that story or not, he sees me as the reason his family is back in the scandal sheets. Since he married me, we’re always in those pages. He regrets marrying me because of it.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t regret it,” Diana said, but even she couldn’t utter the words with any degree of conviction. “Oh, Grace, I’m so sorry it has come to this. I wish I could say something to make it all better.”

“You are kind, but there is nothing anyone can say or do.” She sat straight, discarding her port glass. “I read in a book once that heartbreak is a little like a broken glass. You can put things back together, so they look right, but you’ll always bear the breakage. You might just have to look hard sometimes to see it.”

She sighed deeply. “Well, that is what I must hope for. I must try to put the pieces of my heart back together again and find a way to live now.” She looked around the room, taking comfort in the warmth of her new home. “What shall we do tomorrow? I believe there is a new exhibition at Somerset House. Shall we go and see that?”

Diana didn’t look enthused by the idea, but to Grace’s relief, Diana nodded.

“Yes. Let’s do that. We shall fill our days with fun things to do.”

“Yes, we shall.” Grace nodded, hoping to some degree that it magically helped.

* * *

“Perhaps you should go slower, Phil.” Aaron’s face looked a little blurry to Philip as he put the glass down beside him on the table.

Philip sank back in his chair at the gentleman’s club, finding that not only was Aaron’s face blurry but the entire room was too.

“For God’s sake, are you going to drink yourself into a stupor every night?”

“You don’t usually tell jokes.”

“I’m not joking now,” Aaron said sharply. He tapped Philip around the arm, clearly trying to get his attention. “Have you seen anything of your wife in the last four days since you sent her out of the house? And don’t think that helped matters. The fact you ousted her was whispered by every tongue in London three days ago.”

Philip sighed, wondering how it was that the whole of London now knew all of his business.

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