Page 94 of A Virgin for the Duke of Ash

Only ashes and dust.

Daniel sat staring into his fireplace with a gloomy look in his green eyes. The tips of his fingers held a glass of brandy, which he would occasionally swirl and take a sip of.

He heard the distinct, light footsteps of his butler from behind.

“Has Mr. Turner gone to see the Duchess?” he inquired softly.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Barnaby replied. “He was able to secure an audience with her just this afternoon.”

Daniel smiled a little at that. At least she did not turn away his gift.

He had hurt her—perhaps irreparably—and this was but one of the ways he could hope to make amends. He had seen how her eyes lit up when she spoke to the artist, when she spoke about her art. She had downplayed her talents before him, but that night in Vauxhall, he had been keen on gaining enough of her trust to see her works.

Now, he doubted he would ever have that pleasure in his life.

Maybe not until she would be brave enough to showcase her works. If she did, then he would purchase them all and hang them in his study, his private chambers—his goddamned tower even.

Because that would be all he would ever have of her.

That and the memories that still lingered like the scent she left on his sheets.

And the hole in his heart that he had never acknowledged until she filled it with her light.

Now, he was all alone in the darkness once more.

He truly did destroy everything he ever came to love.

CHAPTER 32

Evie had once thought that a person with a broken heart would never be able to survive. Her own father certainly had not, so when her mother decided to burn down an entire wing of their estate in her maddened grief, he had managed only to secure Evie’s safety before he walked into the fire himself to join her.

Colin had told her the tragic tale of their parents just before his wedding to Alice, and Evie had been rightfully horrified to know the truth behind what was the most traumatizing thing to ever occur to her.

She had been but a child back then, caught up in the tangled lives of her parents and the dark secret that lurked in her beautiful mama’s heart—a secret that devastated their family and left Evie and Colin orphans.

“Evie? Evie, dearest, are you all right?”

Evie blinked, and all at once, she was back in the sunny parlor of Blackthorn Estate, surrounded by Alice, Phoebe, and Scarlett, who were all looking at her with concern written all over their faces.

After nearly a week of hiding in her rooms, furiously working on her paintings and flinging her emotions onto the canvas, she had managed to emerge from it all.

She could recall the shocked look on her grandmother’s face, as well as those of Alice and her brother, when she stumbled into the dining hall one evening, dressed for dinner with her hair done up neatly and elegantly.

However, as much as she presented the facade of the Evie they once knew, she knew that she had been irreversibly changed on the inside—and not just because she had lost her innocence.

In the past few days, she had bid goodbye to her childish dreams of romance and embraced reality with the eyes of a woman who had seen what her younger self had not beheld.

Evie liked to think she was stronger for it, but it still took one step at a time. Perhaps in another fortnight or so, she might deign to venture outside for a turn about the park—in her carriage, of course. She was not so brave as to promenade.

“I… was in my head for a moment,” she murmured with an apologetic smile. “What did I miss?”

Her friends did not look convinced, so she smiled a little brighter.

“We were just talking about the new opera singer,” Phoebe told her with a gentle smile. “Word has it that her arias are simply divine and she has the voice of an angel.”

Evie pretended to at least be a little interested. “How… lovely.”

She had no interest in stepping outside of Blackthorn Estate at the moment, and going out to see an opera, no matter how talented the singer, was presently inconceivable.

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