Page 89 of The Duke and the Accidental Bride

It was a calamity. Pure chaos in the tiny kitchen. The dozen or so party guests who had swept inside at the sound of the commotion fell upon the scene with a sense of anarchy. Some of the men tried to shield Louisa from Duncan. Some of the women tried to cover Louisa and pull her back. A few more rushed for Lady St. Vincent, assuming that she too was a victim of Duncan’s violence. And as for Isabella? She looked upon her husband for an answer.

Their eyes met across the kitchen. There was a sadness in them that made her gasp. That made her ache, as if he too knew that this was her fault.

Be she had a chance to speak, her mother was at her. “Isabella...” Her mother had her arm around her. “Quickly, dear.”

“But what of --”

“We have her.” Her mother indicated past the kitchen were a few of the women were helping to shield and protect Louisa. “Please, you must...”

She spared a final glance for her husband. Through the bodies that were blocking him, he did not fight, he did not argue, he did not try and reach her. The defeat in his eyes was ever-present, which in Isabella’s mind was all the proof she needed that whatever had happened here was indeed her fault.

The marriage she had never wanted, the one that she had begun to accept, even covet, looked to finally be over. And the most surprising part of all was how much that notion crushed her.

Chapter Thirty-One

It had been two days since Duncan had heard from Isabella. But that didn’t surprise him. In fact, he preferred it that way. Even more to that point, if he had his way, he might never see her again.

He sat at the desk in his study, a blank piece of parchment before him, quill in hand as he tried to will himself to write a letter that he knew would do no good in postponing, for nothing was going to change. But that did not make the words come any easier, nor did it make them any less painful to accept.

How did it come to this? Where did I go wrong? What could I have done differently?

Those were the questions that had danced through Duncan’s head ever since the Stoneside garden party, the last time he had seen or spoken with his wife.

The answers to his questions were obvious, but he had spent the past two days denying them, until this morning when he knew that he could deny them no longer.

This was all Duncan’s fault. He, a violent and angry and dangerous man, had gotten involved with a woman who he shouldn’t have, and as was entirely predictable, she had ended up getting hurt.

It was a miracle that Isabella herself wasn’t physically harmed, but that was through sheer luck. Thoughts of what might have happened if Juliet had gotten to Isabella, and Duncan shuddered.

Isabella deserved better than him.

If he could go back in time, he would have forgone his honor and cancelled this marriage before it had a chance to destroy lives, as it had.

The best thing he could do now, the right thing to do, was to separate himself entirely from Isabella, this town, theton, and pray that no more harm was caused to those whom he loved.

He chuckled bitterly at that.

The irony. It is just as I admit my true feeling that I am forced to severe ties, doomed to live a life alone. Which I had once wanted, before discovering there was something even better...

He loved Isabella. Duncan now knew that. What else could it be? Unable to stop thinking about her. Refusing to move on. The pain and hurt that he felt from sunrise to sunset whenever he dared to picture what the rest of his life might be now that she would not be in it.

Only she had been able to control him.

Only she had been able to bring out a side in him that he had not known existed.

Only she had accepted him as he was, even if it was for a short time, and made him open to her in ways that he had never known himself capable of doing. He had loved her and, as was typical with Duncan, he had ruined it.

So he sat himself down to write her a letter. The last time he planned on communicating with her. Ever.

As to its contents? Yet to be written but an apology would be a start. Apologizing for forcing this on her. For tricking her into believing that he had changed. And for what had happened to her sister, which Duncan bore full responsibility for.

The apology would be the easy bit. What came next...

Isabella had never wanted this marriage and where he could not divorce her, he would give her the next best thing. Duncan planned on leaving England for good, travelling to places unknown so that Isabella would never have to worry that shemight hear his name spoken again. He did not even care what people said of him. The truth would likely come out soon, that it was not his fault per se, and people would scramble to believe it because they would not be able to comprehend that he could do such a thing.

But this was his fault. He did do this. Maybe not how people thought he had, but the point remained the same.

Isabella would be free of him, finally. And where Duncan did not expect her to ever forgive him for what he did, he hoped that this last act might at least stop her from hating him.

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