Page 65 of Duke of Pride

“We should return before they send a search party,” she uttered. “Wouldn’t want to add to my already tattered reputation.”

CHAPTER18

Letters

It was so strange for Victoria that the world kept spinning, that the sun rose and set no matter what. How could a houseful of people go on with their lives, while hers was ruined? And she didn’t have the luxury of mourning in private, wallowing and allowing herself to come to terms with what had happened.

She stood at her bedroom window, watching as the household stirred below. Maids carried fresh linens, footmen polished silver, and somewhere in the gardens, laughter floated on the morning air. Life went on. Even hers.

Stephen proposed. Victoria laughed bitterly at that. It was too bold to assume that whatever it was that Stephen made was a proposal. She hadn’t harbored any girlish fantasies about proposals growing up, but she was surethatwasn’t her ideal proposal.

“As a man of honor, I can no longer in good conscience continue our acquaintance without offering you marriage.”

So detached as if he were requesting the latest news on horse riding and was wishing that there was none. Each word was a mockery as Victoria kept replaying it again and again.

A man of honor.

What honor was there in a man who had touched her with such hunger, only to reduce it all to duty? Who had made her feel things—wild, desperate things—only to stand before her like a stranger reciting a decree? Who had pushed the boundaries again and again with his smothering looks and that demanding voice, only to pull back coldly?

And that word,acquaintance,it lodged in her chest like a shard of glass. That was all this was to him? After what they had shared together, she was merely a lady he knew? After he had kissed her until she forgot her name, she was reduced to a mereacquaintanceto be managed, a social obligation to be discharged?

Good conscience.

Victoria was sure that he had slept soundly last night. That he had done his “duty” and upheld his “honor,” and that was enough. He wouldn’t care about how his words made her feel.

“I am such a fool!” She collapsed on the seat of her vanity.

She stared at her reflection. Her reflection was staring back at her, pale, hollow-eyed, ruined. That was the face of a fool. A sob threatened to break free, but she choked it back, her nails digging into her scalp. How could she?

How could she fall in love with a man like him? A man who imposed silence in his home, who would have his mother trapped in loneliness. He was so cold and calculating and distant. Unfeeling. Worse than the mechanical wonders she had seen the stupid wound toys perform again and again, without a real soul.

No.

She was not that great of a fool. There had been moments when she saw the crack in his cold mask. He had thanked her and acknowledged everything she had done. He had saved her from being run over. He had listened,trulylistened, to her. And his touches…

She couldn’t be such a fool. She could tell that what they shared affected him, too.

Victoria knew why it hurt so bad. Why her heart broke in pieces. If it were because he was just a heartless man, she would feel anger, rage. Not this desolate, forlorn emptiness, this desperation, this bleeding. The truth was that between whatever it was he felt for her and duty, he had chosen duty.

“Victoria?” Annabelle was knocking on her door.

Victoria gritted her teeth. She had missed breakfast, and for sure, kind-hearted Annabelle would check on her. She would never worry her.

“Coming!”

Victoria wiped the tears that she pretended she didn’t shed. She checked herself in the vanity mirror. She looked respectable and believably sick, as she would claim to be.

She opened the door to her friend.

“You didn’t come down for breakfast,” Annabelle noted.

“I felt under the weather. You shouldn’t be here, Annabelle. What if you catch?—?”

Annabelle tilted her head. She knew Victoria was lying.

Annabelle was quiet, but she was no fool. Her soft demeanor was often mistaken for weakness, but she was anything but weak. She was observant, and she had probably noted that in all the time they had known each other, Victoria had never been ill. Denying it would raise the question as to why.

“How are you, Vicky?” Annabelle asked.

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