Page 91 of The Beast of Beswick
“No thanks needed.”
“Thane,” she said, a familiar sense of dread filling her veins at his remoteness. “Talk to me. What’s the matter?”
“Your sister deserves to be happy,” he said so softly that she had to strain to hear. “As do you.”
“Iamhappy.”
He looked at her then, and the raw agony visible in his eyes for a single heartbeat before it was shuttered nearly drove her to her knees. “No, Astrid. The truth is you’re settling. You only married me to protect her, not because I was what you wanted. You deserve more. You deserve someone you truly want. Someone youchoosewithout an anvil hanging over your head. I thought I could do this, that I couldhaveyou, but I can’t.”
His neutral words were like daggers.
“I don’t understand. I thought we were beyond this. We agreed in your study to give us a chance.”
“We made a mistake,” he rasped. “I made a mistake. Look at Roth and your sister—that’s what marriage should look like. The beauty gets the prince. That’s how this tale should end.”
“This isn’t a fairy tale, Thane. This is real life.”
“Exactly.”
Astrid gasped at the sudden, acute pain in her chest. Didn’t the daft man understand?Hewas the only one for her. She didn’t want a prince; she never had. No, she wanted the man who made her laugh, who challenged her intelligence, who matched her on every fundamental level.
She was aware of their avid audience, though she couldn’t begin to focus on any of them. The only one who had her attention was the man who was intent on smashing her heart into pieces. “Why are you doing this, Thane?”
“Because what we have isn’t real, Astrid. You’ve become infatuated with a man who was little more than your jailor, and no matter how much we pretend, we cannot argue how this all began. I release you from our bargain.”
She stared at him. At his overtlies. Did he truly believe them? “You’rewrongand you know it. You were never my jailor. You never kept me prisoner. I stormed into your life, when you categorically pushed me away. I chose this because it’s whatIwant.”
“You chose it to save Isobel.”
She faltered. “Well, at first, yes. But, Thane, you know this is so much more than that.”
“I was never meant for marriage. You’re more than I could ever deserve. I mean to petition Parliament for a divorce decree, on account that you were coerced into marriage under false pretenses. You did marry a beast, after all, and no one can fault you for wanting to escape that.”
He growled at the people no longer trying to hide their stares and strode from the room before she could form a reply.
Adivorce?
Astrid wanted to rail and scream, but beyond the hurt, deep down a part of her understood his skewed reasoning. The Duke of Beswick had never felt like he deserved her love. He’d saved her sister, and now he thought he was saving her…by letting her go. A divorce was unheard of in the peerage, though one would be granted for a duke, and Thane fully intended for the shame of it to be his. This proud, broken man who shied away from polite society was pushing her away by humbling and humiliating himself.
Her heart clenched.
Oh, Thane.
Astrid pushed through the twittering crowd, ignoring the pitying glances, and caught Mabel’s eye where she stood with Lady Hammerton, her hands pressed to her mouth, eyes brimming with tears. She must have heard, along with half the guests in the ballroom. Astrid fought back her own tears, but she couldn’t afford to become derailed by emotion.
She had to get to the daft man before he rode off to London.
She had to stop him and set him straight.
With a quick wave of farewell to the duchess, Astrid made her way to the front of the enormous ballroom, only to be waylaid by a looming figure. At first, she thought it was her husband, but when he stepped into the light, she groaned.
“What do you want, Beaumont?”
“You did this,” he hissed.
Astrid pinched her lips thin. She’d had enough with men telling her things were her fault, making decisionsforher, and trampling all over her. For once, she took a page from the duke’s book and straightened her spine, uncaring of who heard her in the ballroom. This man had silenced her before. Hell if she’d let it happen again.
“No, Beaumont,youdid this.”
