Page 66 of In Need of a Duke
“No need. All London will read about your behavior in the gossip rags in the morning. Madame Gaillot is the most popular modiste in London.”
“Then I shall endeavor to find you a new modiste. One who treats you?—”
“I only want to return to Stonehurst.” She smiled at a passing couple, waving hello before turning back to him, the false cheeriness fading from sight. “I never should have agreed to London or to the summer. I can’t do this. With you. I don’t know why I believed I could.”
“Try,” he said, reaching for her hand.
But Charlotte didn’t budge. “I fear you lost me long before now. And whatever magic we found before we married is a memory. You can’t keep chasing a memory, Ian. You ignored it long enough, and some things cannot remain as they were forever simply because you wish them to.”
He rubbed his hand across his mouth and studied her. He could fix this, he could find his way to her heart, and he wasn’t prepared to let go so easily.
“Then we will make new memories, you and I.”
Ian stormedinto his club in an absolutely foul mood an hour later.
He needed to win back his wife. Not win her back in name, but win back her heart. But that felt years and years away with how she continued to push him aside. When he returned, he had hoped the independence she had found during his absence would have been enough to soothe the hurt of leaving as he had.
But his time apart had only drawn the divide between them further. Independence or not, he had left his new bride, and he had foolishly believed the gossip of others over the love of his wife.
And the damnedest thing was, after this morning at the modiste,he craved for it again. To be held in that light of hers, to witness her smile and hear her laugh, and know he was responsible for bringing that joy to the surface.
“The duchess is driving you away already, Dandridge?” joked an old Eton buddy, now the Viscount Blackwell.
Since they had last seen one another, the viscount’s face had turned to all harsh angles. His cheekbones only drew more notice to his green eyes with enlarged black pupils, hollow cheeks bracketed by blond mutton chops, and thin lips.
It was startling to see.
Ian grumbled, plopping down into the leather club chair and removing a cheroot from his jacket pocket as a fire crackled nearby.
“Maybe it’s time to find a mistress in London…”
He glanced toward his old friend, annoyed London was still very much involved in his marriage.
“Tell me, Blackwell.” He grabbed the brandy handed to him by the server, then downed two large gulps in a desperate attempt to gain some footing. “Why are you concerned about my wife and me?”
“I was only making an observation. You don’t look well, and I heard about her accident.”
“Hmm,” he gave a heartless chuckle. “Accident.” As if that even began to describe what had happened.
“I know there have been rumors. Are you suggesting it was not?”
Ian drained his glass, then took another drag of his cheroot. “I nearly buried her.”
Once, Blackwell had almost been dismissed from Eton after cheating on his exams. Ian had pleaded with the headmaster to allow him to stay, eventually getting his father involved until Blackwell was allowed to remain. Over the years, the two friends had drifted apart, as only natural when Blackwell continued recklessly chasing friends’ wives and opium and gambling away a family fortune that also wasn’t his to begin with.
Blackwell sat up, dark circles under his eyes. It was only then Ian noticed his friend had likely been out all night given his state of undress.
“I can’t believe it. You’ve always been smarter out of the two of us. I didn’t expect you to be so foolish as to fall in love with your wife. Love matches are what debutantes dream of, not dukes.”
“How would you know?”
His friend waggled his brow, then reached into his coat for a vial, before pouring out opium powder into his glass. He offered it to Ian, but he refused, never liking the stuff.
“Women love titles, but above all else, the purse strings that come along with such a prize. As you well know.”
That very thought had wedged its way into his heart when he was younger, taking root after his first engagement when he went against his father’s advice. He had ignored it again when he married Charlotte. But he had done so because he had been just as hopelessly obsessed with her as he was now. The only difference was he had believed the gossip that she had trapped him into the marriage.
He hadn’t trusted himself to know if he had found love.
