Page 77 of In Need of a Duke
The girl nudged her friend on the piano bench, finishing the song with a grand flourish before hopping to her feet and approaching Charlotte and Ian.
“Not so bad now, hmm, Duke?”
“It’s Your Grace, Miss Jones,” Charlotte corrected.
Ian chuckled. “Very… inspired.”
“Why, thank you for the lovely compliment on my playing,” she shouted so the teacher could hear.
“The office, Miss Jones,” the teacher reminded her. “The headmistress would like to speak with you.”
The girl slipped between them and made her way up to Lily’s office.
“I couldn’t help but think,” he said with a soft, low voice.
Charlotte tensed, hearing the sadness in his words. Her grief surged, then shattered, nearly overwhelming her.
He reached for her hand and squeezed, running his thumb over the back of her hand. “We might have had a daughter their age.”
She nodded, fighting back the tears burning her eyes. She somehow remained composed, but she was sure she couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. It was best never to think of that or what could have been. Especially when he had returned, and there were still so many possibilities in front of them of what could or couldn’t be.
“I don’t believe I can ever forgive you for that,” she whispered. “Leaving me when you did after what happened.” Tears swelled, then spilled on her cheeks.
She had only just celebrated her twenty-first birthday. They had both been so swept up in their romance that Charlotte had allowed passion to rule over reason, and she had made a terrible decision. One that left her with child. It hadn’t mattered when they were to be married in two months’ time anyhow.
But she had lost the baby two weeks later after telling him. And then everything fell apart between them. Weeks became months, and months became years, and Charlotte was left to carry that loss by herself.
“I don’t forgive myself.” He tugged them farther into the darkness of the hallway and away from the rest of the pupils. “And I won’t insult you by listing excuses. There is none for my behavior. I must have started a reply back to you a hundred times, but I couldn’t find the right words. There was nothing I wanted more, and… I never blamed you.”
“Anything would have been preferred to your silence. And then your absence. You left me when I needed you most, and then my parents—after Nathaniel swept in to help, and the rumors started.”
Charlotte would never forget lying in bed crying, bleeding as Lily and Kate held her, placating her as the rest of London buzzed about the sudden illness affecting the bride taking part in the wedding of the Season to the Duke of Dandridge.
“I love him,” she had cried over and over to Lily and Kate. They hadn’t asked for her to be strong, hadn’t shied away as the gossip roared through London. And had waited for Ian.
Waited for a letter to accompany the flowers that had first been sent. Waited for a visit, or an invitation to ride in Hyde Park once she had recovered. But instead, she found herself walking down the aisle of a London church toward him almost two months later, the small smile that he hid from the rest of the world missing as she approached. Only to be met by cold words and colder actions.
“I wanted that baby,” she whispered. “Even if it was a surprise, women in London have babies early all the time. I wanted that baby with you.”
He tipped her chin up and gazed down at her, the pain crushing her also visible there in his dark eyes.
“There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t hate myself for how I have treated you, Lottie. I understand that means little when you have suffered because of me. When I have been a blackguard and threw away what we had shared because I allowed the opinion of others tosway my head instead of me trusting my heart. Which was shattered. I was scared I would lose you then. Devastated to learn we had lost a baby.”
Once her mother had discovered what had happened, she remembered being shut in her room, not allowed to see Ian, who was furious and demanded to see her. He had pounded at the door, yelling she was to be his wife, and he had the right to make sure she was well. But her father had refused, and instead, she remained with her parents until her wedding day two months later.
Foolishly, she remembered through her shame that she would still have Ian in the end. But even he had turned on her, his wicked friend Lord Blackwell whispering that she had only agreed to bedsport to secure the title.
That hadn’t been true. She had been hopelessly and recklessly in love with him.
“What happens,” she asked, her voice trembling, “if I am unable to give you an heir? Will you leave me?”
He grabbed her hand between his and gently kissed her knuckles. “I never left you because of the baby. I allowed my own doubts and the opinions of others in my head before the wedding, and I am endlessly sorry I left when you needed me most.”
She remembered how nervous she had been to tell him about the baby. They were out for a ride in Hyde Park. And at the time, she thought the brilliant smile he had flashed her would be the same he would wear for her on the wedding day. She remembered how he nearly crashed the curricle as she told him, how he let go of the reins and embraced her, kissing her cheeks until she was crying from laughing.
“I have a surprise for you this evening. Please agree you will come.”
It wasn’t lost on her that he hadn’t answered, yet she couldn’t shake the hope springing up in her chest as he leaned in and pressed his thumb against her chin, tilting her gaze up to his.
