Page 18 of In Need of a Duke
Unless she left.
“You’re shaking, Your Grace.”
I have nowhere else to go.
She could return to London or travel to the Continent, perhaps. Or maybe she would visit Kate in Scotland. She would love to see her dear friend and hadn’t since the news reached of her marriage to Gabriel MacInnes.
It was like the plot of a Gothic novel, fleeing a dastardly villain to seek safety in a Scottish castle.
But if it allowed Charlotte room and space to breathe, she must consider it.
“I am cold,” she whispered instead, staring ahead at the dark-green rectangle on the wall where a portrait had once hung. “You were able to bring my paintings as well?”
“I am nothing if not efficient, Your Grace.”
Any other time, Charlotte would have laughed. Susan had been far too kind in light of the duke’s behavior toward her since their wedding. But now, the familiar numbness crept in. It was an all-consuming darkness that wrapped around her and pulled her away from the small joys of life. Leaving her alone.
She hated to be alone.
“You are too kind to me, Susan.”
“I am only doing my duty, Your Grace.”
Her lady’s maid helped her finish dressing, then escorted her into the duke’s room.
“Are you certain you wish to stay?”
Charlotte peered around, then heard a knock at the door from the hallway.
“Let me in, Charlotte,” the duke said, his voice a calm, menacing threat. “Don’t make a scene.”
But what he really meant was don’t ask for more, go back to where you belong, and do as I say.
He had been the one who left, but she had remained all these years, waiting. Doing exactly as he had wished, playing the part of the dutiful duchess. Even when he left and she had to endure the hushed whispers and tittered laughter, explaining over and again that he wouldn’t be attending. And knowing full well she had been invited purely because she was a duchess. How she had to keep her features the perfect mask when asked about her husband, and she had no news to share, again. But worse was enduring the gossip that, after eight years, there was still no heir, and Charlotte was left to pretend as if it didn’t affect her.
When all she wished for was a child of her own.
Once, she was certain she had loved this man.
“Open up.”
She glanced at the closed door as a shiver raced down her back. Making a stand rarely ever worked with the duke, and she didn’t have the strength this evening to fight.
Charlotte wiped at her face and grabbed the portrait off the wall, shaking her head. “No, let him in after I leave, Susan.”
With each step closer to her old room, it felt as if her heart was splintering open once more. Each step was a resigned acknowledgment of her fate. Her mother had been so proud to see Charlotte engaged to the duke. But when her parents disowned her after the wedding, that pride had tarnished to shame. Their perfect daughter only had a pretty story because the reality of it was anything less than perfect. The duke had left after their wedding and in his place, his rakish younger brother had spent too much time with her.
It was bad enough thetonthought she might have trapped the duke into marrying her by pretending to be with child. They hadn’t known the truth, which made it all the more bittersweet. There had been no baby after he left. But then London society had become cruel, saddling her with the moniker Honey Duchess because, in hergrief, she had found support in an unlikely source—his brother, Nathaniel.
Charlotte turned and locked the door to her dressing room, resting against it as she heard Susan open the door to the duke’s room, allowing him in.
“Where is she?” he asked.
Always the picture of calm the duke, even if his voice was laced with ice.
“She has retired to her old bedchamber.”
“I need to speak with her.”
