Page 59 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
Tears streaked her cheeks as she turned blindly, seeking the familiar refuge of her bedchamber and not the unfamiliar coldness of a husband she had come to want.
Everything would be easier if you hated me.
Perhaps she ought to give in to that desire—it would certainly be easy for her to hate him for the things he had said tonight. And yet, even though he had spoken in rage, with a clear desire to hurt her, all he had done was reveal his own pain.
That didn’t mean she forgave him for this. Not even close. But she would not close the door on him entirely. One final chance to show her what was wrong so she could help him.
And then, if he failed her again, she would close her heart and life to him once and for all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Alexander walked through the darkened gardens until the cold settled in his bones. No one, in all the years since Helena’s death, had possessed the audacity to bring her up in front of him. Much less as a taunt.
He had been on the verge of marrying her when consumption had her wasting away before his eyes. Powerless. All the plans for his future gone, before he had a chance to bring any of them into fruition. That loss had felt all the more poignant because of that fact: her youth, and the fact that he had lost her before ever experiencing a life with her.
Finally, cold to the bone, he stumbled back inside and went to the old room he had kept as a shrine to her memory. There, he tossed back two glasses of brandy and stared at a third before placing it very carefully down.
Wasthiswhat he wanted for himself?
He no longer knew what he wanted. The existence he had carved for himself after Helena’s death had been systematically destroyed by Lydia, and now he found himself wanting things he had never dared to want before.
Light. Love. Happiness. Things that, if he allowed himself, could be his.
If he lied to her.
Things would be easier if she hated him, so he would never have to know what he would lose when he told her the truth.
He reached for the letters Helena had sent him, the words a little faded now, the ink a little smudged. She had always written with such haste and closed the letters before the ink was fully dry. He’d often had to sit and decipher her words, because they had become so unclear.
These, however, he knew by heart.
I love you. Is that not an odd thing to write? I love you and I am excited for all the things we have yet to do together. You and I will become the best team I could ever conceive. Your father will not hold out against us forever. Once he relents and we can marry, we will be deliriously happy, I just know it! All we must do is hold out a little longer.
Alexander closed his eyes against the wave of fresh pain in his chest. Not so much grief for the life they could have sharedanymore, but grief that such a bright, wonderful girl had never known adulthood. She had never had the future she looked forward to with such anticipation; she had not felt the happiness she had believed could be hers.
For so long, he had felt as though he ought to punish himself for surviving when she could not. He had promised her happiness with him, and so, without her, he did not feel as though he should beallowedhappiness.
And for so long, the pain in his chest had ensured that he wasn’t. There could have been no chance of his happiness while he missed her so badly.
Then had come the laudanum, just so he could sleep, and a new cycle of pain began.
It was finally time to break the cycle once and for all.
Leaving the brandy where he was, he moved through the darkened house until he came to their bedchambers. But instead of entering his, he instead opened the door to Lydia’s. Enough time had passed that she was asleep now, her soft breaths sounding through the room.
He dropped to his knees by the side of her bed, pressing his forehead against the sheets as he listened to her breathe. The certainty that she was here. How many times had she promised that she was his wife and she would fight his battles with him? He had only ever repaid her with dismissals and pain.
“I’m so sorry…” he whispered, knowing she wouldn’t hear. It was better that way, anyway—better she never know just how much she had come to mean to him. “I have ruined your life in so many different ways. You deserve so much better than this lot you have been handed, and you ought to have had a better husband. One who did not marry you out of guilt. One who was not the cause of the greatest grief of your life.”
He looked down into her sleeping face. Sopeaceful… she was so peaceful when asleep, and all the troubles of the day had no hold on her. If she ever learned the truth about him, would she sleep as peacefully?
She stirred, eyelids fluttering, but only settled into another more comfortable position. Her breathing evened out again.
“I ought to leave you,” he murmured. “I know that is my duty, if I am to make things as easy on you as possible. My demons are not yours to bear, and my truth will destroy you as utterly as it is destroying me. But is that what’s best?” He searched her face, wishing he could find the answers there. “Would you prefer to know everything so you can choose whether to be my wife in name only and continue living here or leave and pursue an annulment? Or would you rather live in ignorance and settle into your life here, never truly knowing why I must always run from you?”
His guilt felt like a physical thing he carried, and he wished he could put it down, if just for a moment. When he rested his head against the bedsheets, she smelled familiar. A scent from his past he couldn’t quite place.
“What am I to do…” he muffled. “The path forward has not been clear since you arrived. For the first time in years, you made me hope. But for what? What good can come of this marriage, Lydia?”
