Page 74 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
People were staring. Tittering behind false smiles and fluttering fans. He felt the hot press of the sun on his head and the sickening twist of shame in his gut. More foolish of him for thinking he could so easily move past everything that had happened.
So much for restoring his reputation.
Frederick dragged himself away from Alice’s clutching hands as he went in search for his aunt, but to his relief, she found him first.
“Oh, there you are!” she greeted, before taking his arm and glancing around them. “What have you been saying? Everyone is talking about the way you forced Alice to the altar and brutalized her into agreeing to marry you?”
The dread coalesced into something far more horrifying. The pain punched him in the gut, stealing his breath.
If people were saying that, it meantAlicehad told them so. No one else knew of their situation; they knew about the rumors, and that he had married her to save her reputation, but notthat she had been so utterly opposed to the marriage at the beginning. And even if they had suspected such a thing because of her behavior when she first became his wife, there was no reason for it to be brought back up now.
“Is this revenge?” he choked out. “To pay me back for how I wronged her?”
“Frederick, take a moment, dear.” His aunt’s hands gripped his wrists, her hold surprisingly strong, even with her ruined hand. “Think this through. Why would she do that when you have finally been getting along?”
“I—I don’t know. I thought—” He hadtrustedher. Thought that she would never hurt him likethis.
The part of him still dipped in guilt whispered that hedeservedthis. If she was to ruin his reputation once and for all, it was the least he deserved for ruining her life.
But she had made him feel as though she might think otherwise about him now. And he had come to rely on that knowledge.
Heaven help him, he had come to love her, and this was how she repaid him.
“Take a breath,” his aunt said. “You don’t know anything.”
“She’s drunk,” he muttered, reality burning him, a match to a wick. The flames scorched his very soul. “Why else would shedrink so gratuitously here and now if not to destroy me? She knew how much this meant to me—she knew it would—” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Take her home,” his aunt advised. “Let her sleep it off and see what she says in the morning. For now, I will ask around and see what is being said.”
Frederick turned his back and strode blindly for his carriage, ignoring everyone who called after him.
In one fell swoop, Alice had wrecked everything he had worked toward, and he did not think he could ever be the same again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Frederick turned the pages of Alice’s journal as he waited for her to awaken. It was wrong of him to snoop, he knew, but the pages had been lying open on her desk, a reminder of everything she felt toward him.
All the anger. The resentment.
Every ink splatter confirmed it.
She had written this in a state of grief and sorrow and desperation, and each word cemented her true feelings.
She could not forgive him. She blamed him for her parents’ deaths.
All his kindness could not overturn her heartbreak.
The sight of her pain made his own worse, and he put the diary to one side, resisting the urge to rip it to pieces. He had done this to himself. All of this. It was not her fault that she could not forgive him, but his for believing she ever could.
He sat back in the uncomfortable chair beside her bed and waited for her to sleep off the worst of the alcohol.
Alice woke to a dry throat and a pounding head. She rolled over, reaching out a hand, propping herself up as she scrubbed at her eyes. Her insides felt as though they had been scraped raw by a wire brush, and she still felt traces of nausea in her system.
What had happened?
She searched her memory, but all she could recall was Charlotte saying she would bring back some lemonade. After that, the world turned into a blurry haze.
Some flashes were clearer than others.
