Page 80 of Married to the Forbidden Duke
She paused for a moment to allow the wave of hurt to pass through her. Perhaps this was childish, but she would not share her home with a ghost, and he had made his preference plain.
Right now, I don’t think I can be around you.
Perhaps in time, they could find their way back to something approaching harmony. But for now, he couldn’t be around her, and she was not the type to force the issue. All it would do was hurt them both even more.
She had her pride if nothing else.
The carriage rattled across the road as she headed out of London to her aunt and uncle’s estate. If she arrived at their London home, she had no doubt her aunt would send her back home to ‘put things right’. Never mind that she had tried to no avail.
Besides, she didn’t want to disrupt Harriet and her Season. After all, if they had wanted anything to do with her, they’d had plenty of opportunity. But once she arrived at the estate, no one would turn her away.
The journey passed by in a heady blur.
The hurt in her stomach grumbled like toothache as she finally traveled down the gravel path to the old manor house that had been her prison for so many years.
As she limped through the front door, held wide by an incredulous steward—most of the staff had traveled with her aunt and uncle down to London—she reflected on everything that had brought her here.
“I’ll see to it that the servants know what they’re about,” Jenny declared with rare fire, helping Alice up the stairs to her old room. That, at least, was neat and kept dusted. Thank goodness for small mercies.
“Thank you, Jenny,” Alice sighed.
“There is no need to thank me, Your Grace. I am always on your side, come what may.” She bobbed a quick curtsy, and Alice was left with her thoughts.
She thought back to the note she had left for Frederick. He would find it when he next entered her bedchamber—she had instructed the servants not to give it to him.
Now, all she could do was wait to see what Frederick would do—and how long it would take him to discover her missing.
The days passed as though they were trapped in glue.
Seconds, minutes, hours, all stretching far longer than they should.
Frederick barely slept during the night, drinking too much to forget, then hating himself for the wooziness the alcohol brought on. After his confrontation with Alice, she had retreated from him entirely, and in case she attempted to speak with him, he endeavored to keep out of the house.
Still, though he knew it was wrong of him, he missed her. The feel of her soft body in his arms, breathing slowly as she trusted him enough to let go of her inhibitions.
How could someone like that betray him so maliciously? It was as though he was looking at two different people.
Nothing about it made sense.
He felt haunted by the loss of her, though he had been the one to remove himself.
Almost a week after their confrontation, he was in the library, drinking by the fireplace and half wondering if she would come in to speak with him—anticipating it and dreading it in equal measure—when the butler came to the door.
“Mrs. Charlotte Norburry,” he declared.
“I don’t know a Mrs. Norburry,” Frederick said with a wave of his hand. “I presume she’s here to see Alice?”
“Her Grace is not in.”
That got Frederick’s attention. He stiffened, looking from the glass in his hand to his butler’s face. “What do you mean she is not in? Is she not upstairs?”
The butler’s lips pinched, and Frederick had a terrible suspicion his world was coming crashing down on top of him. Nothing good came from an expression like that.
“Then whereisshe?” he snarled. “Am I not to know where my own wife went?” He stormed to the door. “Tell me where she is, Wilson.”
“Your Grace—”
A blonde lady came into view from behind the butler, tears streaked down her face. “Your Grace,” she muttered on a sob. “I think she left because of me.”
