Page 67 of His Auctioned Duchess
Caroline’s pulse thundered in her ears. Her mind spun with the revelation.
Richard’s voice came again, quieter, colder. “You ruined me for love?”
“For survival,” Jasper said hoarsely. “For once in my life, I wanted to breathe without your shadow on my throat. But now you’re back again, overshadowing everything. You have a perfect bride, even Louisa is too happy to see you. You’re pushing me to the sidelines once more and I will not have it. I shall shame you as you have always shamed me.”
Richard’s hands clenched at his sides. Caroline saw the struggle flicker across his face—the soldier’s instinct for vengeance warring with the man’s need for control.
“Get out,” he said finally, the words edged with steel. “Before I forget that we share blood.”
The crowd murmured approval, the ton’s hunger for drama momentarily sated. It might have ended there—had Louisa not risen.
Louisa rose slowly, her face as pale as the marble pillars that lined the chapel.
The sound of her movement silenced the murmurs for a moment. All heads turned, and even the musicians, startled, lowered their bows. She looked fragile, trembling—yet her voice, when it came, carried through the air like a thread drawn taut.
“Stop,” she said.
Jasper froze mid-breath.
“Enough.”
Her eyes glistened, but her spine remained straight. She took a step forward, the hem of her gown whispering across the stone floor. The candlelight trembled with her movement, flickering over the curve of her face—a face beautiful still, but marked with sorrow.
“Jasper,” she said again, softer now, “you’ve said enough.”
The congregation held its collective breath. Even Richard, who had not yet moved from his place before the altar, looked at her as if seeing a ghost from another life.
Louisa’s gaze swept from Jasper to him, the conflict in her expression raw and unmistakable.
“I cannot let this go unanswered,” she said, her voice shaking. “The truth belongs to us all—not only to you.”
She clasped her hands before her, as though to keep them from trembling.
“You speak of betrayal,” she continued, turning to Jasper, “but you forget the rest. You forget that I loved you even when I was bound by duty to the Duke. Our families had made arrangements, but it was you I wanted. I begged you to bepatient, to let time grant us peace. And yet you destroyed everything instead.”
The ton gasped. A few women pressed handkerchiefs to their lips.
Louisa turned to Richard then, her eyes filled with tears. “You never knew why, did you? You believed the world had taken you—and perhaps, in a way, it had. But it was not the sea, nor fate. It was him, because of me.”
Her voice broke on the final word.
Richard’s stare did not soften. If anything, it became harder—not with cruelty, but with the weight of all he could not yet say.
Caroline’s breath came shallow beside him. Each revelation landed like a blow. She had seen Richard as ruthless, impenetrable—the Devil of the Ton. But this? This was a wound that had never healed.
Louisa drew herself up, her chin trembling. “I never wanted your ruin, Richard. I swear it. I wanted only freedom—and love. But neither of us were given that choice.”
Her hand went to her abdomen almost unconsciously then—a small, instinctive gesture.
The motion drew Richard’s attention at once. His eyes followed the movement, his frown deepening.
Louisa hesitated only a moment before lifting her chin and speaking again, her voice suddenly quiet but clear enough to pierce the noise.
“I am with child.”
The words fell like thunder.
A hundred whispers burst into speech, gasps rising from every corner. Fans snapped shut with sharp, accusing cracks. The string quartet faltered into silence.
