Page 75 of His Auctioned Duchess
“Retreat is sometimes the most strategic move.”
“I think you overestimate my generalship.”
He leaned back, folding his arms. “Perhaps. But you underestimate his fear.”
She looked up sharply. “Fear?”
“Yes,” John said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “It takes courage to fight for what one wants. He let you go not because you deserved freedom, but because he was afraid—afraid that you would see too much of him.”
Caroline stared into the fire, the light flickering in her eyes. “Then he succeeded, for I saw too much indeed.”
John stood and rested a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Sleep, Caro. Nothing seems clear at night.”
When he left, she did not move for a long time. The fire burned low, the rain softened to a steady patter, and still she sat there, the ghost of his last words haunting her.
At length, she rose and crossed to her drawing desk. Her reflection in the mirror above it startled her—pale, hollow-eyed, a woman older than she had been that morning. She drew out a piece of paper and a pen, the motion slow, deliberate.
She began to write.
Your Grace,
I have nothing to say that you have not already decided for yourself. You told me that I was free. I suppose I should thank you for it, though it feels more like exile than liberty.
She stopped, the nib trembling. The ink blotted, spreading like a bruise. She stared at it for a long time before crumpling the page and tossing it into the fire.
Freedom, it seemed, was not nearly as simple as she had imagined.
Richard stood in his study, a decanter of brandy untouched beside him, the fire casting jagged shadows across his face. The servants had retreated to distant corners of the house,whispering of the scene at the chapel, of the duke’s fury, of the bride who had fled.
He ignored them all.
His reflection in the darkened window stared back—hard, unfamiliar, eyes hollow. He hated it.
The glass trembled faintly beneath his hand as he leaned forward, the rain distorting his reflection further until it looked almost monstrous.You frightened her, he told himself.You frightened yourself.
The memory came unbidden: her voice calling his name, the tremor in her hands as she touched him. She had stopped him. No one else could have.
And he had repaid her by sending her away.
Richard straightened, the motion abrupt. He turned to the piano at the far end of the room, the one he had not touched since before the wedding. The sight of it made something twist in his chest. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he crossed to it and sat down.
His fingers hovered over the keys but did not play. For the first time in years, he could not summon music. The silence pressed heavily against his skull.
A single candle guttered beside him, its flame bending in the draft. He watched the wax drip down its length and murmured to the empty room, “She’s better without me.”
The words rang hollow even to his own ears.
He dropped his hands to his knees, fists clenching. “Better without me,” he repeated, softer this time, as if repetition might make it true. But when he closed his eyes, he saw her face—defiant, trembling, luminous even in anger.
He rose abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. The brandy still waited, but he ignored it. He needed air.
Outside, the rain had softened to mist. The garden glistened under the faint light of the moon. He found himself walking toward the path where they had stood earlier that day. The crushed petals still marked where her train had dragged, faint ghosts of color in the mud.
He stopped beside the branch where her veil had caught. It still hung there, sodden and pale. He reached up, fingers brushing the damp silk, and for a moment he could almost imagine she stood beside him again, scolding his silence, daring him to feel.
The veil slipped from the branch into his hand.
He stared at it for a long moment, the delicate lace heavy with rain, before bringing it to his chest.
