Seducing the Duchess (32 page)
Read Seducing the Duchess Online
Authors: Ashley March
“I won’t let you go.” His syllables were clipped. Harsh.
Her breath caught. “What?”
He began to dress, his movements abrupt as he fastened his trousers. “There will be no divorce.”
The cold crept into her blood, traveled to her chest, and seized her heart with dread. The sound of her pulse filled her ears, the pounding so loud she could barely hear her own voice. He stared at her while he pulled on his coat. Perhaps she hadn’t spoken, only thought she had. She cleared her throat and tried again. “The petition,” she began. “You agreed—”
“I lied.” He shrugged, then laughed hollowly. “I thought if I could make you love me again, then you wouldn’t want the divorce any longer.”
She shook all over. Her arms. Her legs. Even her teeth chattered inside her head. She tried wrapping her arms around her waist to get warm, but it didn’t work.
Nothing had changed. Everything he’d said—they were just words.
She had known better, but she had let herself believe him. And now she was twice the fool.
She heard herself speak as if from far away, the tone devoid of emotion, empty. Exactly like her. “I love you, Philip. I loved you when I was a little girl. I loved you when you took revenge on Ethan by marrying me. I loved you all these years when you ignored me. And I love you still. But,
God
—”
God
—”
Her voice broke, and a tear splashed onto her cheek. She dashed it away. Straightening, she looked him in the eye. So familiar, and yet a stranger. “I love you. But I hate you so much more.”
She glanced past his shoulder, at the sunlight beginning to stream through the curtains. Somehow it seemed fitting that the world should continue merrily along while her heart was breaking.
“Good-bye, Your Grace.”
Letting Charlotte walk out the door should have been the most difficult thing he’d ever done.
Instead, it was frighteningly easy.
After all, he was a duke. A duke did not create scenes. A duke did not behave improperly or act on the will of his emotions.
Philip had forgotten this before. He would do well not to do so again.
All he had to do was act according to the standards to which he was raised, as if nothing could affect him. It was the perfect solution to any situation.
And so Philip stood in his study for a long while after Charlotte left, unmoving. Statue still.
He forced himself to breathe, to inhale the faint scent of jasmine, a lingering impression of her presence. If he stared at the carved-wood door long enough, he imagined he could see her again, standing there. Dark hair tousled, eyes wide with hurt, then disbelief, anger, and finally . . . nothing.
No, that wasn’t quite true. He’d seen plenty of loathing in her eyes. She’d never become as adept as he at hiding her emotions.
Unfortunately for him.
If only she knew how unnecessary it was; he possessed enough self-loathing to compensate for any lack on her part.
He listened to the floor creak above him, the sound of swift footsteps pattering across—Charlotte’s maid, no doubt, hurrying to do her bidding.
He might have half an hour before she departed, back to London and her throng of admirers. How they would welcome her, inviting her to their debauched gatherings, spouting praise for her beauty, daring to touch her hand, her shoulder—
Philip strode from the room and marched up the stairs, smiling grimly as he imagined smashing his fist into the face of every man who had ever made the mistake of being seen with Charlotte. She was still his. And she mattered more than a litany of phrases about what dukes should or should not do.
He would begin with Denby. He had enjoyed having Charlotte sit in his lap far too much. The portly sod.
Philip rapped on the door of Charlotte’s bedchamber. When no answer was forthcoming, he pressed his ear to the wood. He heard her clipped tones, then the soft response of a servant.
“Charlotte,” he called.
The voices grew silent, then began again as loud as before.
So she thought to ignore him, did she?
He turned the knob. It was his house, after all, and he would enter as he pleased. The knock had been a mere courtesy.
Except that the door was locked.
Grumbling, he walked through his own bedchamber and headed for the door between their rooms. When he twisted the knob and found that it, too, was locked, Denby earned another blackened eye in his imagination.
He retrieved the door’s key, remembering with acute clarity how the man’s gaze had been firmly attached to the expanse of Charlotte’s bosom.
The key clicked loudly, and although it was probably entirely unnecessary to announce his presence, Philip still sent the door crashing into the wall.
She had dressed quickly. It was one of her old dresses—had she hidden it away?—a buttery yellow color which accented the smooth white gleam of her skin. A great amount of which was exposed by the low neckline and short sleeves.
At Charlotte’s startled curse, he arched a brow and dangled the key from his fingertips. Her lips pursed, but all she did was turn back to her maid and the open valise before her.
“Leave us,” he ordered.
The maid didn’t hesitate before scurrying away through the open door.
Charlotte rounded on him, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing. “Can you not leave me be?”
“I should think that answer would be obvious.” Scowling, she marched to the armoire and yanked it open.
“You will have no other lovers,” he announced.
She paused in the middle of pulling out a dark blue gown. Then she began to laugh, a low chuckle that continued on and on, the sound almost maniacal.
“Why are you laughing?” he demanded.
Still she continued, the gown falling to pool on the floor by her feet.
Philip closed the distance between them, put his hand on her shoulder, and turned her around. “Charlotte—”
His hand dropped away at the cold scorn in her eyes.
She stopped laughing and lifted her chin. “Do not worry, Your Grace. There will be no other lovers. There has never been anyone but you. You see, unlike some, I understand faithfulness.”
His stomach clenched. “I saw you. I saw you enter Lord Chalmsey’s house. I watched from my carriage. You didn’t leave until late the next morning.”
She tilted her head and tapped her finger to her mouth. “Oh, yes, dear Chalmsey. He let me sleep on the sofa in the library when I claimed to be too ill from spirits to return home. Or to accompany him to his bed. He even threatened to call for a physician. Chalmsey’s actually one of the more honorable ones. Lord Mayfield, however, once tried to force himself upon me when I pretended to be too drunk.”
Denby was immediately lowered on Philip’s mental list, replaced by Mayfield. No, that wouldn’t do. Another list was needed, specifically for those he intended to disembowel.
“I trust he didn’t succeed,” Philip growled.
“Indeed not. I kneed him in the groin.”
He growled again.
“It wasn’t as difficult as you might think,” she continued. “I merely confirmed a few rumors, and then any man who wanted others to think he had made a conquest of me began his own rumor. I simply never contradicted them. And I continued to act like a harlot, as if it were all true. So you would agree to a divorce.”
She looked up at him then—a quick glance—then down again. “But none of it was true,” she said softly. “And you didn’t care, anyway.”
“I
did
care,” he countered fiercely. “I hated seeing you with one man after another. With any man but me. I wanted to kill each and every one of them for daring to dance with you, to touch you.”
did
care,” he countered fiercely. “I hated seeing you with one man after another. With any man but me. I wanted to kill each and every one of them for daring to dance with you, to touch you.”
But there had been a time when he hadn’t cared about anything she did, when he only scoffed at her attempts to provoke him. It had been easier to ignore her, just as it was easier to ignore his conscience.
Her silence told him that she remembered that time as well.
She gathered the gown into her arms. “I almost took a lover.” She said it matter-of-factly, without the slightest hint of taunting in her tone.
He quickly forgot his transgressions as a black rage consumed him. “Who?”
She shook her head, went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “But I couldn’t. I was to send for him, but when the time came, I ...”
“What, Charlotte?” he pressed. “Tell me.”
“I could only think of you.” She paused, staring ahead. “I hated you for that.”
“Because you love me.”
“Yes.”
He was the only man she had ever known.
Realizing that he was the only man who had ever possessed her, slept with her in his embrace—it sent a primal thrill running through him, an uncivilized joy he’d known before only in her arms.
It was humbling to realize she loved him so deeply. That even after he had betrayed her in so many ways, she had remained faithful to him. He would never deserve her, no matter what he might do to try to atone for his deeds.
But surely, if they loved one another, he could convince her not to leave. He grasped Charlotte’s elbow to help her stand again.
She tensed beneath his touch. “Release me.” Her voice shook.
He withdrew his arm, but stepped toward her. “Stay, Charlotte. I love—”
She lurched away from him, crashing into the armoire. “Can’t you see?” she cried. “It doesn’t matter. I thought it would—God, how I wished all these years I could have been someone different, someone better—then you might have loved me.”
He reached for her, needing somehow to bridge the distance she was trying to put between them. “I was blind. A fool. I—”
“Stop. Just stop, Philip.” She skirted around him, laid the gown beside the valise.
He followed her movements, crisp and efficient, as she paired the sleeves together, then carefully began to fold the top over the skirts.
Something settled in his chest, something hard and heavy. “I will not beg,” he said finally.
“I wouldn’t expect you to.”
And somehow he knew even if he did, it wouldn’t make a difference. She would still leave.
A thick silence pervaded the room as she continued to pack. She took everything, filling one valise after another. An assortment of bandboxes, three trunks—all of her belongings, including everything he had bought for her, disappeared into their vast depths.
It was as if she didn’t want to leave anything behind. As if she never planned to return.
“You must take the harp,” he said.
She stilled. “It’s too big.”
“Then I will send another coach with you.” He couldn’t bear to have it here. Even if he didn’t enter the music room, he would know it was there, untouched, un-played. And he would believe she might come back to Ruthven. He would torment himself by imagining Charlotte as she sat at the harp, strumming the strings with her fingers, her head bent just so.
“If you don’t take it, I shall have it destroyed.”
She dipped her head. “Very well.”
Philip breathed again.
Once she closed the last trunk, he walked to the door opening onto the corridor and unlocked it. Then he rang the servants’ bell.
Her maid appeared immediately. The girl must have been waiting just outside. Hovering, no doubt. Hoping to overhear their conversation.
In the past, Philip would have dismissed a servant for such an offense. Now, he couldn’t find the interest to care. “Have Fallon prepare the carriage and another coach. Send someone to carry Her Grace’s baggage. She is ready to depart.”
The maid curtsied, her eyes wide, and slipped away.
“She seems well mannered,” he commented idly. “What is her name?”
“Anne. She’s been my lady’s maid for two years.” Her tone implied he should have known this.
“Hmm. Is she the one who dresses your hair?”
“My hair?”
“Yes.” He made a whirling motion at the back of his head. “I like when she does this.”
Charlotte looked at him as if he had momentarily lost his mind, her brow wrinkling. “A bun. You like when she puts my hair into a bun.”
“Yes. It’s very pretty.”
“Oh.” She lifted her hand as if she would pat her hair, then slowly lowered it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
And that was the extent of the only conversation they had until the footmen came to carry her belongings outside.
There was nothing left to say.
They watched together as the footmen trekked in and out of the bedchamber. The valises, bandboxes, and trunks disappeared. Philip counted each of them in his head. He memorized their shapes, their colors, the small details which distinguished each from the other—the stripes of red on one bandbox, a pattern of leaves on another.
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