Page 101 of Duke with a Deception
“I understand that you loved him,” he forced out, even if the acknowledgment brought with it a pain all its own. “But that does not mean that you cannot also love me. It doesn’t mean that we cannot have our own happiness, our own life together.”
Tears started to fall on her cheeks, her expression stricken.
“There is this tremendous guilt inside me, eating me alive. If I stay, I will never be able to forgive myself. I need time to work through everything that has happened in my mind, but I must be alone. There have been so many people surrounding me from the moment I awoke after the fire, telling me what I shouldremember, keeping me from the past, but now I need quiet and space. I need to find myself.”
“Find yourself here,” he entreated, “in my arms, where you belong.”
“It isn’t that easy,” she said, her tone mournful. “The old Verity wanted one thing, and the new Verity wanted something vastly different. I am not either one of those Veritys any longer, but a new one, a union of the two. I need to understand how to live with myself, to know what I truly want.”
He heaved a sigh, frustrated with himself for failing to tell her sooner. He had brought this on himself, and there was no one else at fault.
“I hope you can also come to understand how to live with me,” he told her quietly. “Because I cannot live without you, Verity. I need you and Emma in my life, and I am begging you, here and now, not to leave me. Stay. Stay so that we can work through this together.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I cannot. I’m sorry, but staying is impossible.”
Everything within him, every possessive instinct he had, screamed at him to stop her. To take her in his arms and carry her away so that she couldn’t leave him. But he had already taken away too much from her, and he had to honor her wishes, even if it killed him.
He nodded. “If that is how you feel, then I shan’t trouble you with my presence any longer. I bid you safe travels, madam.”
He sketched an ironic bow, and then, with a muffled sob, the woman he loved turned her back on him, rushing out the door. She left him standing alone in the entryway, the silence crushing.
With great difficulty, he gathered his composure, fighting the tears and the pain. Devastation was nothing new to him.
Everyone he had ever loved had left him, either through death or because of his own actions. First Daphne, then his beloved dog Spy, now Verity and little Emma.
Gone.
He moved to the front window and watched as Verity stepped up into the carriage and the door closed. Watched as his coachman urged the horses into motion. As the conveyance pulled away, into the street.
Watched and waited for her to change her mind. To order the carriage to be turned around.
But that didn’t happen. The carriage kept ambling away, until it rounded a bend and slipped out of sight. Only then did King leave his vigil, stalking to his study and slamming the door at his back.
Once inside, he destroyed every piece of furniture, each bric-a-brac, every glass and bottle and even tables and chairs, tearing pictures from the walls, until nothing was left but King, the ruined room, and his marrow-deep despair.
CHAPTER 19
My darlingangelwife,
I know that you asked for time and distance from me, and I cannot blame you. I am writing you a letter that I have no intention of sending. Rather, I shall save it instead. Perhaps one day, if you can forgive me, it may fall beneath your eye. Perhaps you shall never see it. But there are words and emotions that I must somehow convey in the hope that it shall render it easier to exist in your absence. For the moment you left, it was as if all life fled with you.
Regardless of what is to come, what I would have you know, above all else, is that I love you. I know now that I have loved you from the moment I saw you weeping in that alcove at Riverdale’s ball. You were—and remain—the most beautiful womanI have ever known, in every possible way. But it wasn’t your beauty that drew me to you that evening. Rather, it was your heart. Your heart is true, loyal, and all that is good, whilst mine was ravaged, desiccated, and dead until you brought it back to life.
I do not deserve you. Nor shall I ever. However, I continue to hope that you may return to me.
Until then, I am ever yours,
King
“His Grace, the Duke of Riverdale, to see you, Your Grace,” Pierpont announced.
Again? Damn his hide. The man was nothing if not determined.
King looked up from the most recent letter he had been composing to his wife, a letter which, like the others that had come before it, he would never send to her.
“Tell him I’m not at home.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” With a bow, Pierpont disappeared.
