Page 99 of The Devil's Accidental Duchess
Selina frowned. “Philip said your father was wicked from birth. That he did terrible things as a child.”
“Because he was allowed to, byhisfather,” Lizzy shot back, exasperated. “My grandfather was despicable. Hewantedmy father to be wicked, so he raised him that way, encouraged himto be cruel. Grandmama wasn’t even allowed to see him for the first years of his life. By the time she was, it was already too late. He was unkind toward her too, just as my grandfather had planned.”
“What?” Selina whispered. “Why didn’t Philip mention that?”
Lizzy rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, perhaps because he was never told. He was rarely permitted to spend time with Grandmama, and when he was, it was under Father’s supervision.”
She shook her head, her hands balled into fists. “He suffered because of our father. Suffered in a way that… I was spared because I was fortunate enough to be born a girl. Therefore, invisible, unimportant, free to be placed in Grandmama’s care.”
“Suffered how?” Selina sat on the edge of her seat.
A muscle twitched in Lizzy’s jaw. “He was beaten, he was berated, he was punished for the slightest mistake and for no mistake at all.”
She paused. “It is probably not my place to say, but someone must. He had a stammer as a child. Our father was embarrassed by it, thought it was a sign of weakness. I was too young to witness all of my father’s cruelty toward him, but my first memory is of Philip being struck across the face when he asked for the salt and could not get the word out.”
Selina’s heart cracked.
“When he was sixteen,” Lizzy continued, “Father removed him from Eton and sent him away to war. Claimed the teachers were useless because they couldn’t do anything about his stammer.”
“Sixteen?” Selina choked out.
A boy in society was pretty much considered a man by then, but even so, that was so very young. No more than a child, really. A child sent to war by his own father.
Lizzy nodded. “My brother remained a soldier for fourteen years, until our father died. I rarely saw him when he was on leave. He never stayed long, for obvious reasons, though all that fighting somehow got rid of his stammer.” She shrugged. “My father would occasionally suggest that Philip could come home now, but Philip refused.”
“Up until your father died,” Melody said quietly, her eyes wide behind her spectacles.
“Exactly.” Lizzy puffed out a breath. “Although it seems my brother did not leave his idiocy on the battlefield. What is he thinking? Surely, he would rather prove that there is nothing wrong with the men of his bloodline? I mean, there is certainly nothing wrong with the women.”
Selina almost cracked a smile, but as a faint chuckle reached the back of her throat, it choked into a sob.
“Oh, Selina…” Melody’s arms went around her.
Lizzy’s arms soon joined, the two holding the brokenhearted bride with all the force of their love and affection.
If that could have been enough to fix things, Selina knew she would have been healed.
But it was not enough. Their embrace could not put her back in Philip’s embrace, and she could never return tothataffection unless he changed his mind.
An impossible task.
“He is resolute,” Selina whispered into Melody’s shoulder, her tears soaking through her friend’s dress. “I… may understand better now, but… I don’t think I can persuade him.”
“And you truly desire motherhood?” Melody asked softly.
Selina burrowed her face deeper into her friend’s shoulder. “I do.” She gasped in a breath. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted it, but… I do. I cannot marry him. Oh, heaven help me, I cannot…”
The answer was a vivid ember in her mind, burning.
She had gone back and forth during her self-incarceration inside her chambers, but now that she had the support of her friends—both physical and emotional—she had her conclusion without doubt.
If Philip did not change his mind, she could not marry him. It was as simple, devastating, and heartbreaking as that.
“I ought to box his ears,” Lizzy muttered. “Are you sure you do not want me to speak to him?”
Selina could barely choke out the wordno.
What could his sister do to convince him that Selina could not, aside from leaving bruises? No, he had made his choice, and so had she.
Even if it ruined her.
Then again, if I cannot marry Philip, I do not want anyone else.
So, perhaps this was all for the best.
Her father would not agree, and would likely lose his mind, but he would just have to live with it, same as her.
I have my answer.
