Read Seducing the Duchess Online
Authors: Ashley March
Seducing the Duchess (38 page)
He pointed across the entryway, and Charlotte followed his gaze to a large blank rectangle on the wall.
“He removed the portrait from my bedchamber at Ruthven, but I thought that was only for my sake,” she said, glancing back at Fallon.
“It was. He instructed me to have the footmen take it elsewhere so it wouldn’t bother you. But then, when you left, he ...” His voice trailed off, and he looked at Charlotte with a guarded expression before he continued. “He wasn’t well.”
Her heart thumped hard against her ribs. Was it cruel of her to be so happy at his words, to want to ask for each explicit detail of Philip’s misery? She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he went on before she could speak.
“The day the bust was broken, he decided to take down the portraits—all forty-three of them—”
“Forty-three?” Charlotte repeated incredulously.
Fallon nodded. “It took us all night to locate all of them and move them to various storage closets. Then the next day His Grace decided to burn them.”
“That is strange,” she said softly. Indeed, it was wholly unlike Philip. Though he’d admitted being scared of his grandfather as a child, she’d thought he’d always loved the elderly duke. And it was certainly odd to burn them, when he could have just left them out of sight.
“But that isn’t the strangest part,” Fallon said. He peered down the corridor, as if to make sure Philip wasn’t nearby.
Then he turned to Charlotte. “He’s started thanking me, Your Grace.” His beetled eyebrows pulled low. “When I iron the paper, he thanks me. When I announce a visitor, he thanks me. Why, he even thanked me the other day for opening the door. ‘Thank you, Fallon,’ he says.”
His impression of Philip was spot-on, his voice deep and his syllables clipped, and Charlotte nearly smiled. But why would he be thanking his servants? It was almost as if he were still trying to change . . . Except he had already petitioned for the divorce. He knew she wouldn’t return to him, so it couldn’t be for her benefit.
Fallon stared at her, his expression deeply chagrined. “I’ve never been thanked before for doing my duties. Not by His Grace, and not by the old duke before him.” He shook his head ruefully. “I don’t know what to do, Your Grace.”
Something flared inside her at that moment, something small and dim, but significant nonetheless. Hope. Immediately, Charlotte quashed the feeling. She might have forgiven him, but trusting him with her heart again was a much larger step, one she didn’t know whether she would ever be prepared for.
“I’m not sure I can do anything,” she said. “And truly, it doesn’t seem that terrible. It seems he is acting better than ever before.”
“That’s just it, Your Grace,” Fallon replied. “His Grace has never been
nice
before.”
nice
before.”
“I understand, but—”
At that moment, a door opened down the corridor, and Mr. Lesser emerged. As he neared, Fallon returned to the front door.
After she and Mr. Lesser exchanged greetings, Charlotte gestured past him to the corridor. “Did he tell you how much longer our lessons would go on, or why he bid you to continue them?”
Mr. Lesser’s eyes shifted behind her, then back again. “Ah, no. I fear I neglected to ask ...”
Charlotte inclined her head. “I will be sure to inquire, then,” she said. “Good day, Mr. Lesser. And don’t worry,” she added, “I am practicing.”
He smiled. “Very good, Your Grace.”
As she walked to Philip’s study, she counted her steps, measuring her breath with each even footfall. The door was halfway open, but she knocked anyway, needing those last few moments.
“Enter.”
He was standing at the window, his hands clasped behind his back. Before she could speak, she saw his shoulders tense. “Charlotte,” he said, and turned around. His eyes raked her from head to toe, and she felt heat steal into her cheeks. It wasn’t a seductive look, but it was intimate nonetheless, almost as if he could bind her to him with his gaze.
She inhaled deeply. “How did you know it was me?”
His mouth tipped up at the corner. “I just did.”
She nodded. It shouldn’t have made sense, but it did. She was the same way; every time he entered a room, she could feel it—almost as if the very air she breathed shifted with the force of his presence.
He moved toward her, then stopped. “How are you, Charlotte?”
Her mouth parted. She didn’t know how to answer. He had never asked her such a question before, and in truth, she’d been reluctant to examine her feelings too deeply lately. It was easier that way.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she finally said. Then, because it seemed polite: “How are you?”
“I’ve missed you.”
They stared at one another for a long moment, and though neither of them moved, the space between them seemed to lessen in distance.
Charlotte took a step backward.
“I heard you planned to renounce the dukedom,” she said, the words rushing out in a breathless stream.
His brow arched. “I’d not heard that one yet. Although I did like the rumor about me deciding to join the clergy.”
“Then you’re not planning to—”
“No.” He paused. “Do you want me to?”
She shook her head. “No, of course not. I just ...” She glanced away, then back. “I had hoped it was untrue. I know how much being a duke means to you.”
“You mean more.” He said it quietly, so convincingly, and Charlotte’s heart wrenched inside her chest.
Deciding it was best to pretend she hadn’t heard him, she walked past him to the window. She needed something to look at besides Philip. She watched her fingers trail along the dark wooden trim, then stared outside at the flurry of snowflakes. They were falling faster now, a frenzied white blur.
“What of selling Ruthven Manor? Is that also a rumor?”
“No, it’s true. I have no wish to live there any longer. There are too many memories,” he said, his voice coming closer as he moved to stand beside her.
She opened her mouth to ask if he meant memories of her, but thought better of it.
“I thought it was entailed,” she said instead.
“It isn’t. Ruthven Manor is the ducal seat only because the sixth duke decided he liked Warwickshire better than Cumberland,” he said, then added wryly, “Too many Scots, I believe.”
As he spoke, his breath fogged the window, and he wiped it away.
“But you did petition for the divorce,” she said quietly.
“True.”
He turned his head toward her, and, as a matter of course, she turned hers.
“Soon you will be free,” he said. His lips curved slightly, as though he couldn’t quite manage a full smile.
“As will you.” Her gaze met his steadily, searching for—something. “To find a new wife, a proper duchess.”
His half smile faltered.
She turned to inspect the snow again. She’d seen enough. The pain and the longing were still there. “Fallon said you’ve been acting rather strangely of late.”
He didn’t answer her, though she waited for a long while. “Philip?”
“I need you to leave,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“I—” The words stuck in her throat, and she put a hand there, trying to coax them out.
“Please. Go.”
He shoved away from the window and moved to the door, still partially open. Only now he swung it wide, then stood beside it like a statue.
Charlotte walked toward him, her feet heavy. She tried to catch his eye, but he refused to look at her. She felt hollow inside, yet an aching pressure built in her chest at the same time, pushing and pulling and twisting.
Pausing before him, she tried to think of something to say. Something that would ease his pain. But the words she wanted most to say—
I love you
—were the same words she fought so desperately to leave unspoken.
I love you
—were the same words she fought so desperately to leave unspoken.
At last she simply left. She walked out the door and down the corridor to the entryway, where she stopped. Fallon was gone from his post.
All she needed to do was open the next door and leave. If she liked, she could make sure she never saw Philip again. It would be easier that way. She could leave London—leave England, even. She could go someplace where no one knew her name, where they didn’t know she’d once been a duchess, or that she’d played the role of a harlot. It wouldn’t matter where, as long as she was far away from Philip. She would be safe then. And though she would continue loving him from afar, he would never be able to hurt her again.
All she had to do was open the door.
Philip listened to the sound of Charlotte’s footsteps as they gradually receded down the hall. If he’d ever thought there was the slightest chance Charlotte would forgive him and one day return to him, it was gone now.
He hadn’t expected her to say she loved him. But for her to suggest that he could so easily replace her by finding a new wife, to reject his love for her—
He simply couldn’t bear to be in the same room with her any longer.
The worst of it was that he continued to hold her image before him, the opposite wall a canvas for her beauty.
She’d been sad, as Mr. Lesser reported. He’d seen that immediately when her gaze first met his. And worried. A crease lay between her brows, and her mouth was drawn downward just the tiniest bit at the corners.
Yet still she was beautiful, her sadness and her worry making her appear tragic rather than haggard, as most women would have. Philip had stepped toward her, his first thought to comfort her. But then her eyes flashed with a warning, and he remembered she did not want his comfort.
Once again, she’d made it all too clear that she didn’t want him.
How he wished he’d have loved her three years ago, wished he could take back those god-awful words when he revealed that he’d married her only to exact revenge against Ethan, that he had lied to her. How he wished he hadn’t been so caught up in himself—in his pride and his self-righteous anger.
Philip closed his eyes, swallowed against the pain.
And that’s when he heard it.
The sound of her footsteps down the hall, tapping out a rhythm unique to her, one he’d long ago memorized.
She was returning.
Philip’s eyes opened wide as the rhythm changed; she’d begun to run.
He whirled toward the doorway just as she stumbled to a halt, her arm reaching out to brace herself against the door frame.
She stared at him, gasping for air. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. Locks of her hair had tumbled down at the sides, below her bonnet, and he could see a pin hanging precariously at the end of one dark strand.
“I love you,” she declared, her chest heaving.
He couldn’t speak. He didn’t trust the words; he’d hoped for too long. She’d said she loved him before, but she hadn’t stayed.
“Did you hear me, Philip?” she asked, moving toward him. She stopped an arm’s length away. “I said I—” Her voice broke, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
And once again, Philip had to fight not to reach for her. His hands clenched, his fingers digging into his palms.
“I love you,” she repeated steadily. The slender column of her throat worked as she swallowed.
He took a hesitant step toward her. “Charlotte—”
She held out her hand. “Don’t. Not yet. I need to say . . . I need to tell you. After our wedding night, I tried to make myself hate you. I’ve spent the last few years convincing myself I hated you. You betrayed me, and—”
“I deserved it,” he said quietly.
She nodded, then dashed a tear away from her cheek.
“Go on.”
“I tried so hard to protect myself from you. And I thought I’d succeeded. I thought you could never hurt me like that again. But then you said you loved me—”
“I do love you,” he interjected, stepping toward her again. This time, he wiped away the tear for her. “God, Charlotte, I love you so much. I wish I could tell you—”
She lifted a finger to his lips, then shivered when he pressed a kiss to it. “Then you lied to me again. I should never have let myself believe you, but I wanted to. I wanted to believe you’d changed.”
Philip’s chest tightened. That, also, had come too late.
“I’ve been fighting with myself over coming to you,” she whispered. “I needed to prove I was strong, that you couldn’t affect me anymore.” The tears began to stream down, too fast for him to catch each one. And she laughed—a soft, nervous laugh that tore at his heart. “But none of it matters. I belong with you—not at Sheffield House, not at Ruthven Manor, but here, where you are. I’m miserable without you. I hurt more without you than anything you ever did. I know I didn’t say that right, but I hope you can understand—”
“Shh.” He wrapped his arms around her then, enfolding her in his embrace. And at once he felt whole again, no longer just a man with an empty title.
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