Page 79 of Duke in Darkness

“See?” said Lady Kingsford approvingly, her smile reverting to the usual cool as she smoothed a non-existent crease in her lilac gown. “Everything is mended. Now. Let us all sit down, the next musical set is about to start. No, Pippa, you may not read instead…”

Lilian barely stifled a sob.

Mended?

Already she knew she’d made the wrong decision. A terrible one. So much for her roar—at a truly critical moment, she’d been a mouse rather than a lioness, and with three words spoiled all the closeness she and Gabriel had built. Once again, she had crumbled to her grandmother’s will.

And now Gabriel might never forgive her.

A FEW GOOD days and he’d turned into a complete fool.

Gabriel stared unseeingly out the carriage window as they returned home from the musicale, his composure hanging by a thread after yet another ton occasion that had turned into a disaster.

You didn’t really think your wife was loyal, did you? That she would choose you over her damned grandmother? Witless fool. You aren’t worthy of that. Not an ugly failure like you…

Embarrassingly, he’d gone into a situation like a green ensign rather than an experienced colonel. He knew Lady Kingsford’s methods, how she lied and manipulated. The old woman might be a dowager countess, but he was a goddamned duke, and still he’d allowed her revolting string-pulling games: calling him a naughty boy, as though he’d torn his breeches climbing a fence, and commanding him to shake hands with a man who had publicly insulted him in the worst of terms.

Far worse, he’d done it. He’d bloody well shook hands, meek as a little lamb, still reeling from the unexpected blow of Lilian imploring him to obey her grandmother’s grotesque request rather than standing with him. Now he couldn’t wait to get home so he could scrub his palm raw with lye soap. The handshake with Sir Roger might have been the quickest in history, but he still felt contaminated.

Gutless fool. Worthless fool.

Failure.

“Gabriel?”

He stared across the swaying, rocking carriage to where his wife sat. His perfect, whole, beautiful wife in her elegant red-striped gown. The woman wearing his ring that he’d confessed his darkest moments to. The woman who’d claimed he had her loyalty and affection, and was a fucking liar.

“Yes?” he bit out.

Lilian paled, and twisted her fingers together in her lap. “You are, um, very quiet.”

“If you require constant amusement…I suggest a pet. But only if Lady Kingsford approves…of course.”

She flinched. “I was thinking of us. A future without that ball scandal hanging over our heads.”

“Were you indeed,” he replied, raising a mocking eyebrow. Christ, he needed to get out of this carriage. It was getting harder and harder to quell the urge to tear something apart, and he had no desire to replace torn curtains, displaced leather squabs or a broken window.

“Let me explain,” Lilian burst out, leaning forward. “Grandmother has dictated half my life and wields enormous power. Everything I had, granted or withheld by her, and no one said a word, not even Father. The ton worships her. She can ensure someone is accepted or cut. I want you to be accepted! And she controls the household. She would have punished my sisters and brother because of me. I couldn’t bear that.”

Anger surged until it felt like some part of him might explode. “I am Duke of Exton. I do not care…what a pack of…perfumed dandies and she-wolves think. The peers I respect…know the man I am. They respect me…for my service. My experience. Not for what…bloody damned jacket I wear. Or party I attend.”

“But that’s what I want,” said Lilian, failing in her attempt to take his hand as he deliberately folded his arms. “For everyone to see you as a brilliant war hero. Not as the man who punched a dandy unconscious in a ballroom.”

Gabriel’s jaw dropped. How could she not see that she had achieved the exact opposite? That piece of filth with his garish jackets and drawling voice had said a decorated colonel in the British army had allowed himself to be captured and tortured. That he was incompetent. Responsible for the deaths of hundreds of men. To have those comments dismissed as ‘silly things’ and be publicly compelled to shake hands with the man who said them as though they’d drunkenly come to blows over who had the superior horse…was unendurable.

“N-no,” he snarled, further humiliated as he lost control and his speech grew even worse. “You w-weren’t thinking…of me. You were thinking…of you. Your station. Your reputation. Obeying…your g-grandmother. But you are…my wife. You know the truth. Of the b-battle…and that dandy’s…slander. And you said…nothing.”

Lilian bowed her head and stared at her hands, but not before a single tear trickled down her pale cheek. “No. I didn’t.”

Now it just felt like someone had torn a hole in his chest and clawed his insides out. He should have known she wouldn’t choose him. She wasn’t Hobbs, or Aggie or Emily Castlereagh who had known him a long time and wouldn’t falter.

Why the hell did this hurt so much?

Because you are the worst of fools.

A man who loves, but is not loved in return.

Gabriel flexed his jaw in an effort to quell the pulling ache around his facial scar. On top of everything, he’d spoken too much. Lilian made a noise as though she would say something else, but he held up a hand and she instead sat silently and rigidly in the corner of the carriage. Despite the pale golden rays of late afternoon sunlight coming through the windows, a darkness had descended on the carriage, a heaviness that sat on his shoulders like a load of boulders. He’d just learned a harsh yet valuable lesson on how fleeting happiness could be, come and gone in a few days. But as he knew better than most, that was the way of the world. He needed to stop craving more. The only thing down that path was gut-wrenching disappointment.