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But in the end, he had disgusted her. He had told her he would change. That he did not need to indulge himself.
She’d said now that she knew, she could not see him the same again.
She’d barely tolerated intimacy as it was.
‘When I read stories, I imagine myself as the heroine. I can see myself slaying dragons and defeating armies, riding a horse through the fields as fast as possible, and... Falling in love. But then to be told that my body cannot do those things... How is that fair? Why could I have not been given a sweet, retiring nature? There are many women who are happy to be home. Who are happy...’ She shook her head. ‘Of course, I don’t suppose any woman wishes to be told she cannot have children.’
‘Some might see it as a path of ultimate freedom, in many ways,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
The sadness of Beatrice, the thwarting of her plans, the realisation that he was...
That he was the master in her life now, that all compelled him to offer her something. To speak, even when it hit against sharp places in his soul.
‘When you have a child, your cares will be with them always. Your life will never fully be your own. To have another person placed in your care like that is to never truly have your heart beat for itself ever again.’ He swallowed. ‘At least that is my experience of it.’ He did not speak much of fatherhood. But for him it was... A painful reminder of his childhood, and he could not escape the feeling of shortcoming that he had now either. He did not know sometimes how to reach his son.
‘It must be wonderful to love like that,’ she said.
‘I don’t know that wonderful is the word I would use.’
‘Well, I will never have the chance, will I? Except... I will care for your child, Briggs. I will. I promise. I will be his mother, if... I’m sorry, I do not wish to bring up memories of your late wife. And I do not wish to cause any hurt. But...’
‘I do not hold in my heart a deep grief for Serena. Do not concern yourself with my feelings.’
‘I just should not wish to erase her memory.’
‘If William cannot remember her then it is her own fault.’
He could see that she was confused by that, but she did not ask, and he did not offer explanation. Of course, the fact that the late Duchess had taken her own life was something that was rumoured among the ton, and it did not surprise him that it had not trickled down to Beatrice.
She had cut her wrists in the bath. Her maid had found her, the screams alerting the entire house to the tragedy.
He remembered lifting her from the water still...being covered in water and in her blood.
And the sorrow.
The sorrow of having failed someone so very deeply.
Serena, but also William.
Her family had gone to great lengths to pay to have her buried in the church graveyard. He could admit he would not have done so. His grief had been nearly as intense as his anger, and his concern had not been in where she might be laid to rest, but on what he might tell his son.
Her family had worried only about the disgrace.
They had paid handsomely for her death to be called a drowning. An accident.
Though there were enough rumours in the ton about the truth of it. They only wished to whisper behind their hands and fans, about the Duchess burning in hell.
They did not behave in a way so bold as to speak of it openly.
It was the cowardice in that which bothered him most of all. That those people had no such principles as to allow themselves to expose their meanness so boldly and loudly.
It was, he thought, the greatest tragedy of their society.
The way certain things were hidden. It did not make them less prolific for all their concealing of such vices. All manner of bad behaviour flourished in the world. It was only those who should be protected from it who were left ignorant of its existence, and therefore susceptible to brutality.
‘Then I shall do my best for him,’ Beatrice said, determined.
