She stepped around him, her cloak flaring behind her.
The footman scrambled to follow, her valise banging against the banister.
At the threshold, she turned back just once. Rhys was still in the entryway, statue-still, his hands fisted at his sides, staring at the floor.
She wanted to say something, anything that would end it less cruelly. But the words would not come. There was nothing left to say.
Rhys stood there, unmoving, until the echo of her footsteps faded down the steps. Only then did he realize that he was gripping the doorjamb hard enough to numb his hand. He forced himself forward, through the weight of the air, after her.
She was halfway to the carriage, the footman trailing after her, and Mary already waiting by the open door. He called her name once, then again, louder.
She did not break stride. If anything, she moved faster.
“Celine,” he called again, just above a shout, but it sounded thin in the open air.
She turned at the curb, her eyes so blank that he almost flinched.
“Where are you going?” he managed, feeling stupid even as he said it.
“To my father’s house,” she replied, with the finality of a gavel strike.
He stepped closer, his feet sliding a little on the dew-damp stone. “Let me come with you. Or at least?—”
“No.” The word hit him like a slap. She looked over his shoulder, not at him. “Do not follow me, Rhys. Not now.”
He faltered. He’d seen her angry, seen her hurt, but never this—never the precision with which she now cut him out of her world.
“Is this—” His words caught. “Are you leaving for good?”
She turned her back, already climbing into the carriage. “I need to be alone.”
He watched as Mary tucked the cloak around her, watched as the footman shut the door and the carriage lurched away from the curb. The horses clipped off, their hooves striking the drive with mindless precision.
Celine did not look back, not even once.
He stood in the half-open door, the cold wind battering his shirt through the gap. He let the chill bite, let it remind him that she was gone and he had no one to blame but himself.
He’d spent years armoring his heart against disappointment, curating his days so that nothing, no one, could ever wound him deeper than his father had. He had thought he was clever, that by letting her be herself and keeping his distance, he could avoid the ugliness his parents had drowned in. And now here he was, watching her go, and he had never once told her the truth.
He never even got the chance to explain to her why he couldn’t attend the soiree.
He watched until the carriage turned the corner and vanished from sight. Then, alone in the door, he sagged, his head bowed, as if the fight had left him only now.
He shut the door, more gently than he thought possible. He climbed the stairs, slow, deliberate, every step ringing in the empty house.
At the top of the landing, he paused, looked back at the hall where she had stood not ten minutes ago, cloaked and proud and entirely beyond his reach.
He wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage, to break something, to find the three men who had poisoned her mind and demand they take back every word. But mostly, he wanted her to come back home.
He crossed to the study and poured a drink he didn’t want, his hands shaking just enough to slosh liquor onto the desk. He sat down, staring at the untouched ledgers and the half-finished letter to his solicitor.
Swallowing, he focused on the quill. He should write to her, but he had no idea what to say.
He rested his head in his hands and tried desperately to remember every word he had said to her over the past month.
Had he ever told her that she was wanted? Had he ever made her believe that what he felt was more than duty or spite?
The answer, he suspected, was no.
