He should have known better.Of course she didn’t love him back.Back when she’d selected him for a laboratory experiment, the one true thing she had told him was that she didn’t believe in love.His useless heart banged against his ribs.
It didn’t matter how real the past fortnight felt to him.To her… it wasn’t.This was nothing more than the successful conclusion of a routine perfume trial.His chest tightened.She could skip back to her laboratory and concoct another potion, but he was done being part of her tests.
“I don’t love you, then,” he said hollowly.“As it happens, I don’t even know you.”
He spun around on stiff legs and strode as fast as he could from her door.
Chapter 15
Penelope hurried off her front stoop after Nicholas, but he was already heading back out in the street.Her chest ached at the damage she’d caused.He had deserved to know the truth, but she hadn’t meant to hurt him.
“Wait,” she called out.“Nicholas, please stop!Where are you going?”
“To fetch my belongings,” he said without turning around.“I’m done here.”
He did not slow down.
She forced herself not to chase him.She had no right to.Although she knew her own feelings were real, his interest had been caused by chemical compounds designed to manipulate him.
His affection was a mirage, no matter how much Penelope might wish otherwise.He had deserved to know the truth.She just hadn’t expected it to hurt this much.
In one single moment, Penelope had destroyed everything.The haunted look in his eyes when she’d told him it was all a farce…
Her heart had broken along with his.She swore under her breath.Duchesshad caused nothing but damage.
No.Penelope had achieved it herself.
She loved Nicholas, yet she had used him and hurt him.She deserved to lose him.
Penelope trudged back out into the street, not to chase him to the castle, but to allow him free will.She turned her leaden feet in the opposite direction.
Gloria’s maid answered her door and allowed Penelope back inside without question.Less than an hour had passed.It felt as though she had spent it in a hell of her own making.
Penelope plodded into the observatory on heavy limbs and stood out of the way of the telescope.She hadn’t come to talk.She just didn’t want to be alone right now.Her home was too full of memory of Nicholas.Back when he thought he loved her.
Gloria was cleaning her telescope with a cotton rag.“I thought you were going to stay in your laboratory for the rest of your life.”
“My life is over,” Penelope said wearily.“Thanks to me.”
Gloria turned from the telescope and squinted in Penelope’s direction.“What are you carrying?”
“Turtledoves.”Penelope clutched them to her chest.“They stand alone but fit together.”
Gloria’s eyes widened.“May I see?”
Penelope forced herself to relinquish the precious figurines.
“These are incredible.”Gloria’s eyes lit with wonder.“What an ingenious way to interlock the two.Where did you buy them?I want a pair, too.”
Of course she would.The only thing Gloria loved more than the stars were mechanical puzzles.When the heavens were too cloudy for sky gazing, she spent long hours with her grand orrery, a mechanical device rotating a model of all eight planets.Gloria claimed she used it to unlock the mysteries in the sky.
Unfortunately, Penelope could offer no puzzle to solve.Everything was devastatingly, humiliatingly clear.
“The doves were a gift from Nicholas.”Right before she’d informed him he was an unwilling participant in a chemistry experiment.She was surprised he hadn’t taken them back and smashed them.
Gloria set down her cleaning rag.“If you still refuse to believe in love because ‘it’s not visible to the naked eye,’ I’d say these doves are indisputably tangible evidence.”
“I made a mistake.”Penelope’s shoulders slumped.“Duchessinflated my confidence, and I used misplaced pride to cause nothing but harm.”
