“Please stay,” he whispered.
“Do not make this more difficult, Matthew, I beg you.”
Anguish moved him a step closer. He had to make her understand. “It was Eleanor who put my name on your book. She forged a letter to your publisher, writing it as if it were you.” He yanked the thing out of his pocket that he’d retrieved from his desk and held it for her to take. “I have sent her back to Bombay. She will never torment us again.”
Fortuity glanced at the letter in his hand but didn’t move to take it. “I see.” She turned to Anne as if the movement pained her. “Do we have everything packed?”
The maid nodded, then edged back toward the bedroom. “I shall check for anything we may have overlooked.”
“Thank you.” Fortuity watched her leave them as if wishing she could follow.
“You do not have to go now,” Matthew insisted, drawing her attention back to him. He shook the paper and stepped even closer. “Look at this letter. You will see. If you wish, I shall take you to Mr. Newman so he can assure you this will never happen again. He promised that any future last-minute adjustments would be personally confirmed with you.”
She shifted with a heavy sigh and touched her forehead. “I notice you did not mention the recovery and correction of the books, so I must surmise that is not going to happen.”
“Mr. Newman fears it would trigger gossip about Eleanor’s scheme and harm your reputation as a writer. It could cast a pall over your future books, one they might not be able to overcome.”
She huffed a sad laugh while still rubbing her head. “There will be no future books, Matthew. I am done. With everything. Writing. Marriage. Theton.I shall help my sisters with their offspring and find comfort in their joy.”
Dread closed icy fingers around his heart and squeezed until his blood pounded in his ears. “You cannot do this, Fortuity. Please do not leave me. I beg you.”
“I must, Matthew. But do not worry about any gossip. Everyone will be told I am helping my sister during her confinement. I will do nothing to draw any additional speculation down upon the Ravenglass name. After Blessing’s confinement ends, I shall think of another lie to feed to theton.”
“Hang the gossip and the speculation.” He closed the remaining distance between them, dismayed when she took a step back to avoid his touch. “Please, Fortuity. I know this has been difficult, but surely you know that none of this is my fault? None of it was of my doing.”
The sadness and resignation in her eyes cut off his ability to breathe. She moved to the bedroom door and called out to Anne, “Please fetch my shawl. I wish to be on our way.”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Fortuity.” He shook his head and held out both hands. “Why are you doing this?”
“I need peace,” she said, her strained whisper crackling with emotion. “And while nothing is directly your fault, everything has to do with you.” She shrugged. “Perhaps we are cursed to be star-crossed lovers. I do not know. All I know for certain is I need peace for my own survival.” Her sad smile cut through him. “I have always been a creature of the shadows, a wallflower content to hide among the draperies and watch the lives of others. Becoming the tongue waggers’ focus has made me unwell. I am done, Matthew. This is the only way I know of to fight back and save my sanity.”
“By running and hiding.”
She accepted her shawl from Anne and draped it around her shoulders before meeting his gaze. “Yes. By running and hiding.”
As she walked past him, he caught her arm and pulled her close. “I cannot live without you,” he rasped, staring into her eyes and willing her to feel his pain. “You are…everything to me.”
She turned her face away. “I must do this.”
“At least promise me it is not permanent,” he begged. “Promise me you will consider coming back once you are better.” Desperation overwhelmed him. She could not toss him aside, not after all they had shared. “What if you carry our child?”
She squinted at him the way she had when the light hurt her eyes. “I do not carry our child.” She gently but firmly pulled free and hurried from the room. Anne rushed to follow her.
Bernard, one of the lesser footmen, waited at the door to collect the trunk. “My lord?”
Matthew stepped aside and waved him in without a word. He grappled with the choices of throwing back his head and roaring, and rushing downstairs, grabbing her up, and locking her in their rooms until she promised to stay. But then she would hate him for failing to understand her need to remove herself fromthe storm for a while. At least, he prayed it was for a little while. He would do everything in his power to get her to come back home, to be his wife, and grant him all the rest of her days to prove to her how much he loved her.
*
“Tutie, I amso very sorry.” Propped in bed amid a multitude of pillows, Blessing stretched out her open arms. “Come here, my poor, brokenhearted pet.”
Fortuity tried not to crumple into a weepy mess but failed. She clambered onto the bed and dove into her sister’s embrace, clinging like a drowning soul adrift in a stormy sea. “Everything is so awful,” she wailed between jags of hard sobbing.
“I know.” Blessing stroked her hair and gently rocked from side to side, as she had often done when they were children, and nightmares or thunder had frightened Fortuity.
“Mama would be so ashamed of me.” Fortuity sniffed while pressing the back of her hand to her infernal nose that insisted on dribbling whenever she cried. “Do you happen to have a handkerchief?”
