Miss Tremaine looked over her shoulder at her. “Of laudanum. Did you not know that either about your husband?”
Clenching her jaw, Sibyl ignored her and gestured to the door.
Miss Tremaine knocked once. “Lord Kerrington?” Her voice turned too sweet. “Oh, Lord Kerrington?”
No answer came from inside, so she unlocked the door and pushed it open before stepping back.
The door had barely creaked open when the most horrendous stench drifted out of the room. Sibyl clapped a hand over her mouth and nose, trying not to retch.
At once, the Duke stepped into the doorway, his face tight.
“Wait—” Miss Tremaine called, but he was already striding in, covering his mouth with the collar of his coat.
He disappeared inside, while Sibyl fought to keep down the contents of her stomach. She swayed against the wall, her eyes watering at the smell.
Heavens, it was like something had died in there.
Was that how laudanum usually smelled?
She had never smelled it before. But Heavens, if it was that bad, then she did not want to.
The Duke was inside for not even a full minute—Sibyl counted to distract herself from whatever state her husband would stumble out in—before he walked back out. His expression was severe, ahard look in his eyes. It was both haunted and vacant, angry and defeated.
“What? What is it?” Sibyl panted.
“Lord Kerrington… He is dead,” the Duke said, his voice pitched low.
Sibyl stilled.
No. No.
“No, that’s not true.”
“It is.”
She started, staring at the Duke, not realizing she had said that out loud. He stared right back at her.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she beat him to it, already shoving her way towards him.
“I want to see him,” she demanded.
It could not be true. She could not be left alone without the security of a husband, without a home. For if Edmund was dead…
If he were dead…
“Let me,” she ground out when hands clasped her wrists.
“It is him,” the Duke told her a little more gently.
But she did not care for gentleness. She cared for the anguish and rage burning through her. How could the bastard do this to her?
“Undoubtedly, it is Lord Kerrington on that bed.”
But Sibyl had had plenty of practice with fighting her sisters for chairs, access to a room first… playful grapples where they all wanted the same dish, so they fought their way to it. While the Duke was physically bigger than her by at least two and a half of her own size, he wasn’t expecting her grunt of effort as she finally tore past him and stumbled into the reeking room.
Her knees almost gave out.
The first thing her eyes fell on was the mop of blonde hair that covered Edmund’s forehead. It was so messy, so unlike him yet so like him when he would come home from a night of drinking.
