Her heart ached, but she ignored it. This washertime, her choice, and she did not want to relinquish it to her heartbreak.
But the further she walked, the more she noticed people looking her way. Trying to keep her shoulders from hunching inward, Sibyl kept walking, focusing on Rosie instead of the snippets of conversation she caught.
“I heard she tumbled out of the carriage, a little intoxicated,” one lady hissed to her companion. “Can you imagine? A duchess falling right into the street.”
Sibyl’s cheeks flushed in annoyance.
“Do not speculate, darling,” the lady’s companion muttered. “We all know that His Grace has been terrorizing the Spindle’s patrons. If Her Grace truly had brought this… accident upon herself, he would not have beaten Lord Berrington’s men half to death.”
Sibyl’s back stiffened. The other night, when Gabriel had returned home bruised…hehad done that?
She had assumed he had been in a fight of sorts, and she tried not to pay attention to the gossip, but…
But it is something he could do.
She swallowed thickly.
“It must be difficult, being married to such a brute,” the lady sighed, shaking her head. “I pity Her Grace.”
Sibyl hadn’t realized that she had stopped right in the middle of the path.
Two ladies clutching parasols over their shoulders walked past her. Their eyes widened when they saw her. One of them furrowed her brow in concern, but the other started giggling.
“Your Grace,” she called out, “first you married a man with an opium addiction, and now you are married to a man who loves using his fists. I have heard that the Wickleby sisters invite chaos, but this is truly something else!”
“Lady Veronica, do not speak such things. Her Grace has been under a lot of stress lately.”
“I would sabotage my own carriage, too, if it got me out of a miserable marriage.”
Sibyl withered inwardly. People either thought she had been drunk and had fallen or had orchestrated the accident.
The rumors suddenly seemed to surround her, and everywhere she looked, she found eyes watching her, even when the two ladies passed by.
But there were more. There were always more.
“I heard the two werehaving an affair. The late Earl’s brother had mentioned it, after all.”
“Do you think the Wicklebys have a fondness for aggressive men? The Duchess of Rochdale married the Beast, even if he has reformed, and now the Duchess of Stonehelm chose The Helm.”
The gossip swirled louder and louder until Sibyl found herself sitting on a bench, unaware she had moved at all, her head spinning.
“Your Grace?” Hannah’s voice sounded too distant.
Sibyl knew how much of a target she was without Gabriel’s protection, but she had insisted on not needing a protector. She did not need to be saved; she simply wanted to go home. But she couldn’t.
Not back to that terrible silence. Not when the alternative was to speak to a man who refused to hear her.
Heavens, she missed him.
Exhaustion weighed her bones.
As soon as another lady looked at her, she stood up. “We must leave.”
Hannah only nodded, pity on her face. Pity that Sibyl hated being on the receiving end of.
She ignored it and made for the nearest exit. She couldn’t bring herself to return to Stonehelm House, so she rode to Hermia’s instead.
“What has happened?” Hermia asked before Sibyl could even take a seat in the drawing room.
