“Of course I can.” Her voice was quiet, tinged with an emotion he couldn’t define. “You don’t want me anyway, and you never have.”
“Damn you, that’s not true.” He realized that in his agitation, he was nearly hollering at her, and lowered his tone. “Not precisely. Initially, it was different between us. I’ll own I resented you and treated you worse than a dockside doxy. But I’ve come to admire you. I cannot change what’s happened in the past, but I can make the future what it ought to be. I want to be a true husband to you, Victoria.”
Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I’ve realized that you are nothing but a liar, ready to spin whatever tale gets you what you want in the moment. Even your own father says as much. But I’m no longer your fool. You wouldn’t even begin to know how to be a true husband.”
He knew he’d lost the right to her respect. The man he’d been wouldn’t have noticed the loss. In truth, the man he’d become was rather disgusted with the man he’d been, so embittered by his past that he’d been willing to use and hurt anyone to exact revenge. He didn’t blame his wife for her poor opinion of him. He’d earned it.
“I’ve never claimed to be a good man. But I do love you.”
She stilled. He held his breath, hoping his feelings would mean something to her. “Do not speak of love to me ever again,” she all but spat, dashing his optimism. “You know nothing of it.”
“You don’t belong in New York.” He clenched his fists at his sides, feeling utterly impotent as he never had before. “You belong at my side, as my wife.”
“I don’t want to be your wife any longer, Pembroke.” She tilted her chin, her expression taking on the stubbornness he’d come to expect from her. “I want to go back to my true home, and this time I won’t be dissuaded.”
Deuce it, why wouldn’t she listen to reason? They shared a deep passion together. He loved her. She’d said she loved him too. That had to mean something to her. Christ, but he’d bollixed this up.
“I know I should have told you the truth,” he admitted. “I’m every manner of bastard the duke told you I am. Indeed, I daresay worse. But never doubt that I love you, damn you.”
“Stop. Don’t say another word.” She shook her head as if she were trying to dispel his words from her mind. “I won’t be your pawn. You may as well cry defeat.”
He took her hands in his, determined not to allow her to run away from him. Their gazes clashed. He was as drawn to her as ever. “Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll let you go.”
A lengthy silence settled between them.
“I don’t love you,” she said at last, but she looked beyond him at the façade of Carrington House. “There, now unhand me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She tore away from his grasp as if his touch disgusted her. “I don’t care if you do or if you don’t. It no longer matters. I wish you a happy life, Pembroke. Truly, I do.”
She turned and gave him her back, clipping back across the drive to Mrs. Morton’s side. Another crashing wave of nausea smacked him in the gut. He was going to be sick, and Victoria was stolid, unwilling to be persuaded. He’d imagined that somehow he could convince her to see reason, for she couldn’t leave him. Not now when they’d merely begun.
He turned on his heel and stalked away before he embarrassed himself by losing last night’s supper in front of the wife who was leaving him and the servants who assisted in her flight. He only made it to the front entry before he lost the fragile grip he’d had on his control.
He’d simply allowed her to go. Victoria turned back for one last glimpse of Carrington House before the carriage ambled around the bend in the drive that would render it impossible to see. The imposing edifice stood stark against a graying sky, as arrogant as its owner. She’d come to think of its every tower, leaky roof and smudged window as hers to watch over. Over her months there, Carrington House had truly begun to feel like home.
Of course, if she were honest with herself, she’d acknowledge that it hadn’t felt like a home until Will’s return. But his return had been cloaked in lies, made only for his own gain and not out of any wish to be at her side. She turned to face forward, knowing there was no use in dwelling upon his betrayal. If she did, it would only devastate her.
Foolishly, she’d been hoping he would do something dramatic, perhaps chase after her, keep her from leaving. Instead, he’d merely stalked back into his sprawling country house without a backward look. A fitting end, she supposed, for a marriage that had begun and ended in deception. He didn’t care. He never had.
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away as best she could. Her lady’s maid Keats sat opposite her as the carriage swayed, an awkward silence stretching between them. She knew it wasn’t done to speak openly of private matters with one’s servants, but Victoria had also come to realize that belowstairs knew far more of the comings and goings of its masters than the lords and ladies ever supposed.
“I’m leaving his lordship,” she told Keats. What did decorum matter anyway? She’d had enough of the odd world of the English aristocracy. She longed for New York, for familiar faces, her younger sisters, her parents. She didn’t belong here, and she knew that now more than ever.
“Oh dear, my lady.” The kindly Keats appeared genuinely concerned. “I’d heard whispers that something was amiss between you and his lordship, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Nor did I.” She swallowed a sob rather than allow it to escape and further humiliate her. “However, I’m afraid he’s left me with no choice.”
They were off to London. Staying one more day beneath the same roof as him and the duke had been insupportable. She’d sent word ahead to her friend Maggie of her impromptu arrival. After all, she hardly wanted to take up residence in the Belgravia house where he’d kept his paramour. Even if she only intended to linger a few days while she planned her passage back to America, she wanted no reminders of her husband’s indiscretions and intolerable behavior.
“Everyone belowstairs said he’d changed so much because of you, my lady,” Keats offered. “He even took an interest in the running of the estate and gave raises to the servants who’d been at Carrington House for five years or more. My dear mother always said love is like a stocking that always needs darning. Are you very certain that whatever’s happened can’t be repaired?”
Victoria hadn’t known he’d begun making changes of his own. That he’d cared enough to reward loyal retainers came as a shock to her. When she’d suggested it, he hadn’t seemed to take the notion under much consideration. She knew too that he’d been poring over the ledgers and looking into repairs that were required in the east wing.
But learning a sense of responsibility for his land and people did not mean that he was a faithful, trustworthy husband. Though it was hard indeed, she had to keep that first in her mind. She thought of her maid’s assertion that love was like a stocking and summoned up a sad smile. “You know, Keats, I do believe your mother was right. Love is like a stocking, but eventually it becomes too worn and you simply can’t mend it any longer. Once it reaches that point, all you can do is toss it away.”
If only tossing her love for Will away was as easy as that. She turned her attention to the slowly passing scenery, a muddle of pastoral beauty and lush green that was lost upon her. As the carriage swayed on, the clouds finally opened and unleashed a torrent of thunder and rain.
