Edmund had looked at her as if he had woken from a sleep. "What exactly are you sorry for?" His voice was colder than frostbite. "For keeping your true identity a secret? For the charade of a marriage we put on? Or for making a mistake that anyone could have made?"
She choked back a sob. "No, it's not just a mistake. I should have known better, as Tennbury said. Misreading documents like that is unforgivable."
When he didn't answer, she looked up and was startled by the grim expression on his face.
"Misreading documents happens. It is regrettable, but not unpardonable. What is unpardonable is not to grant clemency for foolish mistakes, or, what is worse, to grant it too late."
Ellen blinked at him in surprise. His face was a mask, and he had withdrawn from her.
Ellen ran her dry tongue over her lips. "Maybe we could talk about this."
He shook his head. "I'd rather not. I just ... I have to go. I need to go. I need to go out and think." With those words, he left her alone in the hall.
Ellen stumbled into her bedroom, dropped on the bed, and stared at the wallpaper with dry eyes.
Noni was gone.
It was all her fault. Everything that had happened had been a consequence of this first unforgivable error.
She wrapped her arms over her middle and doubled over, gasping at the intensity of the pain that had taken hold of her. She was grieving for a child that had never been hers.
Yet the tears would not come.
Not even with the realisation that she was not only grieving Noni, but so much more.
A charade of a marriage, he'd said.
That's what it had been, hadn't it? He'd promised nothing more. She'd gone into it with the understanding that she couldn't expect more. It had been a business arrangement, and she'd accepted that.
Then why did it hurt so much?
Had she really believed they could be her new family? Edmund and Noni, and herself. She had to admit to herself that for a while she'd allowed herself to do so, indeed. Underneath the raging pain, she felt foolish for having allowed herself to dream that dream, even for a minute.
Foolish for having dared to dream of love.
She had bungled everything terribly, and now her role in all of this was clearly over.
Still, the tears would not come.
She blinked, and her hand shook as she wiped her brow.
She looked at her surroundings as if now realising where she really was.
Why on earth was she still here?
She pulled the trunk out from under the bed and threw some of her meagre belongings into it. There weren't many, as most of the clothes belonged to Lady Tewkbury, a bittersweet role she would now have to put aside. She would have to borrow the coat, for she'd given her old one away, and the pair of new boots.
She had to get away. Go home.
To Miss Hilversham's Seminary for Young Ladies.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Edmund had gone to his fencing club, where the men slapped him on the back and congratulated him on having won the fencing duel against Mattick. Rumour had spread faster than ink in water, its gossipy tendrils spreading across London until they reached every salon and drawing room. But when his friends suggested they go for a drink to celebrate, Edmund shook his head, mumbled something incoherent, and left.
In his perfume laboratory, he aimlessly mixed liquids from vials, sniffed them, wrinkled his nose in disgust and poured the concoction away. What on earth was he doing? Had he lost his sense of smell? This stuff was vile.
Then he stood with the vial in his hand, staring at the ceiling and pondering on his life.
