She shook her head, dismissing him. Richard was her husband. Last night—what they had shared, the passion between them, could not be faked. She knew that it was real. She was having his child, after all.
Catherine turned, not caring which way that she went, so long as it put space between herself and the duke. Anything to give her a moment to breathe and clear her head.
She hurried through any open path available to her. She could not seem to force her feet to stop—the blur of motion was the only thing that kept the tears from falling traitorously down her face. It was nothing more than another ploy to tear them apart. It had to be. There was no other option.
The duke was hot on her heels. She couldfeelhim chasing after her, just like she knew that he would. His mocking laughter was cruel and bitter as it wormed its way under her skin. She fled into a small clearing decorated with large stone planters filled with trimmed and arranged wildflowers. A small fountain with cherubs adorning the brim was the focal point of the small benches meant for observers to rest.
Well, the fountain would have been the focal point if the clearing had not been otherwise occupied.
Richard’s hand was caught in her hair, gripping firmly as she leaned back as if in the throes of passion. Her hands braced on his chest, though Catherine could not tell from the way they froze if she had been pushing him away or pulling him closer. His face was a mask of rage, or at least that was what it looked like the split second before he turned to look at her—and dropped all contact with Lady Harrington like he had been burned.
Such a fine line between love and hate, though, she knew.
How long had she thought that she had had his love? Now she knew better. It was the same reason that her chest presently felt as if it were caving in on her. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not this. She looked to Lady Harrington’s face, hoping to see some of that same smug satisfaction as had been there earlier. Even to see her gloating over this moment would have made her feel better—but she looked just as shocked as Richard did.
“See? I told you,” the duke sneered in her ear, looming so close to her that her very skin crawled.
She could not take it any longer.
Her heart broke in her chest as the tears that she had been fighting finally tumbled freely down her cheeks. She turned; nobody even so much as attempted to stop her as she tore off in the direction that she had come from. She felt the fool. A complete and utterly overwhelmed fool as she took the back way around the house.
She could not handle the sight of another person. How could she have truly felt that he only had eyes for her? They had made a bargain. A year. It should not be shocking that he could not make it any longer than a month with fidelity.
She reached their room and locked the door before throwing herself on the bed. She curled her arms around her belly, imagining the child growing inside of her. Already to a broken home before its first breaths were taken.
Chapter 27
Lady Harrington’s Estate—Garden
“Oh no, do you suppose that she got the wrong impression?” Lady Harrington said softly, her voice sickeningly sweet and without any true remorse.
Richard’s vision pinpricked. He did not think that he had ever been quite so angry before. He saw red, and there was no end in sight to it. Red in every direction as far as the eye could see.
Isabella pressed the tip of her gloved fingers to her lips and feigned a look of innocence as she turned her focus toward the duke. “Do you think that I ought to go and say something to her?”
Richard did not dare look at his father. He did not know if he would be able to control his temper in this regard. He did not think that he could contain himself, given how he felt. His hands clamped into tight, miserable fists that shook down at his sides.
“The two of you acted together, is that right?” Richard could hardly recognize his own voice for how lethal and cold it sounded. “Planned this whole ordeal to guide my wife here at exactly the right moment? Pushing at her emotions? Needling her in the way that you two are so expert at?”
Isabella folded her arms across her chest and shifted her weight onto one leg. “It is for your own good, Richard. You do not know how much pain and suffering that I have just spared you from. To have been with her would have been torture for you when you could be with me instead.”
She stepped closer, attempting to fold herself into his chest once more—desperate to be in his arms. Richard pushed her away none too gently. He could not summon pity for the dejected, pained look that she cast in his direction nor the soft yelp of discomfort from his harsh treatment of her.
“Allow me to disillusion you, Lady Harrington,” Richard seethed. “I have no intentions toward you, and I never have. You are nothing but a thorn in my side. If you have caused irreparable harm—I guarantee you, that you shall pay for it.”
Richard glanced to his father’s face, ready to give him the same exact speech. But he was taken wholly off guard by the actual flicker of remorse that flitted over the duke’s face as he made eye contact with his son. For just a moment, and then replaced by the neutrality that he normally wore.
“She is nothing!” Isabella continued, her voice raising in volume. “She is not even on the same level as myself! You have to admit that much! I am a dowager duchess! I am theonlysuitable match for you in all of London! The power and influence that would come of our match is unparalleled by any! We would be the talk of the whole Season—foryearsto come!”
Richard laughed bitterly and without humor. “You only further prove how little we have in common if you think that any of those things matter to me in the slightest.”
“Do not walk away from me!” Isabella called after him. “Your Grace! Do something!”
The duke remained silent.
“This is not…no!” Isabella appeared very flustered. “This is not how this was supposed to go.”
Richard ignored her shrill intonations as he continued to move away from her, to her growing and rapid distress.
