“I am well aware, Your Grace. However, to be a good mother to her, you must also take care of your health.”
However, it was not her health that needed to be taken care of at that moment. As soon as she handed the baby to hernursemaid, she marched toward Richard’s study and entered without warning. No knocking was needed for what she was about to do. She had enough.
The duke did not even look up. He seemed too preoccupied with whatever he was reading. She stood there in defiant silence until he finally gave her notice. When he looked up at her, the shadows in the room danced across his face.
“You should stay in your room, Victoria. The rooms are heavily guarded. I must focus on some details at the moment to counteract any plans by Penwike. If he attacks, he will likely target my location. It is best to keep a distance from me.”
“So, you’re telling me now,” Victoria snapped. “You have built a fortress, and we are all living in the same house. Do you think it makes sense for you to keep your distance? You’ve become a stranger because of this man, Penwike. One man. One danger. We’ve gone through this before.”
“I am simply doing my duty as husband and father,” Richard said. She could not help but notice, after the light from the hearth had caught his face at a certain angle, how his eyes were bloodshot and his face thinner than she was used to. What was he doing to himself? “I went to his place to confront him. We had a scuffle, and I left him hurt and cornered. I can’t afford to rely on the emotions of a cornered animal, which he is right now.”
“You are still my husband, Richard,” Victoria said, her voice almost pleading. She hated hearing herself like this. “I want you back as one. We have crossed the boundaries, the lines that wemade when we married. Then, we started living together. People know who I am. Your wife. Why is there a need for distance now? I want a husband, not a distant protector.”
“Victoria, the answer to your questions is two-fold. One, I don’t want to be caught up in making decisions due to passion. My brothers were like that. They acted on impulse, and now they are dead. They were focused on revenge and didn’t think clearly. I don’t want that kind of weakness. Two, if Penwike sees that we aren’t quite the married couple he wants to pull apart, he may not go after you.”
The duchess shook her head in disbelief. Richard was doing exactly what he said he would not do: acting based on his emotions.
“Caring for your family is not a weakness!” she protested. “And when does Penwike ever care if you genuinely have a connection with your family? He will seek to destroy you—us—no matter what. Then, why can’t we stand together?”
“Still, I cannot afford a distraction right now. We have spent days without thinking of Penwike. Reading together. Having little picnics …”
“Staying in bed together? Were all those distractions?” Victoria interrupted.
“Yes! We could have anticipated his investigations into Melody’s identity. We could have guessed he would be asking about mycousin. But we had deluded ourselves that we were in a bubble, shielded from all harm.”
Victoria felt like she had been slapped. The days Richard spent time with her and Melody were some of the best she ever had. She had dreamed of an estate, but felt blessed to finally have a true family of her own. But for him, it was nothing more than an inconvenience.
“Is that what you really think, Richard? Was being happy with me and Melody being deluded? Was I a mere delusion, a misstep that you want to back away from?”
Her hand flew to her chest. She felt like her heart was breaking into little pieces.
“You married a duke so you can have a house you can call your own. I can still remember you telling me that. Now this duke has been forced to return to a life he wasn’t happy with because of a child that isn’t his and that he did not ask for!” Richard yelled.
He had never raised his voice at her before, and it had Victoria staggering. She physically recoiled. She could not breathe. While she knew that what they had was still far from the kind of relationships her sisters had with their husbands, she did not expect the resentment streaming from him.
When she looked back at Richard, reluctantly, she saw a change in his facial expression. It almost looked like dismay. She’d like to think it was regret, but at this point, she doubted it.
“Is that what you think this is? All this? Just a mistake?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her throat hurt.
“What I am trying to tell you is that we must be honest about our situation, Victoria,” Richard said, looking away. “We have to start looking at the facts and not be drowned by feelings. If Miss Ewing had never left Melody on my doorstep, I would still be at the estate. Away from all this. And you…well, you would have been safe and your reputation would have been untainted by this scandal. If you look at this with clear eyes, you would see that Melody is the only reason we had formed a—a connection. After all, I would not have stayed here if not for the chaos she started.”
Victoria did not think the whole conversation could get any worse, but it did. She could not believe she actually thought there would be a future with her, Richard, and Melody living like a real family. Now, it was back to how it was before. It was merely an arrangement. Nothing more.
“The only reason,” she echoed hollowly, thinking of all the times he spent kissing her. Touching her.
None of those were real, then. Perhaps he was telling the truth. He came to ensure the scandal did not spread, and she was simply there. A warm body. He did not want to consummate the marriage, though. The door to leave was still open, at least for him. Meanwhile, she was so willing to give her body, soul, and everything else to him.
She forced herself to look at the man whom she had started to think of as more than a husband by name. She remembered the admiration she had for what she thought was his heart of gold.
“You are probably right,” she said calmly. She needed to maintain her dignity. “We are here because of her. We should always remind ourselves of that fact.”
“Victoria—” he began.
“No. I fully understand now,” she cut him off. “You can play protector of the realm and your name. However, don’t ever say you are doing it for me, that you are protecting me, the woman whose presence here in your London house was nothing at all. I apologize for disturbing you. I will let myself out.”
And she did. She left the study and closed the door behind her. She did not slam it—the young Victoria would have—because it would show that all of this mattered so much to her still.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
