“Forget it,” Margot snapped. “I gave him time. I gave him chances. And time and time again, he has turned them down.” Her lip curled. “He might have claimed that he cares for me or wants me. He might pretend that he is not what I think. But at the end of the day…” She sighed, shaking her head as the desperation began to seep in. “At the end of the day, he is the same as the rest of them. Men,” she confirmed. “They are all liars and cheats, and we are merely pawns in their game. Expendable and not important.”
Arabella’s brow was scrunched as she studied her cousin. “This isn’t about the duke, is it?”
“Of course it is!”
“No…” She shifted her chair across and rested a hand on Margot’s knee. “The duke is not Lord Ashcombe, Margot. He simply isn’t. Lord Ashcombe was a liar and a cheat; no one is denying that. But you cannot keep blaming yourself for what happened.”
“I am not blaming myself.”
“You are,” she said. “But you were younger then. You did not know – nobody did. And if you keep on using him as an excuse to not trust again, then Lord Ashcombe wins. Do not let him win.”
Margot winced at the truth in her cousin’s words. That was what it boiled down to, the scars from what Lord Ashcombe had done still present and affecting her even to this day. She knew what had happened was not her fault, but she could not escape the feeling that had she been just a little more guarded, she might have avoided that horrid incident altogether.
And now, with the duke, what if it happened again?What if I try a final time, allow him in, and he proves to be exactly what I suspect? If that happens, then it will do no good to claim that Lord Ashcombe was at fault. If that happens, then everything that is wrong with my life is my doing.
“I think you should talk to him,” Arabella said gently. “The duke. He wants to let you in.”
“He does not.”
“He does,” she emphasized. “Men are not like us, Margot. They keep their emotions bottled up. But if you pressure him, force it from him, he will open up to you. I know he will.”
“You do not know him…”
“Neither do you,” she pointed out. “Not yet, anyhow.”
Margot chuckled softly, loving her cousin in that moment. She wanted only the best for Margot, and she spoke from the heart in a way that Margot needed to hear.
But could she do it? And what was more, did she want to give the duke another chance? Did he deserve such a thing? If not, she knew where her life would lead… no life at all, was where.
The question became, what was more important to her? Her pride? Or her happiness? Time would tell, she supposed.
“…you are the wind in my sails. You are the sun that sees flowers bloom. You are a goddess, and I am a mere mortal praying that you will notice my cries of love. Athena, born again, blessed as I am that you might look my way. Miss Margot Harcourt, my heart is yours. All I ask in return is that you be gentle with it…”
Margot lay on her bed, reading a letter that she had found buried at the bottom of one of her trunks. She had found it just ten minutes ago, knowing it was there, not entirely certain why she had kept it after all this time.I suppose I wanted to remember what it was like to be worshipped and wanted and chased.
That thought made her laugh with a sense of bitter realizationand irony that she could no longer ignore.
The letter was written to her by Lord Ashcombe, one of the earlier pieces he had sent her when his courtship for her hand had first started all those years ago. She could still remember how she had felt when she’d first read the letter. She had not loved him as she wanted, but she had still felt a flutter in her stomach and a beating in her heart, nonetheless. The words weresappy but honest, she had thought, such that she had known the man loved her as he claimed.
But it was all a lie. And I, the fool that I was, ate it up and asked for seconds.
Reading the letter now, she could not believe how easily she had fallen for it. It was so obvious to her that Lord Ashcombe felt nothing, that he was simply writing the words he assumed she needed to hear. He had been toying with her, manipulating her, using her to his own advantage. That was the type of man he was.
She read the letter again, trying this time to picture the words coming from Sebastian. That thought made her laugh because there was no world that existed where he might write such things. But this was not as big a travesty as she might have thought.
Lord Ashcombe was a liar; there was no doubt about that. But Sebastian… he was different. Yes, he had played with her emotions and toyed with her in his own way. But there had been an honesty to it. A truth behind his actions. He was not trying to use her. In fact, the complete opposite was true.
Margot thought further about what Arabella had said earlier today. How she had interpreted what Sebastian had said – how she had seen the positive. Sebastian might have refused to tell Margot the truth, but he had also admitted there was more going on than a mere convenience of lies and betrayal. He cared for her. He wanted her. He was just holding back because of reasons that she could not guess, because he would not tell her.
But there is a good reason. There has to be. And where I have been comparing Sebastian to Lord Ashcombe all this time, that comparison doesn’t feel at all justified.
Was Lord Ashcombe to arrive on her door and ask for another chance, Margot would know he was lying to her. But was Sebastian to do it… all it would mean was that he was finally ready to be honest with her.
All this time, she had used what happened to her in the past to justify the way she guarded herself. Now, she wondered if she was right to do so. Was it worth giving Sebastian one last chance? Was it worth at least trying to learn the truth?
She was not sure. What she was sure of, however, was how done she was with thinking about Lord Ashcombe. With that in mind, she rose from the bed, tore the letter in two, and tossed it into the bin. A sense of relief fell over her, that feeling that she was finally ready to move on.
As to what she’d be moving on to? Tomorrow, she hoped, an answer would come. She would see her husband, she would look into his eyes, and she would decide for them if this marriage was worth giving one more chance.
