“No, you don’t,” Alistair said. “Your wife is who you should worry yourself over, just as she is the one who deserves the truth. And before you start to carry on about her not supporting you or any of that nonsense, ask yourself this…” He made sure to look right at Christopher. “What would you prefer? To keep living the lie and be alone for the rest of your life? Or to reveal the truth and to be yourself, with the chance that you might be happy? Which is the future that you want for yourself?
It wasn’t even a question.
As Christopher’s two best friends sat beside him in full support of what they had just been told, he cast his mind back to his wife… focusing on the moment that she had learned the truth.
He pictured her face, the look in her eyes, searching for the judgment, the hate, the loathing he had been sure that she would hold for him. But the more he thought about it, the more Christophe realized how wrong he had been.
Rose did not hate him. And she would not judge him. What she would do, he now knew, was support him. Gone were the days when he was not sure what he wanted from his marriage. Gone were the days when he thought himself better if he was alone. And gone were the days when he did not think happiness was something that he deserved.
“I… I must go to her.” He was on his feet.
“We think so,” Alistair said.
“I…” He turned on the spot, energy coursing through him. “I must tell her the truth.”
“It is about damn time,” Theodore said.
He strode across the room, his body trembling from the surge of hope that flowed through his veins. When he reached the door, he turned back and looked upon his friends with a smile. “Thank you,” he said. “For supporting me. For… for… for not judging me.”
“We are judging you,” Theodore said. “But not for what you think. Your wife needs you, man, and if you do not go to her, you'd better start looking for new friends.”
Christopher laughed, the first time he had done so in days, and it sounded good. It soundedright.
Outside, a crash of lightning and a roar of thunder shook the house. The rain fell thick and heavy, the wind lashed and battered without mercy, and Christopher doubted that things would get better before they got worse. But he also did not care.
His whole life had been spent hiding from the storm, and now that it was here, it was time that he faced it head-on because he knew that once he burst from the other side, and once he felt the warm sun on his face, nothing would be the same again.
For once in his life, he did not want it to be. For once, he looked forward to change. For once, Christopher rode into the storm because he was no longer afraid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The storm was getting worse. Not that Rose cared.
Let it rain. Let it storm. Let the world drown and me in it. At this rate, it might be an improvement.
She was alone, as was typical of this last week. Alone right now, alone for the rest of her life… alone, just as she deserved. Rose could not ignore the irony that, not so long ago, the idea of being alone had not worried her. She had never wanted to marry. She had never wanted to fall in love. And she had certainly never wanted to live a life where she relied on a man to make her happy.
Now, having spent a week in a state of utter sadness, Rose was forced to admit that not only did she want these things, but she’d had them. For a short time there, she had been married, in love, and had a man in her life who made her happy.
Oh sure, he might have made things difficult. He was cold and distant. He was mercurial and hard to read. He was not warm. He was not full of life. And he certainly wasn’t the type to bring cheer everywhere he went.
Yet, he was her husband, and somehow, they had found a way to make it work. It had not lasted long; they still had so much to learn about one another and themselves, but they were heading in the right direction. Happiness was there for the taking, and they had both been so close…
And now, I wonder if I will ever be happy again. Worse than that, I wonder if I will ever want to be.
Rose wanted to forget about the Duke, as it would have been easier. To scrub him from her mind and carry on with her life the way it had been before he came into it. Alas, such things were not so easy, and as the days stretched on, as the loneliness devoured her, Rose found herself unable to stop thinking about her husband and what they might have had.
She did not even realize that she had wandered into his private orangery.
Rose had been doing that often this past week. In a state of utter distress, she found herself wandering aimlessly through the empty manor, peering into rooms as if expecting Christopher to be there. Inevitably, this led her to his orangery… where things had all started.Or where they had ended.
It was near pitch black in the glass orangery. Rain lashed at the glass walls and ceiling. The odd burst of lightning lit up the sky. She could smell the plants and the flowers. She could feel Christopher’s presence in here, even if he was nowhere to be seen.
A flash of lightning made her jump, at which point her eyes fell on one of the shelves in the room. There, sitting alone, was the journal that she had found. She looked at it through the darkness, her hand started to reach for it… and then she snatched her hand back
No. I don’t care what it says. I don’t care what truths it reveals. I wish I had never found it in the first place.
She exhaled and allowed her shoulders to slump as she cast a final look about the small garden. Her heart cracked, and her stomach sank, and she wondered why she kept coming back here. A shake of the head and she turned to leave…
