Shaking, Daria drew her feet onto her chair, folded her arms around her legs, and hugged herself.
She’d unfairly judged him.
Digging her nails into the palms of her hand, Daria scrunched herself into a tight ball and edged the word from her mind.
No. No. No. No. No.
But it came anyway.
Fate.
“…Be honest about one bloody thing in all of this, Daria. This was never about me…it was about your own safety. I allowed you to persuade us both that you possessed the fortitude for this, and when you discovered, after one damned day…”
Nooooooo.
She liked him, and she wanted him to like her in return, apart from his wanting to bed her.
There it was.
Distantly registering an animal-like moan, Daria buried her face into her skirts to hide that plaintive wail the best she could.
When she’d first approached Gregory with her need to marry, it’d been all too easy to believe she could protect her heart. She knew, as all of Society knew, the Duke of Argyll’s reputation. He charmed. He inspired awe. He broke hearts. That’s how she’d known herself to be safe from Gregory. But she’d known no more, even less than Society did, about the Duke of Argyll. She’d built her view of Gregory not on a man, but a caricature of one.
Being his wife, it had been inevitable he’d exist not as some one-dimensional rendering in a gossip column, but as a flesh and blood man who felt things…deeply.
She dragged a breath in through her compressed lungs.
Yesterday, Gregory let Daria dictate how their meeting with Clayton went. He’d honored her wishes, and sat outside the viscount’s offices through the horrid things said about him by Daria’s family. The only time he’d intervened had been when Daria’s brother refused to allow Daria the marriage she’d wanted.
After all that, he’d dropped to a knee beside Eris and soothed the girl with promises that the sisters’ parting was not forever.
And how had she received those gifts? Like a jealous, bitter woman who wanted even more from him.
She’d said hateful things.
Not intentionally. She oft blurted things that shouldn’t be said and always at the worst timing. And once uttered, there could be no putting them back to be forgotten.
“…What did you mean to imply when you insisted your family be allowed to raise the child?”
Daria knocked her head into her knees. Why, why had she said those things to him?
“…It would have been helpful, madam, if you’d arrived at such a conclusion before you circumvented my marriage to the woman I actually wanted as my bride…”
The echo of those icily detached words struck like a fresh lash upon her heart.
He’d been right to call Daria out. She had attempted to change their agreed-upon terms. The reasons she’d given him for doing so were paltry, and all because of what he’d seen and said about her, that Daria hadn’t even seen herself.
“…This was never about me. It was about your own safety. I allowed you to persuade us both that you possessed the fortitude for this, and when you discovered, after one damned day…”
That was why.
He’d known.
Her repayment for his kindness had been to hurt him—badly.
“M-Me,” she whispered, needing to hear someone’s voice.
She went over each and every way, flaying herself with each remembrance.
