“…What did you mean to imply when you insisted your family be allowed to raise the child?”
But her accusations had been exactly what he’d claimed—Daria’s attempt at self-preservation. He’d sensed and seen easily when Daria had, after but a single day, started to lose herself.
“…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…”
Gregory hadn’t uttered one unkind thing. The charges he’d made against her hadn’t been unfounded. He’d called her out, and rightly so, and had simply spoken the truth regarding their relationship.
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.
Tears burned her eyes. That much-hated fullness filled her ears, and she fought to keep from slapping her palms against them.
She’d gone and stuck Gregory with a wife he didn’t want. At the very least, she owed it to him to not collapse in front of his staff and humiliate him further in their marriage.
All fault resided with Daria.
“You made a mistake in asking me to marry you, Daria. You were never strong enough—never hard enough—to weather life as my wife.”
Her heart throbbed with the same viciousness as when he’d scraped a duke’s disapproving eyes over her.
“We are both well and truly stuck.”
A building pressure started low in her chest and climbed. A crushing weight that cinched her lungs.
She’d hurt him.
Daria’s fork wavered and she squeezed the cold metal tight, until the utensil no longer shook, but instead bit viciously into her palm.
She punished herself with the good he’d spoken against her wrongs.
“…There was no other woman tonight. Because you are the only one I hungered for…I hunger for you, Daria…”
Tears burned her eyes and she rubbed her face hard against her lap to wipe them.
“…I want you as I have never wanted…”
“Hullo.”
Gasping, Daria turned so fast towards that gentle voice that she fell sideways from the chair.
Pain radiated from her hip bone to her back, but not as hard as her pride.
Lady Rutherford came racing. “Your Grace—”
Daria’s face crumpled. “P-Please, do not call me th-that. My family and friends refer to me as Daria, and they are not here, and Gregory only calls me that when he is cross with me,” she said, stammering.
Lady Rutherford’s brows dipped. “The duke has been…crosswith you?”
Unable to make out the meaning of the marchioness’s tone, Daria rushed to her husband’s defense. “He has not hurt me. I have already told you.”
All I’m doing is casting further aspersions upon Gregory’s name.
And then the waters broke.
Sobbing, wheezing with every jagged breath drawn, Daria curled into a ball on the blue Aubusson carpet—
