“I think not,” Adrian said, his tone suggesting the matter was closed.
“I think yes.” She smiled sweetly, the expression she’d learned from watching society matrons deliver devastating cuts with honeyed words. “Unless you’d prefer the ton speculate about why the Duke of Harrowmere hides his sister away? I’m certain Lady Venetia would craft something appropriately salacious. You know how creative she can be with her storytelling.”
Adrian’s expression darkened at the mention of his former mistress, storm clouds gathering in his eyes. “Lady Venetia can—”
“Is still received everywhere despite her reputation,” Marianne interrupted smoothly. “While Catherine’s only sin was travelling abroad for her health. Which would you rather have whispered about in drawing rooms? The truth, or whatever fiction Venetia concocts?”
“You’re playing with fire,” Adrian warned.
“I’m playing with truth. There’s a difference.” She turned to Catherine, who was watching their exchange with wide eyes. “The Weatherbys would be delighted to see you. Their daughter Emma was a particular friend of yours, wasn’t she? I believe she married Lord Harrison’s second son while you were away.”
“Yes.” Catherine looked between them uncertainly, like a child watching parents argue. “But if Adrian doesn’t wish—”
“Adrian wishes many things that aren’t necessarily wise.” Marianne kept her tone light despite the weight of the words, spreading clotted cream on her scone with deliberate casualness. “Isolation chief among them.”
“You forget yourself, Marianne.” Ice crystallised in Adrian’s voice, the kind of cold that burned.
“I remember myself perfectly, Your Grace. I’m the Duchess of Harrowmere, your wife, and the only person at this table willing to speak honestly.”
“Honestly?” Adrian’s laugh was bitter as black coffee, twice as dark. “You want honesty? Fine. The ton doesn’t whisper about Catherine travelling for her health. They whisper about her mind breaking when she saw what her brother became. They say she went mad with fear, that she had to be confined, that she tried to—”
He cut himself off, but too late. The words hung in the air like smoke from a snuffed candle, acrid and choking.
Catherine had gone white as paper, her hand trembling so violently her teacup rattled against its saucer. “How did you know about that?”
The silence stretched taut as piano wire, ready to snap and leave them all bleeding.
“Know about what?” Marianne looked between them, dread pooling in her stomach like ice water.
“Nothing.” Catherine’s voice was barely a whisper, thin as morning mist. “It was nothing.”
“It was not nothing.” Adrian’s control finally cracked like lake ice in spring, anger blazing through in a torrent. “You tried to harm yourself. Don’t deny it—Aunt wrote me everything. Every sordid detail. The laudanum you hoarded. The letter you left. The maid who found you barely breathing.”
“Once!” Catherine cried, her composure shattering completely. “Once, in the first month, when I couldn’t stop seeing it happen over and over. When every time I closed my eyes, I saw the carriage bearing down. When I couldn’t stop hearing the sound your body made when—”
She broke off, pressing her hand to her mouth, her whole body shaking like a leaf in a storm.
Marianne felt the world tilt on its axis, everything sliding into new, terrible focus. This was so much worse than she’d understood. Not just guilt and separation, but active trauma, the kind that drove people to desperate acts, that left scars on souls that never fully healed.
“You should have let me visit,” Catherine said through her tears, her voice raw and broken. “I begged Mother to let me see you, but she said you didn’t want—”
“I was dying.” Adrian’s voice was equally raw, stripped of all pretence and protection. “For three weeks, they weren’t certain I’d survive. My face was... destroyed. Bones broken, skin torn. Then infection set in. Then fever that had me raving, seeing things that weren’t there. By the time I could receive visitors, by the time I was even conscious enough to know my own name, you were already gone.”
“She said you didn’t want to see me. That you blamed me. That the sight of me would cause you pain.”
“I blamed myself.”
“For what? For saving my life?” Catherine’s voice rose, years of suppressed emotion breaking free. “For being a hero beneath the monster you pretend to be?”
“For not being fast enough. For not seeing the carriage sooner. For not pushing you harder, getting you completely clear. For surviving when perhaps—”
“Don’t.” Marianne’s voice cut through their spiral like a blade through silk, sharp and clean. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
Adrian turned his gaze on her, and she saw such pain there that it took her breath away. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand that you’re both so wrapped in guilt and regret that you can’t see what’s right in front of you.” She stood, unable to sit still any longer, her skirts rustling like agitated birds. “You’re alive. Both of you. Damaged, yes. Scarred, certainly. But alive and with the chance to be something more than your worst moment.”
“Pretty words from someone who’s only just entered our lives,” Catherine, her voice tight with pain rather than anger. “It is not as simple as you make it sound.”
