She stood, went to her bedroom, and packed a small bag. Two dresses. A shawl. Her sketchbook, though she could not draw. A book she would not read.
Mary appeared in the doorway. “Your Grace?”
“I am going to the orphanage. I need some time with the children.”
“You are leaving on the morning after your wedding.”
“He left first.” Valeria hated how small her voice sounded. She straightened her spine. “I need some space, Mary. I will not be gone long.”
Mary looked at her for a long moment. Then she folded a third dress into the bag without being asked and handed Valeria her cloak.
“Shall I tell the Duke where you have gone?”
“If he asks.”
“And if he does not ask?”
“Then I suppose we have our answer.”
Valeria left through the kitchen. Mrs. Grady pressed a bundle of bread and cheese into her hands, looking as though she wanted to say something but decided against it.
The carriage took her to the village. The orphanage was small, warm, and full of noise, and the children swarmed her the moment she walked through the door.
For the first time since the wedding, she felt like she could breathe.
Ruth was reading in the corner. William had grown two inches since she had last seen him. Thomas was chasing Horace, who was chasing a frog.
At least some things did not change. She wondered if her husband had noticed she was gone. She wondered if he cared.
CHAPTER 31
Edward heard the carriage leave from his window.
He stood and watched it roll down the drive, through the gate, and onto the road. He watched until it was gone. Then he sat back down at the desk where the correspondence he had not written sat blank and accusing in front of him.
She had left. His wife of one day had packed a bag and left. He had paced half the night, sat in the chair until dawn, and now the morning sun was mocking him through the window.
He understood. He understood because he had spent twelve years being the man who left, and being left felt exactly as terrible as he had always suspected it would.
“This is what you are. A weapon. A Hound.”
George’s voice. Always George’s voice, slithering through the cracks in the wall he was trying to build between the man he had been and the man he was trying to become.
He stood. Sat. Stood again. The chair scraped across the floor. The desk was too small. The room was too small. The house was too small.
Everything was too small for the feeling that was building in his chest, the feeling that had been building since the barn, since he wrapped his hand around George’s throat and felt the old instinct rise like a tide and nearly drowned in it.
He picked up the water glass from the desk. Looked at it. Threw it at the wall.
It shattered. Water ran down the wallpaper. Glass scattered across the floor. The sound was satisfying in the way that breaking things was always satisfying, which was to say not satisfying at all, only loud.
He picked up the inkpot. Raised it. Set it down. He was not an animal. He was not going to destroy his wife’s house because he could not control himself.
That was what George would do. That was what the Hound would do. The Hound, who solved problems with his fists, his rage, and the cold, efficient violence that had served the Crown for twelve years.
But I am the Hound. That is the whole problem.
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his knees up, and his head in his hands, and he stayed there. He did not know how long. Long enough for the water to dry on the wallpaper. Long enough for the sunlight to move from one side of the room to the other. Long enough for the anger to settle into something worse—shame. The particular, specific shame of a man who had been given something precious and had held it at arm’s length because he was afraid his hands would break it.
