Page 56 of The Madame Catches Her Duke

A sighting of Marce in the front window with another man? Perhaps validation of some sort? Yes, that’d been exactly what he sought. If he saw her with his own eyes in the arms of another man, it would solidify in his mind that everything he’d done and said to her was, in part, justified. He would be vindicated regarding his assumption of the woman.

There was one thing his hours spent watching Craven House had validated for Rowan…

His time would be better spent on business. He’d sent word excusing himself from the deal in Scotland, but that didn’t diminish the stack of paperwork pertaining to other ventures awaiting his review.

It was long past time for him to admit and accept that things with Marce were over. Done. Complete. He’d told her to keep the house and that her debt to him was settled. So why had he expected to see her again—or, at the least, receive a note from her? Rowan had made certain that she knew he was staying in London—at Tobias’s townhouse—for at least the foreseeable future. For him, nothing with Marce was over and done. Not in any way that he found satisfactory, at least.

Could it be that she didn’t have Tobias’s directions in town? Impossible.

His friend, on the other hand, had insisted Rowan go to her.

At Craven House.

However, the possibility of being turned away again was something his pride would not allow. They owed each other nothing. They should be able to go their separate ways and forget one another.

Yet, Rowan was incapable of spending even five minutes without her golden curls coming to mind. Her clear, bright blue eyes—so much like a cloudless day in Kent. Or the way she walked into every room with the grace and poise of a woman who knew her worth. Even the way she’d treated his mother with the utmost respect and kindness all these years. She hadn’t needed to show the duchess any affection whatsoever; however, they’d become as close as any true mother and daughter pair could be. Bloody hell, but they’d written one another even when Marce wasn’t at Hadlow.

What woman forced into such a charade continued the farce when it wasn’t demanded of her?

There was too much about Lady Marce Davenport that confused and conflicted Rowan. And it was something he could not turn and walk away from until he understood her better. They’d spent the last eight years journeying to Hadlow several times a year, and that meant hours and hours in his coach riding from the Whisper Hook Inn in Welling to his country manor, yet they’d gained no deeper connection or knowledge of one another beyond sharing information with regards to their story.

Why now, only when their farce had come to an end, did Rowan care to learn more about the woman who’d posed as his duchess for all these years? Was he the selfish lord Marce proclaimed him to be? Was his heart as black as the hue of his hair as she’d said?

Though he hadn’t treated her as he should have, Rowan was not the cruel man she accused him of being. He had a heart—a rather large and sometimes inconvenient one as it were. He cared very much for his family, his estates, and his servants—overwhelmingly, or so Tobias was known to say. The ruse had been to protect his mother from the hurt he’d suffered at the hands of his father. Marce had only been a means to an end—the woman who needed something from him as much as he needed something from her.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered.

Two drinks were not enough to give him any additional clarity regarding his predicament, nor halt the images of Marce that continually played in his mind. Perhaps he’d been wrong to assume that if he discovered more about the woman, it would diminish his guilt and curiosity. That it would alleviate his culpability in making her the woman she was today.

Discovering nothing of use only flamed the fires of his interest.

And increased the burden upon his shoulders.

Remorse and regret about his past vengeance, rage, and spite did nothing to alter the present.

He was no different than his father.

Rowan was Julian Delconti’s son, his flesh and blood. His sins were Rowan’s. His deceptions, his son’s. Every horrible deed his father had forced upon his family was now Rowan’s misdeed. Rowan had lied to his mother under the guise of protecting her. He’d coerced Marce into their sham of a marriage to protect himself.

Protect himself?

Rowan blinked several times. That was not it at all. He’d lied to his mother to give her a sense of contentment. To show her that if her sickness consumed her, Rowan would be taken care of. However, he now saw it for what it was. He’d forced Marce to agree to his proposition to protect himself from perpetuating the same hurt and betrayal his father had. If he took a true wife and had children, what was to say he would not stray like the duke? What was to stop him from taking a lover who captured his heart more fully than the woman he’d pledged to love and honor for his entire existence?

His father had done it…forsaken his family for another woman.

Would Rowan be any different?

The truth of the matter was, he wasn’t. Not really. All these years spent trying to convince himself that he was not his father’s son, and he was exactly that.

Rowan could try and convince himself that the situation was completely different than his parents’, but at the heart of everything, it wasn’t dissimilar at all.

With one exception.

While his father had allowed himself to find happiness, Rowan had denied any chance of that.

He’d never allowed himself to love—or to be loved by another.

Rowan had been overbearing and domineering in his treatment of her, yet, Marce had been there each time he summoned her…without fail.