Page 144
The following day.
12:00 — Her Grace has not left her chamber.
Then again.
12:00 — Her Grace has not left her chamber.
Each afternoon report seemed emptier than the last, as though with every passing day there was less of her left to account for. It pained him more than he cared to admit.
Yet still, he willed himself to believe it was necessary.
Eliza would recover. She merely required time.
Better that she suffer a few painful weeks now than endure the devastation that would surely follow if he allowed her to place her heart in the hands of a man destined to disappoint her. This pain would fade. It had to. Eliza would remember that theirs had always been a marriage of convenience, and in time she would look back upon these weeks for what they were: a youthful infatuation with a man she had never truly known.
It was kinder.
If Arthur repeated the lie often enough, perhaps he might eventually believe it himself.
Laurence, however, had believed no such thing.
His oldest friend was furious.
Not loudly, that was not Laurence's way; instead he preferred to scold a man with frustrating wit.
Arthur had deprived him of that advantage.
The destruction of half his office after that dreadful dinner, when Eliza had all but fled from the dining table, had resulted in a rather different conversation.
Laurence had witnessed the destruction without uttering a word. A lamp had shattered against the wall, books had been swept from Arthur’s desk, and a crystal decanter had met its end upon the Persian rug. Through it all, his friend had remained infuriatingly calm. Only when Arthur had exhausted both his temper and the nearest supply of breakable objects had Laurence folded his arms and informed him that he was going nowhere until an explanation was forthcoming.
And so Arthur had confessed.
He told him of Sophia’s arrival, of the child she carried, and finally, with considerably greater difficulty, of what had passed between himself and Eliza in her chambers.
Laurence listened without interruption.
When Arthur finally fell silent, his friend merely stared at him for several long moments.
"You are a deuced fool."
Arthur had expected anger.
He had not expected disappointment.
"You have a wife," Laurence continued, every word measured despite the unmistakable edge beneath it.
"Not a fiancée. Not a sweetheart. A wife."
Arthur had attempted to explain.
The hurt he would eventually cause Eliza. Sophia’s position. Duty.
Laurence dismissed every argument with a sharp wave of his hand.
"A promise made by a young man of nineteen does not outweigh the vows spoken before God to the woman who now bears your last name,” Laurence argued.
Arthur remained silent as Laurence drew closer.
