Page 35 of A Duke, a Spinster, and her Stolen List (Duchesses of Ice #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

C eline walked briskly across the front hall, already in her cloak and her gloves fastened tight. Behind her were Mary and a footman carrying her valise.

The front door opened then, and Rhys filled the doorway, his hair in untidy chaos from the wind. For once, he looked entirely unprepared to see her.

She froze, and the footman nearly collided with her.

Rhys’s expression shifted—first surprise, then something quick and calculating, then the deliberate, easy charm he always wore in public.

“Celine. I—” He broke off, furrowing his brow. “You’re leaving.”

“Isn’t it customary to depart after a soiree?” Her voice was ironed perfectly flat, just loud enough to reach his ears.

He stepped forward, and the footman shrank against the wall, clutching the valise as if it contained state secrets.

Rhys raked a hand through his hair. “I was delayed.” His gaze, always uncomfortably direct, searched her face for clues. “I meant to meet you at the ball.”

“You missed a rather splendid ball,” she said, her voice glacial. “I managed to avoid a scandal.”

His mouth twisted into a grimace

Celine ignored that. “Is it true?”

He blinked. “Is what true?”

“That you married me to spite your dead father.”

Rhys’s entire body seemed to contract around the words. For a moment, he was utterly silent. Then, he said, “I see the rumor mill is as efficient as ever.”

She held his gaze, her chin jutted. “Rumors usually begin with a seed of truth, Rhys. Did you choose me because you knew I would be an embarrassment to the title? Or because your father despised my family so much that you thought this union would ensure he turned in his grave?”

He stepped closer, his voice low and tight. “That isn’t?—”

“Because it was rather illuminating to hear three members of Parliament agree that the only reason you married at all was to ensure the line ended with you. And that by choosing me, you could guarantee your father would be as wretched in death as he was in life.”

She let each word fall with the clarity of a cut crystal glass shattering on stone.

Rhys opened his mouth, then closed it. For the first time since she’d met him, he looked utterly unmoored.

“Celine. I—” He reached for her, but she took a step back, just enough to make the distance explicit.

She smoothed the front of her cloak. “Is it true?”

He squared his shoulders. “It may have started that way, but it isn’t what you think.” He seemed to struggle with his words. “You are not an embarrassment. You are—” He paused, his eyes imploring. “You are remarkable.”

She arched a brow. “Is that why you encouraged my every eccentricity? My reading, my perfume, my ridiculous lists? Was it all to ensure I would be the worst Duchess Wylds has ever seen?”

His jaw tightened. “No, I wanted you to be yourself.”

She nodded, as if confirming a theory. “So you could prove to him, to the world, that you were not your father’s son.”

Rhys reached for her again, more desperate this time. “You are nothing like what they say. You are?—”

She raised a gloved hand, cutting him off. “I don’t want your flattery, Rhys. Not now.”

He stopped, his hand hanging awkwardly between them.

She studied him, taking in the lines of his face, the rawness around his mouth, the tell-tale white at his knuckles. There was no pleasure in seeing him hurt, but there was relief—a cold, perfect relief—that she’d finally made him show it.

She inhaled, long and steady. “I am leaving for my father’s house. I will send word if and when I plan to return.”

Rhys moved, as if to block the door. “You can’t just leave.”

“I believe I just did.”

He looked away, his shoulders rigid. “What do you want from me, Celine?”

She considered, then shook her head. “Nothing. I only wanted the truth.”

She stepped around him, her cloak flaring behind her.

The footman scrambled to follow, her valise banging against the banister.

At the threshold, she turned back just once. Rhys was still in the entryway, statue-still, his hands fisted at his sides, staring at the floor.

She wanted to say something, anything that would end it less cruelly. But the words would not come. There was nothing left to say.

Rhys stood there, unmoving, until the echo of her footsteps faded down the steps. Only then did he realize that he was gripping the doorjamb hard enough to numb his hand. He forced himself forward, through the weight of the air, after her.

She was halfway to the carriage, the footman trailing after her, and Mary already waiting by the open door. He called her name once, then again, louder.

She did not break stride. If anything, she moved faster.

“Celine,” he called again, just above a shout, but it sounded thin in the open air.

She turned at the curb, her eyes so blank that he almost flinched.

“Where are you going?” he managed, feeling stupid even as he said it.

“To my father’s house,” she replied, with the finality of a gavel strike.

He stepped closer, his feet sliding a little on the dew-damp stone. “Let me come with you. Or at least?—”

“No.” The word hit him like a slap. She looked over his shoulder, not at him. “Do not follow me, Rhys. Not now.”

He faltered. He’d seen her angry, seen her hurt, but never this—never the precision with which she now cut him out of her world.

“Is this—” His words caught. “Are you leaving for good?”

She turned her back, already climbing into the carriage. “I need to be alone.”

He watched as Mary tucked the cloak around her, watched as the footman shut the door and the carriage lurched away from the curb. The horses clipped off, their hooves striking the drive with mindless precision.

Celine did not look back, not even once.

He stood in the half-open door, the cold wind battering his shirt through the gap. He let the chill bite, let it remind him that she was gone and he had no one to blame but himself.

He’d spent years armoring his heart against disappointment, curating his days so that nothing, no one, could ever wound him deeper than his father had.

He had thought he was clever, that by letting her be herself and keeping his distance, he could avoid the ugliness his parents had drowned in.

And now here he was, watching her go, and he had never once told her the truth.

He never even got the chance to explain to her why he couldn’t attend the soiree.

He watched until the carriage turned the corner and vanished from sight. Then, alone in the door, he sagged, his head bowed, as if the fight had left him only now.

He shut the door, more gently than he thought possible. He climbed the stairs, slow, deliberate, every step ringing in the empty house.

At the top of the landing, he paused, looked back at the hall where she had stood not ten minutes ago, cloaked and proud and entirely beyond his reach.

He wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage, to break something, to find the three men who had poisoned her mind and demand they take back every word. But mostly, he wanted her to come back home.

He crossed to the study and poured a drink he didn’t want, his hands shaking just enough to slosh liquor onto the desk. He sat down, staring at the untouched ledgers and the half-finished letter to his solicitor.

Swallowing, he focused on the quill. He should write to her, but he had no idea what to say.

He rested his head in his hands and tried desperately to remember every word he had said to her over the past month.

Had he ever told her that she was wanted? Had he ever made her believe that what he felt was more than duty or spite?

The answer, he suspected, was no.

He wondered if she would ever forgive him for that. He wondered whether she would ever come back home.