Page 75 of Her Heartless Duke

She might as well spend the last few weeks of her life in the peace of her childhood home, surrounded by all the things that reminded her of her parents, of joy, and her once childhood innocence.

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

Isaac knew that he was on his way to becoming well and truly foxed and he preferred it that way. It was certainly better than the confusing mix of roiling anger and gnawing pain that clawed at his chest from the moment he learned of Olivia’s deception.

He had trusted her, had evencaredfor her. She was the first person he had allowed into his confidence since he came back from the Peninsula, with the exception of Daniel and Miles.

And yet, all of it had been nothing more than a cruel ruse, a fabrication that she had pulled over his eyes to get exactly what she wanted.

Women are all the same!Isaac cursed as he drank deeply from a pewter mug that had seen better days. The beer was of poor quality, but it hardly mattered at that point. He just wanted to forget everything.

Forgether.

But in the two weeks since he walked out of Lady Willow’s ballroom, it was proving to be an exercise in futility.

She waseverywhere. Her laughter echoed in the corridors of Anderleigh Hall. The image of her mischievous smile would pull him from his self-induced stupor, sending him crashing back into a reality where nothing made sense and everything seemed wrong.

The first night, all he felt was rage.

Now, there was a gnawing emptiness that not even the strongest spirits could counteract.

Was any of it real? Or was everything just part of her deception?

He pulled out a sheaf of papers—letters that he once thought came from Lady Vivian. He now recognized that Olivia had penned them all herself.

He frowned as he scanned them, the lines blurring in his inebriated state, as he struggled to read them.

While they were written mostly as responses to his own letters, he realized that though they were tempered by a hint of vagueness—which he once attributed to Lady Vivian’s shyness and modesty—he could still see the bright and cheerful nature in them that was wholly, unmistakably Olivia Bennet.

Through those letters, she encouraged him to let go of the demons of his past, gently urging him to be more cognizant of all the goodness in the world around him. He had thought them slightly optimistic at first, even a little naive, but these letters truly did make him see the brighter side of things.

He smiled sadly as he read how she told him that his life held infinitely more value than his narrow views allowed him to see. That he was good and brave and kind and capable of wonderful things.

No one had ever said or written the same things to him and as much as he wanted to deny it, he had clung to the words in those letters.

But now, he was doubtful if she truly meant anything she had ever written to him, or if she was merely manipulating him to suit her own purposes.

How could she seem so sincere in her letters and yet lie to my face at the same time?

Suddenly, someone bumped into his shoulder, followed by raucous laughter. Isaac frowned, knowing that such things were common in taverns like these where not everything was so genteel as in the gentlemen’s clubs he had chosen to frequent in the past few weeks.

He could have let it pass—after all, it was probably nothing more than a clumsy drunk, but then he looked at the letters in his hand and found them all doused with a significant amount of gin, the stench rising up from them unmistakable. What was worse was that the carelessly spilled drink had rendered most of the letters in his hand unreadable, the writing in them becoming nothing more than illegible stains upon the paper.

A fury rose from within him, borne out of some sort of sheer desperation at having something hetreasureddestroyed by a bumbling buffoon who could not hold his drink.

He roared and stood up, drawing his fist back to strike at the poor fool who had unintentionally ruined his letters.

But then, he felt a calm pressure against his shoulder. He looked down and found Daniel effectively holding him back, his blue eyes steely and so much like those of Olivia’s that for a moment, Isaac felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

“You disgrace yourself, Langley,” the Earl drawled. “Now, drop your fist and join me outside for a walk to clear that head of yours.”

Isaac dropped his fist but shrugged off his friend’s hand. “It is no business of yours what I do with my life.”

Daniel’s eyes clouded with something Isaac could not understand. “True, but if it will bring my sister some peace, then I cannot allow you to destroy yourself so willfully.”

His head quickly snapped back to his friend. “What are you talking about, man?”

Daniel just smiled bitterly at him. “Like I said, join me outside for a walk. I would much prefer to talk when you have regained a little more of your sobriety.”