Page 41 of His Duchess of Scandal (Brides of Scandal #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“ T here is clearly something the matter.”

“There is most definitely something the matter.”

Hermia’s gaze flicked to Sibyl and Isabella, who leaned in close almost conspiratorially, the two of them eyeing her over the breakfast table at Wickleby House. It had been three days since Hermia had packed her belongings to stay at her parents’ residence for a few days.

Only a few . I only want Charles to realize that if he puts so much emotional distance between us, he will receive physical distance.

But her heart ached more and more with each day, with each room she found that was not in Branmere Manor, and did not hold the love she was beginning to acknowledge as such.

Nor did any room hold Phoebe, of course, but Hermia had only left once the little girl was up and about properly without an aide.

She had explained, very gently, that her family needed her. She could not tell Phoebe that it was she who needed her family, if only to escape her husband’s coldness.

“Of course, something is the matter.” Lady Wickleby’s voice cracked through the breakfast hall as she entered.

“Hermia has done exactly as I feared. She has, quite simply, failed at being a duchess. His Grace has endured a great deal by marrying a spinster, and one who already faced such humiliation at that! I must take the fall for it; I must admit my fault in allowing the marriage to take place.”

“Oh, Heavens, Mama, do come down from your rant,” Alicia groaned from Hermia’s other side at the table.

“His Grace can make up his own mind, and very much did, from what I recall. You do not need to take any sort of accountability, for Hermia has not failed at being a duchess in the slightest. She has performed her duties well, has executed her tasks, and has remained a faithful wife. Whatever else could you ask of her?”

Hermia shot her sister a grateful look. She barely cared for her mother’s words, in truth. Nothing could hurt her, not when Charles’s absence was a gaping hole in her heart. Not when she only thought of that, only looked for him, and when she kept finding him gone, she felt scraped empty and raw.

She had never thought she would miss the Duke of Branmere, and yet she did—terribly.

“Oh, do not challenge me, Alicia. We have already discussed these antics of yours. Do you truly wish to scare away every suitor?”

“Mama, if a suitor gets within arm’s length, then I fear I will have failed myself entirely.” Alicia sniggered, only to receive an eye roll from Isabella and an annoyed huff from their mother.

Sibyl looked slightly disapproving but said nothing.

When their mother swept out of the breakfast hall, muttering about ungrateful wretches , Hermia did not care.

“ Hermia .”

Isabella’s shout made her realize she had not been paying attention.

“Yes?” she said quickly. “What is it?”

“We asked you what the matter is,” Sibyl pushed gently. “You are not yourself. You have not really been yourself ever since your wedding.”

That is because I spent so long denying my feelings, and yet now that I have acknowledged them, I have been rejected by my husband.

But she could not burden them with that. Least of all, she could not frighten them either, not when their own marriages would be planned and schemed.

She glanced over at Isabella, who looked hungry for gossip.

“Nothing,” she answered. “Nothing is the matter. I am simply tired, but that does not make me any less happy to have been reunited with you.”

Alicia snorted. “Do not offend me by thinking I will believe such a thing.”

“I agree,” Isabella sighed. “I miss you, of course, but not this much where I would give up my Duke to come and spend days with you.”

“Mama says you are here for a few days,” Sibyl cut in. “Why is that?”

“Because I wish to focus on family.” Hermia tried not to snap. Instead, she kept her voice tight but calm, the way she had when the girls did something wrong as children, but they didn’t quite understand what had happened.

That was a time when Hermia was still learning how to mother them.

The thought only made her miss Phoebe more.

“I am fine,” she said again. “Please do not worry about me.”

Isabella scoffed, but Alicia took her hand in a rare moment of affection.

“I beg you to remember,” she spoke, “that you are the Duchess. Not Mama, not His Grace. You . You have made your own headway in this role, and you are excelling at it. I am most proud of you, Sister, so whatever it is that is on your mind, despite your protests, I am certain you can share it, whoever it may concern.”

She gave her a long look that said she would grant Hermia the wish of not theorizing aloud, but she knew. She knew, and that was enough.

Hermia squeezed her hand back and widened her smile. Her heart hurt, but she could not let her sisters see too much of that.

“Come, we must discuss Lady Hatterly’s garden party. I have heard many suitors will be present, and I must chaperone you all, so you make excellent decisions about your future husbands.”

“I do not care for this topic,” Alicia sighed, rising from her chair with a groan. “Do call me when you ladies can think of anything but men.”

And that broke through her heartache just a little, but Hermia still found herself wondering. When Charles consumed every waking and sleeping thought, what could she do but think of him?

Charles had spent the last week pacing. What had only meant to be a handful of days—at least, he had both hoped and assumed it would only be a handful of days—had turned into a full week of Hermia’s absence.

He had spiraled, had spent too many hours doing absolutely nothing, had avoided the very thought of her name. He had tried to throw himself into work, but after reading several contracts, finding the words blurring and nothing sinking into his head, he had abandoned those, too.

His studio remained locked and unused. Every time he faced a canvas, it remained blank. He just couldn’t do it.

He had meant it when he told Hermia that she was his muse. Now that she was gone, he lacked inspiration.

His heart lacked it, unable to stop hearing himself telling her those ugly, horrible things.

“Tell me I am not wrong, that there has been something between us this whole time . ”

Why had he not said anything? Why had he not told her that she was right, there had been something between them? That he wanted her, that he loved her, and that loving her terrified him. How could he love her when it caused so much distraction?

He looked up when his study door opened, and stifled a groan upon seeing Levi standing in the doorway.

There was too much disappointment on Levi’s face for him to stomach looking for more than two seconds. He had already told him about Hermia’s absence.

“When did you last sleep?”

Levi’s first question was unexpected, and Charles frowned. “That is your first concern?”

“Oh, no, not at all, but you are still my friend, and you look terrible. Did you have breakfast today? Are you even aware that the sun has risen?”

“Of course I am,” Charles growled. But in truth, he was not, not really. “I-I slept recently.”

“When? The day before Hermia left?”

Charles flinched at the mention of her name. Instead of answering, he sighed and thought of his daughter.

“Phoebe asked me yesterday if she had done anything wrong. My daughter is ten years old, and she is blaming herself for the decline of my marriage. Heavens, no, it is not even a decline. It is… it is—” He broke off, growling.

“Charles,” Levi said.

Charles ignored him. “All I could do was kneel before her and try to make her see that she has never done anything wrong. That, in truth, she has never done anything wrong. Save for some pranks, save for some mischievous deeds. If anything, her pranks brought me the happiest thing in my life.”

“ Charles .”

“What?” he snapped. “What, Levi? What do you wish to hear? Because my wife has left me, my daughter despises me, and I do not blame her. I-I thought I had finally found peace after so long. I had her , and I said the worst things ever to her. I let her down. I let Herm—I let my wife down when all she had ever done was be there for me.”

“ Charles .”

Charles let his head tip back, glaring at Levi from beneath his lashes. “ What? ”

“When did you last paint?”

“I have not painted,” he snapped. “I have not slept. I have scarcely stomached a morsel of food. I cannot—I cannot focus with her gone.”

“If you can admit that to me, then you can admit it to Hermia’s face, surely?”

“No.”

“Whyever not?”

“Because I?—”

Because I am too prideful. Because she deserves better, and I want to be that better, no matter what it takes. And because I miss her so much that nothing seems to matter when she is not here.

“Because you are stubborn,” Levi scolded. He folded his arms, his hair impeccably styled, only making Charles realize just how disheveled he was. “And because you do not want her to be right. You want yourself to be right, but perhaps this time you are not.”

“Do not say?—”

“No, I will, because you have chased away the only other person who would say that you are wrong. Lady Phoebe certainly cannot, so it comes down to me. To be frank, my friend, you are repeating your parents’ mistakes.”

“Levi,” Charles growled.

“No, I do not care if you do not want to hear it.

Sometimes the hurtful things only hurt because they are the truth.

But you are trying to shove down your emotions, ignore anything that feels good or new, and you are trying to hold onto control so badly that you are not able to see the connections you have fostered.

“That is what they did, no? They put you in a box, Charles. That is how you have always described it. A box of pressure and duty. But you are still putting yourself in there, day after day, when you are in charge. You are in charge of your life. Why are you still squandering it? Why are you letting your happiness walk right out the front door?”

“Because I was a fool to think the cost of that happiness would not be so high,” Charles muttered. “And I was a fool to think I could afford such luxuries.”

“You can afford happiness, for you had it,” Levi bit out. “But do you know what you cannot afford, Charles? You cannot afford to lose her. To lose H?—”

“Levi.”

“No, I will say her name,” his friend insisted.

“And so should you. Hermia. For that is who you have told yourself you are content to lose. Except you are not content, are you? A contented man is not sleepless, nor lacking in productivity. So, no, you cannot afford to lose Hermia. Do you realize that yet, Charles?”

Charles only glared at him, hating that he was right.

Heavens, he hated it. He hated it. But most of all, he hated himself. He halted himself for letting Hermia walk out, for being content with Phoebe’s upset, for he convinced himself he had only been disciplining her.

“Leave,” he sighed in the end. “Just leave, Levi. I am not in the mood for company.”

“I actually came to visit to see if Hermia had returned,” Levi told him, his voice flat with both concern and disapproval. “Please make sure she does. The Hatterlys are hosting a garden party today.”

Charles’s scathing glare eventually chased him out.

He did not enjoy being so prickly and sharply spoken with his friend, but this week had seen him fall into such a pit of nothingness , a place where he could not even muster a smile for Phoebe’s sake. There had been nothing, barely a thought, a wasteland of utter bleakness.

What sort of life did Hermia have with him, shackled to such moods? Shackled to the self-hatred he could not escape from. He couldn’t shackle her to such a thing. And yet…

Yet all he could think about was pulling her into his arms, wondering how heavy the brandy might feel if only she were there to catch him if he stumbled.

Heavens, he missed her. He didn’t know the first step to getting her back. No, no , he did, but his pride was great, and it was stubborn.

Shoving away from his desk, he left his study and went to his chamber. His bed was soaked in memories of her, of their scents and noises. He turned sharply from the bed towards the mirror. When he saw his reflection, he flinched.

Over time, Hermia had made him brighter, more alert, and… well, for once, he had cracked a smile.

Smiling had become easier around her.

Now, Charles was facing a dour man once more, and the more he stared at the dark circles and the haggard look, the ungroomed beard and messy hair, the rumpled shirt and lack of cravat, he saw his father.

He saw the former Duke of Branmere.

He saw the man who had spiraled into being the perfect father, the perfect duke, only to lose himself in that pressure and end up being unfaithful. A man who had ruined Grenford’s daughter, a man who had died in a duel and made both the Grenfords and Branmeres suffer the consequences.

Nausea washed over him, and Charles slammed his palm into the mirror, trying to erase the thought that he really was his father. That he could not keep his wife happy, that he let his child down, that he was not the man he wanted to be.

No, Charles realized that Hermia had seen something in him—the boy who had been quelled and buried. She had brought him to life, let him find out who he was as a man. He did not quite know how to chase duty and happiness at once, but he knew that the only way to find out was by her side.

He recalled Levi’s parting advice: the garden party at the Hatterlys’ townhouse.

Charles did not waste any time; he bolted from his chamber and then from Branmere Manor altogether.