Page 42 of His Scandalous Duchess (Icy Dukes #4)

“I have never seen Abigail like this, and it bothers me,” Norman added, standing in front of Valentine in the study. “Great heavens, I have never seen you like this! What is going on? If you made a decision, should you not stand on it?”

A muscle twitched in Valentine’s jaw. “She’ll adjust. Abigail will adjust.”

“No, she won’t,” Norman said bluntly. “She’s six, Brother. She doesn’t understand why Cecilia is gone. She doesn’t understand why she is not allowed to see her. Yesterday, she asked me if Cecilia abandoned her.”

Valentine raked a hand through his hair, now longer than he ever kept it. Everything about him was fraying at the edges. His discipline, his sleep, his ability to mask anything at all. Even Norman saw it. Norman, who had spent a lifetime pretending not to notice his cracks.

Was it always this loud in his own house? Or had Cecilia, with her maddening grace, simply muffled the chaos by existing? He had built a fortress around himself so carefully, and Cecilia had stepped inside it without permission, made herself comfortable, and begun rearranging the furniture.

Now she was gone, and the fortress was a tomb.

It seemed as though everything was thrown into chaos, and he couldn’t quite recall how the home functioned without her in the first place.

Even his staff were now acting differently around him—or rather, they had gone back to how they used to act before he got married in the first place. Doors began closing more quietly. Footsteps grew softer. Conversations ceased the moment he entered a room.

They feared him again.

It was as though the house had returned to the man it once belonged to. The cold, impassive Duke whose staff tiptoed and whose guests never lingered.

Norman visited more often now, which would have been fine if Norman didn’t treat every visit like a discreet intervention.

“You need rest,” Norman said to him, pulling him from his thoughts.

“I know none of this is about me, Valentine, but I am losing my mind. I don’t know how you do it, how you do all this work and keep your sanity.

But I am utterly drained, and respectfully, I need you to take your work back.

You did this. You sent her away. Why are you acting like she abandoned you? ”

Norman let out an exasperated sigh and poured them both another drink. Valentine hadn’t asked for it, but he didn’t refuse it either.

“You’re still doing it,” Norman said quietly, taking a sip as he sat down.

Valentine’s brow lifted, but he said nothing.

“Still punishing yourself for something you had no control over. For something no one told you.”

Valentine exhaled through his nose. “I was her husband, Norman.”

“Yes, you were,” Norman said, not unkindly. “But you were not a mind-reader, and Helena, God rest her, never told you anything. Not until she couldn’t hold it in anymore. That wasn’t your doing.”

Valentine’s jaw tensed. “I should have seen it.”

“How?” Norman challenged, leaning forward.

“How could you have seen what she herself buried beneath her smiles and obedience? You think I don’t remember?

She agreed with everything you said. She went where she was told, did what was expected.

She was the perfect duchess. You never saw her angry until the very end. ”

“She was afraid to speak,” Valentine muttered, guilt lacing the words. “Afraid of me. Afraid of father. You cannot blame her for that.”

“Whose fault is that?” Norman pressed gently. “Yours? Or the man who raised us both?”

Valentine’s eyes flickered, but still, he said nothing.

Norman went on. “Helena did what Father always rewarded. She complied. She suppressed. She wore perfection like a noose around her neck. You did not know, Valentine. How were you supposed to know she was forced into the marriage? Even I didn’t know. Let it go.”

Valentine looked away, his voice rough. “You think I don’t want to let it go? You think I like being miserable? It’s eating me inside, Norman. I cannot help it.”

Valentine stared into the fire. The amber liquid in his glass was half gone, but he didn’t remember drinking it. His throat felt raw, as though the words Norman had spoken had scraped something loose inside him.

The silence stretched between them.

Then Norman spoke again. “I know I’m pushing you.”

Valentine’s eyes flicked to him.

“I’ve listened, for years, like you asked. I’ve held my tongue. I didn’t mention Helena. I didn’t say a word when you buried yourself in work or when Abigail barely knew how to smile. I didn’t press. Not even when you started acting like a ghost in your own house.”

Norman sat back. “But I’m pressing now because I see something different. I see Cecilia.”

Valentine frowned slightly. Her name struck like a stone thrown into still water.

“The only reason I am pushing so much is because I know you are in love with Cecilia, but you are punishing yourself because, according to your flawed logic, you do not deserve happiness, and now that someone is giving that to you, you are running away. Just let love lead, Valentine.”

Valentine didn’t answer right away. He looked at Norman, puzzled. “How did you know?” he asked quietly. “About my feelings for her?”

Norman raised an eyebrow. “So you’re not denying it?”

Valentine exhaled, long and slow, like the confession had been dragged from somewhere he had kept locked even from himself. “That’s not the issue,” he said quietly.

Norman stilled. “What is, then?”

“Loving her isn’t the issue,” Valentine said again, more firmly this time, as though he were testing the words on his own tongue. “I never thought I would fall in love. Not truly. Yet somehow, I did, and knowing I love her doesn’t frighten me.”

He clicked his tongue and set his glass down.

“All my life, I imagined that love would undo me. That it would rip me apart or reduce me to a man I didn’t recognize if it ever happened to me.

But it hasn’t. It gives me…peace. In all the noise and all the duty and all the grief, knowing that I love her feels steadying. Like a fixed point.”

Norman frowned, listening.

“The problem...” Valentine went on. “...is not how I feel. It’s what I am.

What I have become. I cannot give her what I do not have.

I cannot give her happiness,” he said. “I know it. I feel it in my bones. Every time I think of Helena and how I carry her memory like a stone in my chest, unmoving. Six years later, I still feel like this. If I cannot climb out from under that guilt, if I cannot let go of something that happened so long ago.What hope is there that I could love someone as she deserves to be loved?”

Norman leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. “Then give her what you can give her.”

Valentine turned to him.

Norman didn’t wait for him to interrupt.

“You keep saying you cannot give her happiness as if it’s a fixed thing.

As if it’s some perfect little box you can hand over, ribbon and all, and say, ‘Here, I’ve solved it.

’ But that’s not how life works, Valentine.

That’s not how love works. Happiness isn’t yours to give; it’s something she builds for herself with the one she chooses to build with. That’s the whole point.”

Valentine opened his mouth, then closed it again. He sat frozen, Norman’s words ringing in his ears like the last toll of a cathedral bell. But before he could form an answer, before he could even feel the answer, the door burst open.

Miss. Flaxman stood there, pale and breathless, her usually neat cap askew and her hands trembling at her sides. “Your Grace,” she gasped. “Forgive me, but I’ve searched everywhere. The nursery, the garden, the south wing, I cannot find her.”

Valentine’s head snapped up. “Who?” His voice was a low, dangerous growl, though he already knew the answer.

The governess swallowed, her voice breaking. “Abigail, Your Grace. She’s missing. I have been searching for over an hour.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Then, all at once, Valentine was on his feet. The chair clattered behind him. His heart had gone still, his mind a sudden white expanse of panic.

“Sound the bells,” he said tightly. “Get the entire staff. Get me Hawkins. I want everyone searching for her.”