Page 71 of My Darling Mr. Darling
“This,” she said, handing him the folio. “I wantthis.”
She couldn’t mean that. Hadn’t she just told him that she loved him? So she couldn’tmeanit.
“You don’t—youcan’t—” he stuttered, even as his hands closed around the folio she had shoved into them.
Still her voice was firm, strong, determined—everything he had ever admired about her, even if her beneficent smile trembled a bit on her lips. “I want more, John. I want what my parents had. I want what Serena and Grey have. I won’t settle for less than that. I won’t lower myself to a one-sided marriage.”
Aone-sided marriage? “Iadoreyou,” he repeated fiercely, desperately.
She offered a shrug that came off just a touch jerky. “I don’t want your adoration. I want yourlove. And you can’t offer that to me.” She drew in a steadying breath as she stepped around him. “I’m—very grateful to you, John. You gave my life back to me, and now I can go on living it, as myself at last.Formyself, at last. I will always appreciate your dedication, your tireless efforts to find me, when I was lost even to myself. But I won’t live my life withless. Not anymore.” Her fingers touched the door, pulled it open. She paused, one foot over the threshold. “The greatest difference between us,” she said softly, “is thatIknow when to walk away.”
∞∞∞
Fifteen minutes later, in the carriage that she’d had Wentworth send a footman to summon, Violet arrived on the doorstep of the Marquess of Granbury, and pounded on the door until the butler came hurrying to answer.
“Good evening, Simpson,” she managed to say to the poor man—who looked as if he’d been pulled from the depths of slumber—and promptly burst into tears. Barely masking his horror, he ushered Violet into the drawing room to sit upon a sofa, dabbing at her eyes with the sleeve of his dressing gown in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of tears.
Footsteps thundered down the staircase a few moments later. “What the devil is that wretched caterwauling?” grumbled an irritated voice that could only be the marquess—and a moment later he poked his head into the room, confirming her suspicions.
“Oh, no,” he said, when she attempted a polite greeting through the muddle of tears. “Oh, no, no, no—no. I don’tdotears. Simpson, you go prepare some tea. I’ll fetch Serena.”
“I’m coming!” Another flutter of footsteps on the stairs followed the call, and Serena came dashing in, her blond hair unbound, blue silk wrapper floating across the floor. “Oh, Violet,” she said. “Whatever is the matter?”
The whole dreadful tale came tumbling out in a messy, humiliating rush, and though the marquess flinched with each sob, despite his assertion to the contrary, he stayed close by and busied himself with assembling an assortment of items—a handful of handkerchiefs, a soft blanket, a number of decanters of liquor—that Violet supposed he thought would make themselves useful.
When the tea arrived, Serena waved him away at last, and with no small amount of relief, he fled to the upper story.
“I thought he didn’tdotears,” Violet sniffled, her voice appallingly nasal, as she accepted a tea cup from Serena.
“Actually, he does them quite well,” Serena said. “It’s just that they make him so very uncomfortable; hethinkshe doesn’t know how to handle them. Why, just lately—” She caught herself with a small, sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry. You’re not here for that. But, Violet, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share with you what a very wise woman once told me.” She clasped Violet’s hand in hers. “You may give yourself a quarter of an hour to feel truly, abjectly sorry for yourself. And then you must do what every other woman who has had her heart broken has done. Pick yourself up and move on.”
Despite herself, Violet managed a chuckle at having her own words thrown back at her. And then that chuckle turned into a sob—the sob into tears—the tears into wails of grief and loss and pain. Serena was kinder than Violet had ever been; she wrapped her arms around Violet and made soothing noises, stroking her back and hair for long minutes in quiet comfort.
Violet cried the entirety of her broken heart out for precisely one quarter of an hour.
And not one second longer.
Chapter Twenty Seven
There were three hundred and seventeen forget-me-not blossoms woven into the pattern of the rug beneath his cheek and John had counted every one of them twice. It had occurred to him that it was an odd choice for a rug pattern, but then he had recalled what Violet had said about the locket she had once had with her mother’s miniature inside, and he had realized that the rug must have been chosen—or perhaps commissioned—by Townsend as a subtle reminder of his wife. Perhaps they had been her favorite flower.
Violet preferred dandelions.
The thought made his stomach clench—an unpleasant sensation, after the consumption of so much whisky—and he rolled onto his back in an effort to alleviate it. Mrs. Morris had come in and out of his office thrice already to cluck over him like a mother hen, but he had waved off her well-intentioned fussing, because it had only served to make him feel worse.
He had slept only fitfully the night before, and had been drinking steadily since mid-afternoon. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—to drown his disordered thoughts in an overabundance of alcohol, thus silencing them for a time. Instead they had only grown louder, more persistent, and each one pounded around inside his head in shrill recrimination.
Dusk was falling, sending shadows sliding across the room through the open curtains. If Violet were here, he would have wreathed the room in candles for her, to chase away the darkness she feared. But she wasn’t, and she would never be again, and so he sulked on the floor in the fading light, pushing himself to his elbows only long enough to take another swig from his decanter of whisky.
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and he heaved a great sigh, bracing himself for the latest intrusion. "I'm not hungry, Mrs. Morris, but thank you for your concern,” he said, conscious of the slur in his voice.
“Concernisn’t quite the right word.” Grey’s voice bounced off the walls, and John turned his head toward the sound, finding a shiny pair of boots not two feet away from his head. “Annoyanceis somewhat more apt. Did you know Violet came round our townhouse last night?”
“No. How could I have done?” She’d left his house quickly and quietly—he’d discovered only later that she had had her carriage waiting in the mews. Probably she had known what his answer would be. Perhaps the very existence of that petition for an annulment had prepared her for the possibility.
“There I was, minding my own business, in bed with my lovely wife—and Violet comes pounding on the front door, interrupting what promised to be a perfectly satisfactory evening to sob on Serena’s shoulder.” Grey crammed his hands into his pockets, frowning down at John. “Naturally, I did my level best not to involve myself. But I can’t help but wonder what, precisely, has gone wrong. Only hours before you had resolved to mend your marriage.”
John let the back of his head hit the floor, grimacing at the revelation. Violet had cried? Another pocket of guilt formed in his gut, to match the ones already stewing there. “She wants something I can’t give her.”