Page 16 of The Forgotten Duchess (The Dukes of Sin #4)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“ N o.”

Eleanor’s heart dropped at the single word of refusal.

There was a slight pause from him as she waited for him to elaborate on his reason for refusing.

“I do not wish to promenade around my own property. I have seen enough of it in my childhood.” Frederick said stiffly.

“I would have assumed so,” she smiled nervously. “But it is so lovely outside right now. I don’t mean to push –”

“Then don’t.”

His cold responses were filling her heart with dismay. It was quite unlike him to be so curt and cold with her, especially after she had reconciled with the idea that he seemingly derived joy in teasing her.

Now, it was almost… almost as though he couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same space as she was.

Eleanor’s heart felt crushed by his quick rejection and shame was rapidly threatening to consume her.

But then his gaze lightened slightly and he sighed.

“I’ve… I do not wish to go out anymore, as I was outside long enough earlier. I do not want to walk right now.” He stated, his tone losing some of its cutting edge from earlier.

“Oh…” she couldn’t help but frown, disappointed. “I… it’s fine. You are also likely still tired from your hunt earlier. I apologize if I bothered you.”

Quickly, she walked away, her heartbeat thundering in her ears as her cheeks burned in embarrassment.

“Of course,” she muttered to herself quietly. “What was I thinking? We have been so different from the start. I should have known he wouldn’t be interested to do that.”

In as much as she wanted to chalk it up to his exhaustion, his rejection did hurt her. She could not recall the last time she had wanted to do something so dearly. And it felt silly to be so upset over his refusal, but the burn in her chest was refusing to fade away, no matter how much she willed it so.

Eleanor returned to her room with, wincing at her reflection in the vanity mirror, reminded of the high expectations she had held over something so simple.

“Your Grace?” Alice called from the other side of the door.

Eleanor inhaled deeply and opened it with a slight smile that she could feel was quite weak.

“Ah, Alice. As it turns out, I will be reading a book until dinner time. Please inform the rest of the staff not to bother me before then.”

If the maid wished to ask any questions about why Eleanor had gotten herself ready to simply sit in her room, she did not ask them, instead bowing obediently.

“Of course, Your Grace,” she said and then took her leave.

Eleanor closed her room door and pressed her forehead against it with a deep sigh, suddenly feeling weary.

She did not understand Frederick sometimes. It seemed that whatever common ground they would find eventually wound up demolished later on. After the gentle conversation they’d had in his study, she felt thrilled to have gotten a glimpse of his past.

It had not taken too much to understand him, to recognize the distant pain in his eyes as he talked about his turbulent childhood. She had thought that they would have gained some closeness to each other since they had revealed a part of their scars that seemingly still bled.

And now he was putting up a wall, giving the impression that he regretted exposing himself to her like that. It was cruel to think that just as she believed that she had managed to find someone who understood her and her pain, it seemed as though he wanted nothing to do with her.

As if he found her to broken, too flawed to desire.

Eleanor shook her head, trying to dispel the discomforting thoughts that were clouding her mind and sending her heart into a whirlwind of disarray.

“I am likely thinking about it too much. It is perfectly fine if he does not wish to go on a walk. He could have been tired. He could have simply just wanted to do something else, other than roam around under the sun after doing so for a while earlier. It is not as though I’ll never see him again. It is almost time for dinner and I will definitely see him then,” Eleanor told herself in consolation, hoping that it would ease away her unrest.

Except when dinner time arrived, Eleanor waited and waited.

But the duke did not show up.

Eleanor seemed to be more patient than she had thought previously.

That was the only thing that stood as the reason why she was content to wait for her husband, despite his decision to disappoint her over and over again.

On the first night that he had chosen not to join her for dinner after his hunt, she had assumed that he was merely still feeling tired and had eaten her meal without a fuss.

The next night, he had sent word through the butler of some work he had that needed to be urgently sorted through. She had managed to stifle her disappointment long enough to swallow a few bites before abandoning the rest of the meal.

It had not come as a surprise when she dined alone the night after that, this time with the knowledge that her husband had gone off to visit a friend and would be returning late.

Eleanor did not understand his intentions at all, especially with the memory of the intimate moments they had shared still burning freshly in her mind.

Did all of that mean nothing to him? She wondered, dismayed.

She wished she could ask her friends about it, and hoped to gain some form of insight from them about what she was experiencing.

But then she recalled that she had mentioned things going well to them and felt ashamed at the idea of taking back her words, now that he seemed to be avoiding her.

On the fourth night, Eleanor sat at the dining table, waiting for her husband. She expected that one way or another, she would still face him tonight.

But it was rather irritating when Mr Bradley arrived with a grimace.

“I am sorry, Your Grace. The duke is rather preoccupied with some work that simply cannot wait. He sends his apologies –”

“Does he?” Eleanor asked, exasperated.

Mr Bradley went still, looking like an animal caught in a trap. The duchess decided to have mercy on the poor man, as he was not the one who offended her.

“Never mind. I shall go and see him myself,” she announced with conviction before rising out of her seat.

The butler stuttered as she walked past him but Eleanor ignored him, heading straight to Frederick’s study. This time, there was no nervous anticipation as she knocked on his door.

He had barely given his assent for her to walk in before she marched into the study and shut the door behind her, asking point blank.

“Are you avoiding me?”

Frederick peered over the documents in his grasp at her for a moment, before he sighed and sat back.

“Why would you think that?” he queried, blankly.

“It certainly feels that way. I understand that you are busy. You have quite a number of things that have been put aside as a result of your injury and now you are trying to get back on top of things. But we have often had meals together, even if we were upset with one another because it was never too serious until we couldn’t share a meal. But now, it is like you are trying to stay away from me. You cannot even do the decent thing and inform me ahead of time that you will not be eating dinner with me. So I wait there, all by myself, and I have to be complacent with your excuses, even though they are unfair to me. And I don’t want to do it anymore. It is rather demeaning,” Eleanor said, folding her arms.

“Then don’t,” Frederick stated.

It felt as though his responses were curated especially to get on her nerves. As if he was being as frustrating as possible to get a rise out of her.

“Excuse me?”

“You make it sound as though I requested that you wait upon me, and I did no such thing. I did not wish to spend my time conversing with you about dull subjects over a meal when I had other things that required my attention. You cannot stand then and claim offense simply because I chose to shift my priorities,” Frederick replied, dropping his gaze down to his work.

Eleanor stood still, letting his words wash over her mind coldly.

“Why are you being like this? You are giving an impression that I had burdened you with my desire for some iota of normalcy. You sat down with me. You ate with me. Do not act as though you had been forced to sit there and play a role.”

She did not understand where his attitude was coming from. Things were not perfect, but they had been good. Good enough that she wouldn’t have thought anything was amiss if it was not her tone.

“Regardless, it is for the best if we remember and keep in mind that we had lives and duties before my accident. We cannot just throw it all away according to our whims.”

“No one is saying that you must –” Eleanor stopped, realizing that her senses had been right all along.

There was obviously something amiss. Something that had been staring her in the face for a disconcertingly long period of time. She had not wanted to admit the possibility to herself, enjoying the closeness between them.

But Frederick’s cold tone suggested there was more to this, a puzzle piece that had been hiding beneath the others scattered across the board, only waiting for her to notice.

“Did you… has your memory returned? All of them?” Eleanor asked hesitantly.

She was met with silence that cut into her heart more than his words would have.

“Why… why did you not tell me?” she pressed, feeling hurt and betrayed.

“My memories have nothing to do with you, so regaining them meant I was under no obligation to inform you about their return. It changes nothing anyway because it is not as though this experience will have any lasting effect on my lifestyle. Remembering who I am is merely the natural order and progression of things.” He snapped with a dark expression.

“What – what do you mean?” Eleanor asked with a quaking voice, hoping he was not saying what she feared he was.

Frederick stared at her, his eyes cold as he stated,

“As soon as the bastard who attacked me is found and dealt with, I will be leaving the estate. It is best if you prepare yourself to return to your life before this mishap because I will certainly be going back to mine.”

His detached manner of address and unfeeling expression, as he spoke to her, took her back to their wedding day a year ago, when he abandoned her without a second thought.

He was doing the same thing now, even though things between them had changed, taking them from the strangers they had once been to something much more than that. But it seemed she was the only one who believed that they had grown past the image of two people forced together by an unfortunate circumstance.

I’ve been a fool , she told herself, veins filling with hate and pain.

It disappointed and hurt Eleanor greatly to find out the side of him she had gotten to know was nothing more than a phase. A mere ideal that she had clung to, pretending that it was real as she ignored the truth of her reality.

Which was that Frederick hadn’t changed. And he likely never would.

“Even after everything, you would much rather revert to the side of you that only garnered hate and spite. You prefer to return to the past where you lived as a cold and heartless man, and for some reason, I thought you could change. I wanted to believe you would. And once more, you have disappointed and hurt me without any thought. Though, I suppose it is my fault for expecting more from you, when you made it clear from the start that you had no interest in what I wanted. I should have never been so foolish as to expect otherwise.”

Eleanor stopped, inhaling deeply for a moment, then sighing softly.

“Do whatever you will. You have never needed or considered my feelings in any matter, anyway,” she said quietly before she turned and left his study.

The tears managed to stay at bay until she reached her room, and then they spilled down her cheeks nonstop. Eleanor dropped to the floor heavily, wiping them away as she sobbed, unsure of why his rejection hurt so much and how it was affecting her so badly.

She wished she had not grown to care for him, had not bought into the delusion that they could be more than what they were initially.

Because now she was left to pay, with fragments of her own heart.

“As though I have not lost enough as it is,” she mumbled, burying her face in her arms.

It had been difficult to watch her leave.

Truthfully, she had been less objecting than Frederick had expected and he could not tell if the results were better than what he had imagined.

It was certainly more disconcerting , he thought, rubbing a sore spot in his chest he just couldn’t seem to reach.

Although he had understood the benefits of going down this route, he couldn’t help but feel annoyed that it had to be considered at all. Had he not developed a closer relationship with his wife, this would not have happened.

His father had been an abhorrent man, but he had taught Frederick that some problems should be avoided, rather than fixed. And with this situation, it was far too late to commit to avoiding it. He had tried that, only for her to invite herself into his presence.

Seeing her angry before him had served as a reminder that the deepest parts of him, parts he would not acknowledge had missed her deeply. He had begun to yearn for her presence, but ultimately knew it was for the best to keep his distance.

The same way he had known it was more ideal to withhold the news that he had regained his memories from her. It was better for them both if they were to preserve the civility and connection they had both found in each other recently. Frederick knew that telling her of his recollection would only put her on edge, taking away the comfort she had grown into when they talked or interacted.

Now that she had found out, the duke found himself not as pleased as he thought he would have been, being right. He wished he could do something, to lessen the betrayal he had seen in her eyes. But as he had surmised, this was the most ideal course of action for them.

He did not belong with Eleanor. Not with someone as pure and as special as she. Not when he had so many sins on his shoulders. Not while his hands had been stained by the blood of others countless times. She deserved someone who was unburdened by his past. Someone who would commit to her easily.

And that could never be him.

A knock at his door pulled him from his thoughts and he grunted his assent and Mr Bradley walked in, alongside Christopher.

To the butler, he instructed.

“Send word to my villa in London and tell them to expect my return soon.”

The man was surprised by his given task. “Will you be leaving us again, Your Grace?”

Frederick could hear what the man was asking clearly.

Will you be leaving your wife again?

The only thing that he had not recalled seemed to be the night of his assault. His nightmares had persisted, and he deduced it as his mind trying to tell him that the information he sought after was within reach. Soon, he would have what he needed.

But… at what cost?

“Yes. I have nearly fully recovered. Soon, I will have no reason to be here.” Frederick responded.

Mr Bradley looked as though he wanted to refute the statement but ultimately decided against it.

“Very well, Your Grace,” the butler said.

To Christoper, Frederick instructed,

“Instruct the stable boy to ready my horse and then prepare my things to ride. I have to clear my head.”

Because the longer I stay here, the weaker my resolve grows. And I cannot have that, not now.