Graham dragged a hand through his hair. How did I fail to see this? How was I so blinded?
“You were a duke’s spare and you were even lucky enough to have your brother die for you.” A cold went through Graham at the empty, maniacal laugh that bubbled from Turner’s throat. “You had Rowena and love. Why did you deserve to have everything?”
My God. All these years he’d believed himself mad, and all along it was Jack whose brain had been destroyed. “You are sick,” Graham breathed.
“Mayhap.” In a show of brazen stupidity, Jack grinned, a cocksure smile full of evil. “But I wrote the note that cost you Rowena and her love.”
Jack had written the note. That forged scrap of lies.
Graham stood motionless, and then swung his arm back and leveled his fist in the other man’s face. Shrieking and wailing, Jack crumpled in a heap and Graham came down over him. Chest heaving from his tumultuous emotion and exertion, he drew back to bloody him once more—and stopped. He looked at Jack, sniveling before him, and then suddenly released him. Beating the other man would not right Jack’s evil or his own wrongs. Wiping a tired hand over his face, he slowly stood. “Get out,” he ordered. When Jack remained curled in a ball at his feet, he yanked him to an upright position and shoved him toward the door. “Never come back. If you breathe a word about Ainsley or Rowena, if you so much as go near or mention even her family, I will end you.”
Tripping over himself, Jack rushed from the room.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and Graham spun.
Rowena lingered in the entranceway. “May I come in?” she asked hesitantly.
He blinked slowly. “Yes, of course. Come in.” His heart thundered as she drew the door closed behind her. Graham motioned her to one of the chairs at his desk. With her gaze, she did an inventory of the papers strewn about the haphazard furniture. He quickly righted the other seat.
“You didn’t have to do that for me.”
So she knew? How much had she heard at the doorway? “I had to do that for us.” For all they’d lost, which could never be restored.
She lingered at the chair, not sitting but hovering like a scared bird about to take flight. “I am leaving.” She confirmed that she was, in fact, that bird.
His heart stopped.
“I received a visit from the Marchioness of Waverly a short while ago. She has a finishing school.”
“A finishing school,” he repeated when she just stared at him.
“Her Ladyship extended me an offer of employment.” She held his gaze squarely. “And I accepted.”
How was he still standing and breathing? How, when his heart was withering and dying slowly in his chest, leaving in its place a dark, empty void? “I see.” His voice emerged garbled to his own ears. “And this is what you want?” Please tell me no. Please tell me I’m all you want. A future with us, together.
Rowena folded her arms close. “Every decision I’ve made in life had been thrust upon me. From my mother’s decision to move to Wallingford with my stepfather to your father sending me on to Mrs. Belden’s.” Graham wanted to drag the old bastard from the grave and kill him dead all over again. “Neither of those decisions were mine. I worked and survived, but I was only there because of him. And now here.” She motioned to the room. “I’m here, employed, because of you.” What in blazes was her point? He could see nothing through this thick haze of madness. “If I marry you now following the scandal... it will be no different than a decision that was thrust upon us. I need to do this... for me.”
For me.
Not us.
Rowena reached inside the front pocket sewn on her skirts and withdrew a small sack. She handed it over to him. Next, came a heart pendant. With stiff, aching movements, he looked inside the purse. “There is fifty pounds there,” she answered. She’d had a small fortune. Instead of using even a pence, she’d toiled and worked for everything she’d earned. God, how was it possible to find with each passing moment he loved her more and more? “I never touched a coin.”
This is what his father had given her. This final nail that had severed her faith and love in Graham. Nay, I did that all on my own... With unsteady fingers, he set down the purse and necklace. “Please, don’t go.” He dropped to a knee beside her, and a single tear streaked down her cheek, blazing a lonely trail. “Stay with me. Marry me.”
“I need to leave.” The weakening of her whisper stirred the embers of hope.
“You do not,” he entreated, gathering her hands.
“For Ainsley. For me.” Those last two words ripped a hole through his already shattered heart. Tears hung on her lashes.
“The ton doesn’t matter. None of this does.” How could he make her see? “Only we together matters.”
Another tear trailed down her cheek, followed by another and another, until her eyes were soft, shimmery pools of brown sadness. “Oh, Graham.” She caressed his face, and he leaned into her touch, the warmth of it healing. And then she spoke. “Don’t you see? Nothing but darkness exists when our worlds are combined. Together, we love, but we bring heartache. I do not want this life. If it was you and nothing else...” His dukedom. “...we could be, but the divide between us matters. Your father knew that. My mother knew that. And, in time, you will, too.” She opened her mouth as though to say more, but then she dropped her hand to her side and left him just as he’d been for the past eleven years: alone.
Chapter 24
One month later
London, England
Seated at his desk, with his new man-of-affairs going through his weekly reports, Graham only partially listened. Instead, his gaze kept straying to that small book tucked in the corner of his desk; to the same spot it had occupied for the past two months.
She’d been gone one month. And not a single bloody moment of the day passed when she did not occupy his thoughts. Was she happy? That was the most important question filling him with a longing to know. He had a desperation for her to miss him as he missed her.
He closed his eyes—
“Ahem...”
And then swiftly opened them. Blinking slowly, Graham stared at Roarke, a master of numbers and business who’d replaced Turner, and who now sat staring at him expectantly. “As I was saying, Your Grace, the Duke of Huntly requests a meeting to discuss the partnership. May I set it up for...” He examined a book on his lap. “Sometime next week?”
The inanity of those business deals. “Yes.” Going through the motions was how he’d existed since Rowena had left. Of life. Of business. Everything. “That will be all for the morning,” he said dismissively, and the other man nodded and rose to his feet.
The servant with graying hair at his temples collected his belongings, and then left Graham to his own musings.
Silence ringing in the room, he leaned forward and picked up the small book that was always close at hand. Da Vinci’s Great Works. That copy she’d pored over with an animated light in her eyes, as she’d challenged him on everything he’d thought he’d known about propriety and the way a person ought to conduct oneself. And, yet, whenever he held the leather tome, whenever he glanced upon it, memories of lying beside Rowena on the library floor flooded him. He fanned the pages as he so often did, and a thick sheet of vellum slowed his perusal. Graham paused, transfixed by that hated note he’d stuck in the middle. That note had single-handedly decided and destroyed their future, that last mocking testament left of his father’s evil.
They had been robbed of their happiness. Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. Even now, the lady might be blissfully happy in her new role. His stomach muscles contracted. For what kind of selfish bastard was he that he wanted her to be as empty in this moment as he himself was? Sucking in a breath, he drew the book close to his face. Missing her. Wanting her. Needing her. Loving—
“Hampstead?”
Swiftly lowering the book, he looked up to find his ward, Ainsley, at the front of the room. God how he hated how she’d taken to calling him Hampstead. It was a titl
e that served as a horrid reminder of the man who’d sired him. “Ainsley,” he called and came to his feet. With Rowena’s absence, a new companion had been sent by the Marchioness of Waverly. The young woman, Mrs. Dubois, who now served in his employ had come to them from the same finishing school where Rowena now worked. And he hated the new companion’s very presence here for her connection to the place he’d lost Rowena to.
Ainsley strolled over and plopped into the leather winged chair. “Well?”
“Well, what?” In the time he’d navigated through his household with his charge underfoot, one thing he’d learned about the girl was that she was a master of confusion with words. He’d read complex battlefield plans that were easier to sort through than her ruminations, most times.
“Dukes don’t sulk.”
Sulk? “I’m not sulking,” he mumbled.
Ainsley scoffed. “And dukes certainly don’t mumble, either. But you’ve done a good deal of both.” She winged an incredibly mature eyebrow up. “Since Rowena left, that is.”
Despite the misery he’d lived for the past month, a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “You know so very much about dukes.”
“I know very much about all number of topics.”
And he decidedly did not want to know anything about what those topics might be. “Is this about your recent companion?” They’d gone through two since Rowena had departed. Not a woman had an ounce of her spirit or skill. But more, she’d been a lady who’d not entered this household to quash a girl’s spirit.
“Yes, well, I do miss her as a companion,” Ainsley conceded, draping her right leg over the arm of her chair. “But Mrs. Dubois and I get on well enough.” When the girl was not hiding from the lady. Graham knew better than to say as much. “But I’m not one who worries only for herself. I’m more worried about the sulking, mumbling, and sniffing.”
He puzzled his brow.
“You are often sniffing that book.” Ainsley pointed to the object in question, still clutched damningly in in his hands.
Neck heating, he quickly set it down. “I was not sniffing it.” Sometimes he brought it to his nose for the hint of her. This, however, had not been one of those times.
“May I speak freely?”
“Do you ever not?” he asked wryly, enjoying the break from his usual grief.
“Mrs. Bryant loves you and you love her. I really do not see the need for all this maudlin business.” She slashed the air with her hand.
“It is... complicated.” It was too many years of broken dreams and promises that Rowena believed could not be fixed. And certainly not words he’d share with this young lady who’d been tasked to his care, only after her rakehell father and reprobate guardian had gone and died on her.
“Complicated?” Ainsley snorted. “You do understand I’m a ward of nearly seventeen and not seven? You, sir, found your swan and you let her go.”
Graham scratched his brow.
With a frustrated sigh, Ainsley pointed her eyes to the heavens. “Your muted swan.” She flapped her arms in what he expected was her attempt at a birdlike gesture. “They partner for life, and build nests together, and mate...”
Choking, he yanked at his cravat, and his ward let those words thankfully go unfinished.
“Yes, well, they do everything together,” she settled for. “And you were Mrs. Bryant’s swan. I wish you’d both get on with your happiness instead of lamenting the past.” She hopped up. “That is all.”
That was all?
“Go to her, Hampstead,” his spirited ward called, not bothering to look back, “and get on with...” He emitted a strangled laugh. “Nest-building.” Shooting him an insolent last glance, she winked.
Go to her.
Rowena had been clear she wanted a new life without him in it. Or did she worry that a future between us is impossible because of all that had come to be? Graham raised her book to his face and inhaled deeply. Sniffing books, indeed. He set it down hard. He needed to see her one more time and attempt to convince her they were one another’s swans.
With a renewed purpose, he climbed to his feet.
It was not that Rowena wasn’t happy at Mrs. Munroe’s. Her charges were kind and clever girls. Her dwellings were cheerful. The food was palatable, which was a good deal more than one could say for the rubbish served at Mrs. Belden’s.
And yet, in the time since she’d been here, a hollow emptiness remained in the place where her heart was. She missed him. She missed everything there was to miss about him. She’d believed she would be better off alone than living amongst the ton as Graham’s duchess. She’d convinced herself that taking employment at the marchioness’ school was safer, and that Rowena would be spared the risk of any further hurt.
How very wrong she’d been.
This time being apart was no less painful than the ten years they’d been separated. Graham was the other half of her soul. Be it now or all those years past when they were not together, an ache existed in the place where her heart should be.
Only, this had been her choice. This was what was best for her and him. It was... Seated at her desk, Rowena banged her head slowly on the surface. Why did it feel as though with each passing day she sought to convince herself of the rightness in her decision?
Why could she not be happy? She lifted her head and looked about at the cheerful, now quiet rooms, where she delivered her instruction on Mrs. Wollstonecraft’s Works. She had security and independence and cheerful charges and...
She covered her face with her hands. And she was bloody miserable. Though contented, she was no happier here than she’d been at Mrs. Belden’s. She wasn’t, because her happiness and her heart were inextricably linked to a man she’d loved since she’d been a girl of fourteen... mayhap, even longer.
The frantic beat of footsteps passed her door. Followed by another set. And another. Until a loud stream of giggles and whispers echoed down the corridors.
Such displays of exuberance were not uncharacteristic in a school that did not seek to stifle young ladies’ spirits.
“What in blazes?” A cry went up and Rowena surged to her feet. For such panicky shouts from fellow instructors were unheard of.
She rushed to the door and pulled it open just as another handful of ladies went passing by. “What...”
“Do not go outside,” the young headmistress, Mrs. Devon, shrieked at the charges bypassing her.
Rowena cringed at that blatant disregard for the unusually frantic young woman, who was wholly out of her element. “He is a madman,” the headmistress cried. “Mr. Davenport,” she screeched for the stable master.
Feeling her first real stirrings of interest, Rowena quickened her stride and followed the bustling activity. She squeezed her way past girls rushing from their rooms to the open door at the front of the establishment. She lifted her hand to shield her gaze from the late morning sun and blinked to adjust to the brightened light. “What is it?” she asked a nearby instructor, Lenora Lovel, who stood with her hands propped on her hips, peering in the distance.
“There is a madman fighting with birds,” a nearby student supplied for her.
“I say he’s far too splendid to be a madman,” one of the other giggling girls said in return.
Creasing her brow, Rowena stalked forward, and then stopped abruptly, her heartbeat following a like movement. She touched a hand to her breast.
Four carriages sat, with their doors hanging open. Graham frantically dashed back and forth over the immaculately tended grounds... guiding... her lower lip trembled.
“Blast it, Hampstead,” Ainsley shouted directions from within one conveyance. “You’re letting them escape.”
“They aren’t birds,” a student corrected from beyond her shoulders. “They are—”
“Muted white swans,” she whispered. With Ainsley still barking orders to the frantic Graham, Rowena abandoned the cluster of curious girls and onlookers and continued walking. Calls of worry went up, but she ignored them. With e
very step, Graham’s muffled cursing and mumblings reached her ears. He remained intent in his pathetic attempt at herding those recalcitrant creatures to the lake.
A large white swan cut out and charged at his legs. He stumbled and tossed his arms wide in a bid to keep from falling on the bird. He soundly landed on his buttocks. Ainsley covered her face in her hand with a furious groan. “Bad form, Hampstead. Bad form, indeed.”
A laugh escaped Rowena, and she rushed forward in a flurry of lavender skirts. “Graham?”
From around the swarm of white swans that surrounded him, he peeked his eyes up at her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, shaking her head in abject confusion. He is here. Why is he here?
“Rowena Endicott, the woman who never required more than two names because you were always perfect as you are,” he called loudly, climbing to his feet. Her heart pulled at that long ago lamentation she’d made to him about her lack of a second name. “I am here to again ask you to marry me. As I should have done before I went to war.” Her heart jumped. “As I should have done when I returned. You, madam,” he barked, jabbing a finger in her direction, “are my swan.”
Her lips parted on a whispery soft exhalation. And throughout the grounds, but for the collective sighs that went up, the students and instructors fell silent.
“And if you must stay here,” he gestured to the modest stone establishment at her back and the cluster of onlookers, “then, I would stock this lake with white swans, so every day you wake up, and every day you look out that window and remember, I am yours.” Tears flooded her eyes. “And you are mine. My partner for life. The woman I’d build a nest or a castle for, if you’d but let me.”
Rowena blinked back the crystalline drops, attempting to bring his beloved face into focus, but the tears continued to come. “Graham—”
“Tell me where you wish to be and let me be there with you. Because you are home. We are home, together. And—” Another angry swan charged at his legs once again and he grunted. “And... and... I expected this would be a good deal easier,” he boomed, fending off another attack from several other swans. “Vastly different than sheep.” Giggles echoed about the grounds, followed by loud shushing from the instructors. “Not that I would not climb into the heavens and grab you a star if you so wished, because I would,” he added. “But—”
Schooling the Duke (The Heart of a Scandal, #1) Page 30
