Page 84 of A Spinster for the Cold Duke

“Marry me,” he repeated. The idea gained strength as he spoke. “If we wed, their whispers become irrelevant. You would be a duchess, beyond their petty judgments. Celia would have a mother who genuinely cares for her, and?—”

“No.” Annabelle’s voice was sharp. It cut through his growing enthusiasm. “No, we cannot.”

“Why not? It solves everything?—”

“It wouldn’t solve anything,” She said. “Henry, do you truly believe that marriage would silence their tongues? That they would not view me as less-than? A spinster who was previously married, a duchess? What suitor would want me as his mother-in-law? I’ll tell you: they would not. Marrying me would affect Celia in the worst way possible. I cannot do this to her.”

Henry felt as though the ground was shifting beneath his feet, his heart pumping so hard in his chest that he thought it’d crack right through his ribcage.

“But I say this because I…” He started to say, but quickly stopped, as though the full import of his words seemed to dawn on him.

The silence between them stretched cold and frozen.

“So that’s it, then?” he said quietly. “You do not wish to be my wife? Have these past weeks meant nothing?”

“No. They… they meant so much,” she whispered, and the admission seemed to shatter something inside her. “And that’s precisely why they must end.”

She moved toward the door, and a terrible sense of panic seized him. “Annabelle, wait?—”

“Please don’t make this harder than it already is.” She paused with her hand on the door handle, her profile etched in the afternoon light. “I’ve made my decision. I pray that someday you’ll understand it was the right one.”

“The right one for whom?” he demanded, unable to stop himself from fighting for this…forher. “For Celia? For society? Or for the coward you’ve chosen to become?”

He words tasted like ash on his mouth as he uttered them. He despised speaking ill of her. And yet, his blood raced in his veins. He had to make her see, to tell her anything to get her to stay?—

She flinched as though he’d slapped her but didn’t turn around.

“Perhaps for all of us, Your Grace,” she said.

And then she was gone, leaving him alone among the exotic blooms and the gentle sound of falling water.

Henry stood motionless, every instinct urging him to go after her. But he held himself back.

He gave her those moments, waiting, daring her, to turn back, to take back the words that had cut deeper than any scandal ever could.

Yet she never did.

CHAPTER 29

“Good God, man, you look positively ghoulish.”

The days that followed their last meeting in the conservatory blurred together in a haze of carefully maintained normalcy. Henry continued his daily routines: estate business, correspondence, and the endless social obligations that came with his title. But something fundamental had shifted, leaving him feeling as though he were viewing the world through glass. He was present but somehow separated from everything around him.

Now, Henry glanced up from his brandy to find Everett settling into the opposite chair at their club. His usual cheerful demeanor was tempered by concern.

“Charming as always, Southall,” Henry replied dryly. “To what do I owe this delightful assessment of my appearance?”

“To the fact that you’ve been sitting in that same chair for the better part of two hours, staring into your glass as though it holds the secrets of the universe.” Everett signaled for his own drink. “Also, you missed our appointment at Tattersall’s yesterday, which is entirely unlike you.”

“Yes. I’ve been… preoccupied.” He said nothing more as he was not quite sure if he was ready to lay his wound bare for all the world to see just yet.

Even to his friend. But the burden continued to press against his throat, demanding to be freed.

“Clearly.” Everett leaned forward, and his expression became serious. “What’s happened, Henry? And do not tell me it is nothing. I’ve known you too long to accept such obvious prevarication.”

Henry considered deflecting and maintaining the facade he’d carefully constructed. But the weight of carrying his pain alone was becoming unbearable.

“Miss Lytton…” he said simply.

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