Page 35 of Denying a Rakish Duke
“So, you want her tothinkthat you are an arse, and you justify that by telling yourself that since you are not actuallydoinganything that it is somehow all right?” Alice’s arm lifted in frustration, and Joseph shook his head.
“No! I just … I do not know how to fix it! It is obvious to any who see you with your husband that you two are a perfect love match. Watching you two has convinced me that no matter what I say, or what I do—’
“Speakwith her!”
“I cannot! I cannot speak with her! I can hardly benearher without wanting to scoop her up into my arms and kiss her. I cannot form coherent sentences around her! I cannot be trusted to keep my composure or my hands to myself. I cannot return home until I have a better grip on my faculties.” Joseph’s head hung low in presumed defeat. “I do not know how things have gotten so bungled. I fear there might not be a remedy to be found … she shall never forgive me.”
“Nonsense!” Alice said and grabbed the shoulder of his shirt. She hauled him firmly to his feet, such a light woman with strong hands as she started to force the Duke toward the door. “I have heard quite enough from you! You are going to march right outside to your fine carriage and all of your footmen and finery, and you are going to return home to your wifeat once. I shall never permit you inside of my home again if you do not!”
“Ouch, you do not need to shove! Roderick! Help me!” the Duke called to the eldest child who merely smirked and shook his head. He was a wise boy indeed to not come in front of his mother’s wrath.
Vanessa was so absorbed in the situation in front of her that it did not register to her that she ought to make a hasty retreat back to Apple before she was spotted. The crooked front door flung open the rest of the way quickly, and light flooded out into the streets. Vanessa was frozen for a moment, paralyzed by the inevitability of being caught before her senses returned to her.
The door slammed shut behind Joseph, and the servants started to bring the carriage back around at his motion. Vanessa spun quickly and hastily started to make her way back to where Apple was tethered— but she was not quick enough.
She had learned so much information through her spying, more than she could have hoped to pry out of him on her own. He was not, in fact, with a mistress but spending time with his friends. Good friends, who truly wished for his happiness. Though, it stung that he still felt as if he could not speak to her, she had a good deal of things that she needed to work out for herself before she was ready to speak with him either.
“Excuse me,” Joseph called— he was calling to her. “Excuse me, but do I know you?” She could hear his quick steps coming after her and panic thrummed through her. She hastened her pace to a jog and took off toward Apple. “Wait a moment! Come back!” She could not allow him to see her here; she could never explain herself.
“Wait!” Joseph called again. “Vanessa?”
ChapterTwenty-One
“Where is she?” Joseph demanded. He burst through the back doors of his home. The crack of the wooden doors violently hitting against the frame echoed throughout the eerily still space.
Vanessa had run up the steps only moments before. Apple’s reins had been hastily thrown at the stable hand as she took the stairs two at a time in clothes that suddenly felt all too tight. Normally, riding would clear her mind. No problem felt too large with the wind whipping around her, pulling her hair down in waves around her face and stinging her cheeks. Normally, the faster that she was able to ride, the clearer everything became. Puzzles sorted themselves out, and stresses melted away into nothingness.
He hadseenher, and rather than have the confrontation that she knew was coming, the confrontation that she had followed him in order to have in the first place, she had run. Like a fool or a coward or both.
“Vanessa!” Joseph bellowed again, his deep voice rebounding from the walls and settling deep into her bones. Without a care to his temper, she rounded the next hallway toward her chambers. She dropped her riding gloves and cloak as she walked, leaving them in piles on the carpet runners.
Oxygen came to her in short gasps as she ripped open her chamber door and shut it behind her with her body. He was coming up the stairs. She would be discovered, and she could not gather her wits about her. She started to yank her shirt from the riding trousers on her body; she could not breathe. The air in the chamber was too thin, and she was overheating. She could not force her lungs to still. She staggered into the chamber and pulled the thing loose and over her head, her hand pressed into the bare skin above her stay.
The chamber was starting to spin; she had never felt like this before, so unsure of her footing, of her place in the world around her. The door opened, and Joseph stepped inside, his face quickly shifting from irritation to concern. All rage and accusation at her spying on him died on his lips. There were clearly more pressing matters at hand. His entire demeanor shifted as he slowly approached her. “Vanessa? What is the matter?”
“I am sorry!” she panted. “I should not have followed you … I am so sorry; I do not know what has come over me.”
“We can address that later, but you need to calm down. Please, focus on me now, Vanessa— we must slow your breathing. Steady in, steady out.” He shuffled toward her and placed his hand on her chest, adding just the slightest bit of pressure. He placed the other on her back to rest between her shoulder blades as he gazed at her. “Steady in,” he repeated, showing her a demonstration of the movement which she awkwardly followed. “Steady out.” She nodded, her eyes lifting to his and sinking into the emerald green. She felt as if every emotion that she had ever possessed was overtaking her at the exact same moment.
“There we are, just like that. I cannot have you unconscious for our much overdue conversation,” Joseph attempted to joke, but it only made Vanessa wish to cry.
“I should have been more patient … it was not my place to insert myself into your affairs. It is none of my business where you go or who you go with— I— I know that; I was just soangry.”
“Angry?” Joseph repeated. “With me?”
“With you, with your grandmother, with all of the nasty rumors that have been circulating about my family!” Vanessa gestured widely to the vanity across the room where a stack of gossip papers lay, some more crumpled than others. He was unlikely to have had a chance to read them nor the desire, but after the first had been brought to her attention, she had consumed them— every one that she could get her hands on.
It seemed as if every rumor that had ever threatened the Farbridge family was now being called back into question. Each imprudent whisper about her sisters and their swift marriages. Naturally, Vanessa’s rushed marriage was no exception to this. Though that alone was not enough to satisfy the vicious writer who even reminded the public of the accusations placed against their patron, Tobias Farbridge, and his execution of duties as the present Earl of Evans. The writer had even been so vicious in their attack against the Farbridge family that they had declared Vanessa so much of a shrew that she was clearly incapable of love— and therefore they claimed she had forced the Duke into marriage to cover yet another scandalous affair. It was altogether too much.
Vanessa took a step backward as her breathing evened, and she regained her composure. “I had thought that if I agreed to marry you that my family would be spared from any more scandal, but it does not seem to have had any effect at all! A family who marries three daughters to Dukes is just too easy to be jealous of, I am sure, but I thought that with you gone and estranged, this would have all been for nothing if Amanda was still to suffer because of my actions! Every time that I tried to find you, to speak with you— I had so many people in my ear telling me that you could never be true to a woman like me! A rake such as yourself would always need the comforts of another woman! If not more! And I— it made mesickto think that you were out there with another woman. Even more than that I wasangrythat you would not return and at least let me express my anger with you to your face!”
Much to her surprise, Joseph smiled. It was a brilliant flicker of a thing— more genuine emotion than she had seen from him since before they had become husband and wife. “I thought you were indifferent,” he said. “I thought that you were simply doing your duty, and that it would be … simpler for you if I were to give you space until you could decide where you wished to place our relationship. Things in your father’s study were headed in a direction before we were interrupted, and I fear that discussing my true intentions is difficult.” His head bowed. “Things have become a bit bungled, have they not?” He lifted his gaze to her slowly, taking in the visage of her in its entirety. “Good Heavens, what are you wearing?”
It registered to her then that she was only half dressed. Vanessa’s arms snapped to attempt to cover herself, even if she knew it was pointless.
“I could hardly wear a dress to follow you! I thought that I would catch you in a house of ill repute! I thought for certain that I would find you with … with—”
“That is over now,” he said simply. “It has been over for some time now; I should not have allowed you to believe otherwise. I had— well, it does not matter what I had presumed. Just how much did you hear? In fact, why did you follow me in the first place?”
