Page 59 of Her Duke Next Door
As they took their seats, Mary could feel the glances that followed them everywhere. “What is it about?”
“You are very inquisitive,” he laughed. “Alas, I think I already knew that.” He leaned in to brush his lips against the shell of her ear. “My insolent-tongued wife.”
A pleasurable feeling went through her at how he lowered his voice. Dominique held out his hand for her to place her gloved one in his but she hesitated over taking it. He had taken her hand leading her out of their carriage outside. But in here, where people stared at them, and people whispered, she struggled to feel confident to slip her hand into his.
“I heard she walked away from Lord Yore,”one whisper reached her ears. Another letter had arrived for her that morning, finding its way swiftly into the fire, burning her secrets away so the Duke did not have to be upset about Lord Yore still harassing her from afar.
“But did you hear the story about His Grace? I am surprised he has the decency to show his face again! What a truly awful man.”
Mary cringed and leaned in closer to Dominique.How strange that he has become a protective comfort to me now.
“The ballet,” Dominique began as if sensing she needed something else to focus on before the performance began. “Is about a British sailor who finds himself shipwrecked upon a Spanish shore. There, he meets a beautiful maiden who sings from her window in the day and wanders the shoreline at night, searching for the cave he has set up in to heal from his wounds. The two fall in love over the course of his recovery. It is terribly tragic and romantic. Rather sensual as well, I have heard.”
Mary blushed at that. “Tragic?”
“You shall see.”
“Ah, as long as nobody dies,” she half-joked but Dominique’s brow furrowed.
The candles were lit, the curtain lifted, and the orchestra began. Mary had not attended the theater in many years, and an excited shiver went through her. As the ballet began, and the music snatched away the distracting whispers, Mary finally found the courage to slip her hand into Dominique’s.
An hour later, Mary was blotting tears away. There indeedhadbeen a death, one of the tragic lovers parting, and her heartstrings had been thoroughly tugged. Even Dominique looked moved although his eyes remained dry.
“Shall we?” Dominique asked, leading her outside. The river ran alongside the theater grounds, just beyond a tended grassy park. He offered her his arm and she took it. “You look beautiful tonight, Mary.”
“Thank you, Dominique,” she murmured as they came closer to the river. There was a bench nearby but Mary kept them walking along the pathway. She would only get antsy otherwise.
“What did you think of the ballet?” she asked, delaying the inevitable conversation. She wished to understand her husband’s past but once she found out about the source of the gossip around the Ton she would not be able to unlearn it.
“I thought the story was stunningly told,” Dominique said. “The choreographer depicted many scenes in lavish ways. From the shipwreck to their love, and then the display of—of the sailor’s grief after his love was accidentally killed.”
His voice trembled before he cleared his throat. “It is a grief I understand although my story is not one of a great love, unlike the sailor’s.”
“Would you share it with me, Dominique?” Mary asked quietly in the night. He nodded sharply. Silence descended between them as if he struggled to find his words. To shift through whatever haunted him at night and chased him out the door of Livingston Castle.
“Marguerite Colson was the daughter of an Earl, very respected, and her father was friends with my father. Naturally, she was a very eligible match. Twelve years ago, when I was twenty-three, we got married and after two years of avoiding each other out of a lack of love, we had Katie. Marguerite was besotted with her, her very own mirror-image. And she is. Katie resembles her mother quite painfully so.”
He inhaled, shaking his head. “That is why I have often not been available for her,” he said. “She reminds me of my late wife too much.”
“Did you love one another?” Mary asked.
“Not exactly,” he answered. “But I tried to be a good husband to her. Eventually, she grew restless in our marriage and I did everything a husband could do to excite her. I showered her with gifts, I gave her all my time, I was always there for her no matter what, and yet it was not enough. Soon, her lovers were talked about in the scandal sheets, as you can imagine. She was not always discreet.
“I threatened to leave her one time if she did not keep her affairs private. I did not want Katie to find out, and my reputation was being compromised. Marguerite only told me she would not have to find other lovers if I were a better husband. For the longest time, I blamed myself for her infidelity, thinking I was not enough, but she simply wantedmore. As I wish to stay with Katie now but cannot help leaving, I think my late wife was the same with her lovers. Perhaps not. Perhaps she did not care about hurting me.”
Mary had to stop walking eventually, leading them over to a nearby bench to sit down.
Dominique’s eyes were far-off, lost in his past. “She did not stop, of course. She did not make it private, either. Instead, she enjoyed her lovers and turned everything around on me. SuddenlyIwas the one in the scandal sheets with accusations against me of having affairs. I was furious! I had giveneverythingto her and she could not keep her wandering hands a private matter.”
He pushed a hand through his thick black hair, tugging distressed on the ends before clasping his hands together in his lap. He eyed a couple walking past. “One day, I intercepted one of her lovers’ notes to set up their rendezvous. I let her receive the note without suspicion and then followed her when she left. However, when I reached the park where she was meeting her lover, I found her dead.”
His eyes snapped to Mary’s, a haunted look in them. “I was seen with her, her blood on my hands as I had tried to find the source of her bleeding but could not. Her murderer had long fled the scene but I was right in the middle of it. Ever since, the whispers have followed me, Mary.Wife-killerthey have called me in the scandal sheets.Murderer. I only was not charged because the constables could not find a murder weapon, of course, as I did not do it. They said I had a motive—jealousy. But I did not kill my wife, Mary, and whatever rumors you have heard about me, or whatever your family believes to be true, I pray you do not listen to them.”
His expression was so stricken, so openly vulnerable from such a usually assured man, that Mary could not help but cup her husband’s face and lean in close to him.
She should have felt some fear, perhaps. This man had been accused of murdering his late wife. But she did not.
“Dominique,” she murmured. “You must know that you have made me feel safer than any man ever has. I believe you. I believe you most fervently. I have called you some awful things but I would not, for a moment, believe these rumors.”
