Page 104 of A Deal with her Forbidden Duke
“Do not,” he said quietly, turning his face away from her. But he did not avert his gaze quickly enough to not notice the sadness spreading over her face. Sadness, confusion—it all collided together until he was asking himselfdo you see what you cause her? “Do not comfort me.”
“You have never turned your face from me,” Madeleine said, her voice hushed. “Why will you not tell me what is wr?—”
“Madeleine, we cannot be together.”
The confession came out of him, harder than he wanted to be, and yet softer than it should have been for both of their sakes.
“Alexander?”
He finally looked at her, finally heard the hurt in her voice, the sadness pinching her brows.
Look at what you cause her. You protect her and bring her pain. You do not protect her and you still bring her pain. All it ever is, all she will ever feel with you, is pain.
His chest was too tight to breathe but a mask had always been the thing he was best at wearing. “You heard me. We cannot be together. I will—I will leave Silverton for your use?—”
“I do not understand,” she insisted. “Is this to do with what has happened at the club? The Raven’s Den does not scare me, husband. Surely, after everything we have been through, you know I would not baulk at something like this. I will stand beside?—”
“It is because of your strength that I must say this,” Alexander cut her off. “It is because of your insistence to remain at my side, even in peril, that I must let you go.”
“Let me go?” Her voice was a pained, tight whisper. Her head shook, and those intelligent eyes glistened with tears. “Do not speak like this.”
Alexander’s jaw clenched. “You are not safe with me. The life you deserve… it is one far, far away from me. It should be spent in flowered meadows, where you will laugh and be safe, not constantly looking over your shoulder because of who your husband is—because of the past I come with.”
“I am not afraid of your past. I do not need meadows or whatever life you have decided for me in your mind. I needyou. I would rather face a hundred dangers at your side than see safety without you.”
Alexander could not help but drink her in, one last time.
He took in the sweep of her hair, the flush in her cheeks, the stubborn, strong mouth that threw wickedness at him at the most unexpected times. He took in the freckles that came out during the summer across her nose and under her eyes.
He took in every inch of his wife, for the last time.
“You are my weakness, Madeleine, and I cannot afford to have one. I need you far away from me.”
He tried to laugh, but it sounded too pained, so he forced his voice to go cold, to bury his heart as he had once done, for he could not dare to have it bared so greatly.
“I thought I could be selfish and have you, that I could keep you safe. But you are my undoing. You do not belong in my world.”
He lifted a hand, as if to brush back her hair, but he clenched his fingers into a fist and lowered it instead.
“And that is all?” Madeleine asked. “I am simply expected, for the second time, to leave a husband? To find elsewhere to live? You swore to me protection, that I would be safe.”
“And I can no longer provide that.”
“You are not a coward, Alexander, so you must tell me what has gotten you so scared that you will push me away.”
She tried to move closer but he outright pushed her away. Madeleine stumbled back, her shocked gaze lifting to her.
Betrayal and hurt tightened in her face, and he watched as she, too, put on her own mask. It was one he had not seen since they were investigating Donald’s disappearance.
He loathed himself for making her look that way—a pretend strength, something to hide her tears.
“You truly wish for me to leave?”
His heart hardened, buried far where he could not be hurt by it. “Yes.”
Madeleine’s lower lip trembled for a brief second before she inhaled sharply through her teeth.
“As you command.”
