Page 57 of A Bride for the Forbidden Duke
“It appears whenever I ask questions they are ignored,” Veronica told him flatly, her anger clearly aimed at Henry.
He leaned forward, almost dismissively. “Do not get your hopes up, Duchess. The reason I did not tell you is so you do not have any false hope. The man we have found clues of may very well not be your brother. Heaven forbid I told you, and you informed your mother, and then we would have a distraught Mama on our hands were it a false lead.”
Veronica’s anger did not lessen. She only stared at Henry, glowering.
“You could have still mentioned something! False lead or not, it is a relief to know that there are efforts into recovering him. Why must you be such a pessimist?” Her accusation came at him unexpectedly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is true! I understand you do not want to give me false hope, but why must you insist that it might not be my brother?”
“I am a realist,” he told her firmly. “Not a pessimist. Would you rather be happy redecorating the castle or have your stomach in knots every day, waiting for news of our investigation? This has been going on for some time. It can be weeks between any sort of new report. Could you honestly tell me you would not be utterly restless during those weeks?”
“Do not presume to know how I would react.”
“Am I wrong?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “For I have spent a year waiting at a window for my brother, but do you know what I also have spent a year doing without him? I have survived. I have endured. I have done everything I could for my mother. So do not come to me, presuming I cannot handle some more waiting, because I have waited and waited, and I am very acquainted with it by now.”
Her voice was low, angrier than he had ever heard it before, and he found himself… intrigued and mildly aroused. He enjoyed this side of her.
He liked obedience, but her fire-hot rebellion and anger was also quite the combination for him to witness.
“Thomas, you are dismissed,” Henry said.
“What?” His friend laughed.
Without looking away from his wife, Henry spoke. “You heard me. I shall correspond with you later.”
Thomas, used to Henry’s ways, only crammed one more macaron into his mouth. “It was lovely to meet you, Duchess.”
Veronica’s gaze flickered to him, and she nodded. “And you, Mr. Shawcross. Have a safe journey home.”
And then he was gone, and Henry and Veronica were left alone, the air thick with tension.
“If you wish for me to not ask about your business, then do not bring it into the house we share,” Veronica said. “Are all your dealings to do with this investigation?”
“I told you not to ask questions,” he reminded her.
“Oh, I shall, Your Grace,” she laughed bitterly. “I shall indeed, especially now I know that you care somewhat about my brother.”
“Care,” he snorted. “I care only for the investment in the business we had together. I care only for the loss of money, not for the loss of your brother’s life.”
His words came out in bitingly hard, matter of fact tone, and Veronica looked as though she had been slapped.
“Thatis why I did not wish to tell you,” he told her, shaking his head. “You are emotional and cannot handle potential facts.”
“Potential facts?” she shouted. “Your Grace, you claim so coldly that my brother might be dead. How else do you wish for me to react? A shrug, a monosyllable answer, and get on with my life?” She stood to her feet. “How dare you presume I am weak and cannot handle anything? I know better than to hope for too much about my brother, but I will not sit idly by and let you speak of his life so casually. You may be thinking with your ledgers, but that is myfamily.”
Before Henry could fire something back, Veronica stormed off, leaving him alone in the drawing room.
He had the strangest urge to throw one of her pretty vases at the wall, if only to see something get destroyed.
Instead, he stormed out too but did not chase her; he went out to the stables, had a horse saddled up, and went for a ride instead.
He could not bear to spend one more moment around her.
Chapter Seventeen
