Page 100 of Trapped with the Forbidden Duke
“Is all I am to you a partner?” Edwina asked.
“What more is there to this?” he countered. “Your brother’s rehabilitation is going well. You are secure, and I have fulfilled my promises. I helped you, supported you. That was all you required, no?”
“Why are you being so cold to me? I am your wife.”
“Did we not agree that this was a marriage of convenience?”
“So that is it?” Edwina challenged, her voice snappish. “I am no longer convenient, so you must push me away?”
“As you said,” he drawled, putting more distance between them.I cannot afford to let her get close. “You do not know me entirely.”
“Then let me get to know you!” she pleaded. “Do not push me away, Lucien.”
“And then what? You want a life in Stormhold where we will be intimate in every space, pretending that intimacy can fill the chasm between us? A life where I will keep you separate from my cousins and uncle, for I cannot have them in my life? A life where you will always wonder if there may have been another?—”
“Do not finish that sentence,” she snapped. “I agreed to marry you.”
“Agreed, yes.”
“Look me in the eye when you admit that I am no more than a business partner.”
But he could not. Of course, he could not.
“If you are so unhappy with your lack of knowledge about my life,” he continued, holding onto any hurt he could, “then perhaps you should not be in it. Perhaps some distance will stop you from wondering.”
Edwina’s shocked gasp almost made his heart stop. But she was prideful—he had always loved that about her.
By the time he finally lifted his gaze to hers, her face was tight with a myriad of emotions he could not let himself acknowledge, for then he would only hate himself more for putting them there.
“Fine,” she said, but her voice was laced with pain. “If that is what you wish, then I cannot get through to you further than I have tried to.”
“Fine,” he echoed, striding past her. “You may move to the townhouse at your earliest convenience.”
“You will not even say goodbye?” she whispered, turning to him.
Lucien’s heart ached nightmarishly as he took her in, wanting her, needing her, caring for her—hating himself for having her.
“Have a safe journey, Edwina,” was all he said, before he walked away from her.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Are you finished with these, Your Grace?”
Lucien raised his eyes to see Mr. Hamilton looking at the empty glasses on the bar in his study. Next to them were two bottles of brandy, drank and emptied over the last three days since Edwina’s departure.
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Galley did not wish to interrupt your… work,” Mr. Hamilton said, grimacing, for the staff knew that Lucien had merely wallowed in his study, drinking Edwina’s absence away. “But she is wondering what is to be done with Her Grace’s chamber. And Lily’s, as well. Her Grace has another lady’s maid in the townhouse, so will you have Lily assume her previous duties?”
Lucien pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated by the barrage of questions. His voice was cold and distant as he spoke. “Do nottouch her chambers, and as for her lady’s maid… simply have Mrs. Galley delegate as she sees fit.”
“And if Her Grace returns?—”
“Leave me in peace.”
He could not stand any more mutterings. He wished for silence, butthe silence only emphasized the fact that the one voice, the one person he wished to see, was no longer there.
His butler gathered the glasses and left swiftly.
