Page 108 of His Duchess of Scandal
Hermia swallowed.
“Regardless of your differences with his late wife, you know what I am speaking about, do you not? Think about that, Your Grace. I have dealt with him before through his father. He never once approached me, the two of us inheriting our titles after the same tragedy. He did not even have the courtesy to extend an apology, condolences—nothing. I attempted to formally meet with him, but I was not treated with respect. He is a coward. Me, on the other hand…”
Hermia was horrified to see that the Viscount began leaning into her, right as footsteps sounded in the hallway, veering to the drawing room.
Charles appeared in the doorway, his face immediately turning to thunder as he spotted the Viscount.
Hermia’s voice failed her as she tried to angle herself away from the man.
“What are you doing here?” Charles’s voice was cold and hard.
“Nothing at all!” Lord Grenford exclaimed, spinning around as though he had not been leaning into Hermia. “Nothing of concern, anyway. I came to express my concern for Lady Phoebe. Nothing more. Is that not correct, Your Grace?”
Hermia’s eyes narrowed on him as he feigned innocence.
“More or not, I will ask you only once to get out of my house and stay away from my family,” Charles bit out. “I have already told you once that you will never be welcome on a Branmere property. That has not changed.”
“I see, I see. Do not let me break this perfect little family painting, then,” Lord Grenford said, pausing before him. “After all, paintings break so easily, do they not? Perfection is not always true. Your father knew that rather well.”
“Getout.”
Hermia watched the Viscount leave, but she could swear she heard his deep laughter as he stepped out of the house.
Alone, she was almost fearful to meet Charles’s eyes, to find the anger in them, but she did. Slowly, she looked at him.
She found exactly what she had dreaded.
“Why did you receive Lord Grenford?”
The question came not as an accusation, but more of an angry thought. A lack of understanding.
Her anger flared. “After days of ignoring me, you now wish to have a conversation—yet it is only to question me? Not to ask how I am, or how my day has been, or what I have done in your absence. No, it is toquestion me. Was I supposed to turn Lord Grenford away? I am certain he would have wreaked great damage if I did just that.”
“Yes,” Charles hissed. “Yes, you were supposed to turn him away, for I have warned you enough times to steer clear of him. Was my tale of my father’s death not enough for you to trust me?”
“It is not a two-sided situation, Charles, and you know it,” Hermia snapped. “You, more than anyone, ought to understand the standards we must uphold, even if that means allowing horrid company through the doors. To ensure that the ton continues moving the way it needs to. To ensure that the Branmere name is not once again smeared because of a rejected visitor.”
“Not again smeared,” he scoffed. “Do not speak of my family in such ways, Hermia. The work I have done will not be ruined by a rejection.”
“No?” Hermia challenged. “Perhaps not, then, but your coldness towards me and that being noted will make people talk.”
“My coldness?” Charles frowned. “Hermia, I have been the way I always am.”
“Yes,” she conceded. “Dutiful and proper, but you began to thaw, Charles. Yet, ever since Phoebe’s fall, you have turned cold once more, and I thought—”I thought we felt greater things for one another.“I thought we were closer than that.”
When she gazed at him, she found nothing in his eyes. Nothing but distance, and nothing but sheer coldness. A closed-off wall she could not scale.
“Then you thought wrong.”
That statement wounded her much more than she was prepared for. She had tried to convince herself that she hadn’t misunderstood it all, but there it was, plain as anything.
Shehadbeen wrong.
Her fury flared hotter. “So every kiss we have shared, every confession—every story you have told me about what haunts you when the afternoon sun shines, and the stories you have heard from me… It is all nothing?”
Charles looked utterly devoid of emotion when he looked at her. That, more than the words, hurt more, when she had grown used to the way his eyes softened when he caught her gaze.
“It is all nothing,” he said coldly. “I married you for Phoebe’s sake, so she might have a mother again. Nothing more. I let myself get carried away, and you… you somehow worked me into letting my guard down, and I cannot have that. Not if it means I am causing my daughter to suffer.”
