Page 109 of His Duchess of Scandal
“And what if it is not letting your guard down?” Hermia challenged in a harsh whisper. “What if it was actually you simply letting yourself care? You cannot look me in the eyes and say that all we have shared and done is nothing.”
“I can,” he told her. “And I am, quite frankly.”
“Then the paintings you made…” She should not have challenged him so outright, but she couldn’t help herself. “That was nothing, too?”
“A momentary distraction, nothing more,” Charles said, taking back everything else he had confessed, until she didn’t know whether she believed him more in this moment, or the ones where they had shared those initial, beautiful words.
“You are my muse. I cannot get you out of my head, Hermia. You are a craving I cannot sate. A yearning I cannot satisfy, no matter how much time we spend together.”
“And me being your muse,” she whispered, her chest tightening ever so painfully. “I am certain that is nothing, as well?”
Charles didn’t deny it. He didn’t say anything else at all. He simply fixed his gaze on the wall behind her, looking right through her, and clenched his jaw.
Hermia’s throat closed up.
“Tell me,” she murmured. “Tell me I am not wrong, that therehasbeen something between us this whole time.”
With painstaking silence, Charles remained resolute in his refusal to answer her. In the end, she could feel only the cracks in her heart, the shattering of the pain he was causing and refusing to take back.
“Fine,” she whispered. “Fine.You may hide behind these walls, Charles, and you may distance yourself from me. But soon, you will find that you have hit a wall, and when you look around, I might not be there, for you are pushing me away. I hope you are content with knowing that.”
Before the tears spilled over, Hermia turned on her heel and left the drawing room. It was only when she entered her chamber did she finally let herself cry.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“There is clearly something the matter.”
“There is mostdefinitelysomething the matter.”
Hermia’s gaze flicked to Sibyl and Isabella, who leaned in close almost conspiratorially, the two of them eyeing her over the breakfast table at Wickleby House. It had been three days since Hermia had packed her belongings to stay at her parents’ residence for a few days.
Only a few.I only want Charles to realize that if he puts so much emotional distance between us, he will receive physical distance.
But her heart ached more and more with each day, with each room she found that was not in Branmere Manor, and did not hold the love she was beginning to acknowledge as such. Nor did any room hold Phoebe, of course, but Hermia had only left once the little girl was up and about properly without an aide.
She had explained, very gently, that her family needed her. She could not tell Phoebe that it was she who needed her family, if only to escape her husband’s coldness.
“Of course, something is the matter.” Lady Wickleby’s voice cracked through the breakfast hall as she entered. “Hermia has done exactly as I feared. She has, quite simply, failed at being a duchess. His Grace has endured a great deal by marrying a spinster, and one who already faced such humiliation at that! I must take the fall for it; I must admit my fault in allowing the marriage to take place.”
“Oh, Heavens, Mama, do come down from your rant,” Alicia groaned from Hermia’s other side at the table. “His Grace can make up his own mind, and very much did, from what I recall. You do not need to take any sort of accountability, for Hermia has not failed at being a duchess in the slightest. She has performed her duties well, has executed her tasks, and has remained a faithful wife. Whatever else could you ask of her?”
Hermia shot her sister a grateful look. She barely cared for her mother’s words, in truth. Nothing could hurt her, not when Charles’s absence was a gaping hole in her heart. Not when she only thought of that, only looked for him, and when she kept finding him gone, she felt scraped empty and raw.
She had never thought she would miss the Duke of Branmere, and yet she did—terribly.
“Oh, do not challenge me, Alicia. We have already discussed these antics of yours. Do you truly wish to scare away every suitor?”
“Mama, if a suitor gets within arm’s length, then I fear I will have failed myself entirely.” Alicia sniggered, only to receive an eye roll from Isabella and an annoyed huff from their mother.
Sibyl looked slightly disapproving but said nothing.
When their mother swept out of the breakfast hall, muttering aboutungrateful wretches, Hermia did not care.
“Hermia.”
Isabella’s shout made her realize she had not been paying attention.
“Yes?” she said quickly. “What is it?”
