Page 116 of The Wolf of Mayfair
As he shut the door behind them, the cacophony of furniture flipping and the duke’s unintelligible shouts and curses continued behind them.
“He is not always like that,” the duchess whispered, when they’d reached the end of the corridor.
“He is.” Wingrave wouldn’t lie about what a monster the duke was.
The duchess’s steps slowed, and Helia allowed the older woman to stop.
His mother cast a distracted glance over her shoulder.
“What is it, Your Grace?” Helia asked softly.
“I must go to him.”
He and Helia spoke as one.
“No,” he said, his voice sharp where Helia’s was gentle.
“Your Grace, you do not,” his wife murmured. “He just needs some time to release his anger, and then I expect he’ll be in a better frame of mind.”
The duke wouldn’t.
And the duchess knew it. That was why Wingrave’s mother had a worried glimmer in her eyes and wrung her hands together the way she did.
Suddenly, the duchess ceased those frenetic movements, and as she drew back her shoulders, she had more the look of that brave woman who’d stood up in the middle of a church in challenge of her husband. “I am the one who calms him, Anthony. You know that.”
He knew she was the one verbally battered by the old codger, and that whenever Anthony had intervened, the old bastard had made it worse for her.
“Don’t go to him,” he said quietly, all the while knowing what she intended and that there’d be no stopping her.
The duchess gave him a watery smile. “You’ve always been a good boy, Anthony.” With tears in her eyes, she glanced at Helia. “I am so very glad my son has found you.”
Helia made to speak when a thunderous bellow cut into the tender moment, ending it all too quickly.
“Go,” the duchess urged, and when neither Helia nor Wingrave made a step to leave, she hurried off the way they’d come, back to the fray.
Several corridors later, the unmistakable sound of the duke’s rampage continued, only slightly muted this time.
Helia’s eyes bled with grief; sadness lined her every exquisite feature. “Oh, Anthony—”
He grunted. “I am sorry you were subjected to that. We will not remain here. I have holdings of my own and will all too happily take you away from—”
Helia pressed two fingers against his lips. “I am not hurting form-me,” she said, her voice catching. “I am hurting for your mother and sister. But more, I am hurting foryouand the life you’ve known. I will have you know, with me as your wife, I promise you will only be loved and live in a household filled with that emotion you’ve been denied and are so deserving of.”
His throat ... it moved in the oddest of ways. Something in his eyes pricked, making it hard to blink.
He’d feared loving anyone made him weaker, and put anyone he cared about in peril. Only to discover, love somehow made him stronger. Nay,thiswoman’s love. He’d fought it—and her—at every turn.
“I am done fighting,” he murmured, more to himself, and he found ... peace in that, a sense of absolute rightness made all the more profound by a final, noticeable thump and then quiet from downstairs.
Helia’s eyes softened. Joy glowed from their dark-green depths.
He pressed his forehead hard against hers so that their gazes met. She’d been long deserving of the words she’d spoken to him so many times now. Ones he’d been too much of a coward to give her. Not anymore.
“Helia,” he said gravely, “I—”
A horrible, drawn-out, animalistic wail cut off the rest of his avowal.
Wingrave stiffened.
