Page 25 of The Duke's Christmas Scandal
“She’s mistaken. Isn’t she?” Tavi asked.
Noel fussed. Ian passed the baby to his mother. Grace bounced him absently. Ian poured the steaming kettle over a tea pot and set it aside as if the thing was made of glass instead of iron.
“Your sister is correct.”
Tavi felt dizzy.
Five minutes ago, she’d been entertaining a wild fantasy of being his wife and bearing his children.
What a joke. Dukes didn’t marry country spinsters. When it came to handsome men, she had less sense than your average goose—and worse luck.
“Please leave, Mr. Harkness,” Grace choked. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “If not for you, I would have a husband right now. Solomon promised he would make me a duchess.” A choked sob burst out of her. “He abandoned us because of you. I want you to go.”
Grace clutched her son to her chest and slammed the door to her room. Her sob shattered Tavi’s heart into pieces. How could she have betrayed her sister so profoundly? So unwittingly?
She was a fool.
“Tavi, please, I—”
“Go, Ian,” she said woodenly. She slipped into Grace’s bedroom and leaned against the door, listening to him pack up his belongings. It didn’t take long.
Outside, church bells pealed.
* * *
Ian
He should have told her.This whole situation was his fault. A lie by omission was no less painful than a falsehood.
If only she’d let him explain.
Ian threw the bundle of his bedding into the wagon with more force than necessary. The cold stung his cheeks. The world shouldn’t be this bright. It should be swirling with angry storm clouds to match the bitterness in his heart.
Not once had he ever considered being rejected by a woman for becoming a duke. He’d imagined every possible outcome, but that one.
Octavia Dawson surprised him at every turn.
Ian’s heart fell through his stomach, battering each rib on the way down like a stone thrown into a chasm.
“Let’s go,” he told Cinnamon. They trotted into the yard. He would be best served by returning to Fellsgrove for the night rather than trying to find an inn along the way back to Manchester. But his castle would be forever haunted by Tavi’s ghost. He couldn’t bear the thought of returning there.
The horse’s tail flicked as they trotted out of the stable yard.
Imagine. He and his rival for the Susskind dukedom had both managed to fall for one of the Dawson sisters.
Coincidence didn’t begin to describe it.
What a scandal. Once word got out—and it would, quickly—he’d be utterly disgraced. Not to mention that business with his birthmark and the scandalous painting, which was bad enough.
Ian’s mouth ticked up beneath his wool scarf. The situation would be darkly amusing if it were happening to anyone else.
Since it was happening to him, his smile faded as quickly as it came.
Heartbreak was pure misery. No wonder he’d spent so much of his life avoiding it. Wasn’t until Tavi came at him with an iron poker that he let his guard down enough to fall for a woman…
Which meant that he had a choice.
He could turn tail and run away. Accept rejection and take the blame for events beyond his control. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been born with a hereditary birthmark on his bottom. He’d only heard the name Solomon Abernathy in court documents.
