Page 57 of Duke of Myste
“Enough!” Richard’s voice cracked like a whip, silencing her mid-sentence.
In the ensuing silence, Jane could hear her rapid breathing, could see Diana and Harriet standing like frozen statues at the edge of a confrontation.
“You do not get to treat us like this,” she continued more quietly, though her voice shook with suppressed emotion. “We are grown women capable of making our own decisions and deciding which risks are acceptable. And we are, as you can see, certainly capable of rescuing a puppy without your permission or supervision.”
“This is not about permission,” Richard said through gritted teeth. “This is about common sense. About?—”
“About control,” Jane cut him off. “It is all about your need to manage everything and everyone around you, Richard.”
The statement hung in the air like gun smoke, impossible to take back. Jane saw Richard flinch as though she had struck him, saw something vulnerable flash across his features before hardening into marble again.
“I see,” he uttered with deadly quiet. “And what would you have me do, Jane? Abandon all concern for your safety and propriety? Allow chaos to reign simply because you find order confining?”
“I would have you treat me like your wife instead of a particularly troublesome ward,” Jane replied, her voice heavy with exhaustion and disappointment. “But that seems to be beyond your capabilities.”
For a moment, Richard looked as though he might retort, as though he might finally allow the honest conversation they both desperately needed. But then his mask slid into place once more, and Jane knew she had lost him again.
“Very well,” she said quietly, feeling something in her chest crack like ice. “Since my presence seems to cause you such distress, I shall remove it. My weekly demand, Your Grace, is that you stay away from me. Completely. Until further notice.”
Richard’s face paled at her words, but she had already turned away, gathering her sodden skirts as she moved toward the staircase. She could feel Diana and Harriet’s concerned gazes following her, could sense Richard’s stunned stillness behind her, but she did not look back.
She had tried. She truly did. Patience, understanding, and compromise had all failed to rattle his cage of control. She could not continue to exhaust herself against the rigid walls he kept around his heart, could not keep hoping for a breakthrough that seemed destined to remain perpetually out of reach.
As she climbed the stairs toward her chamber, leaving puddles of lake water in her wake, she realized that some distances were too vast to bridge with good intentions alone. And perhaps some people were simply too afraid of genuine connection to risk the vulnerability it required.
Behind her, she could hear the low murmur of voices as Diana and Harriet attempted to smooth over the wreckage of the confrontation, but Jane no longer possessed the mental capacity or the energy to care about diplomatic solutions or careful negotiations.
As she closed her chamber door, the tears she had been holding back finally spilled over her dark lashes. She wondered if she had just saved her marriage or destroyed it entirely.
The terrible uncertainty was that she was no longer sure there was any difference between the two.
CHAPTER 18
“Your Grace seems rather… subdued this morning,” Mr. Wilson observed with the careful diplomacy of a servant who had witnessed seven days of his master’s increasingly erratic behavior.
Richard glanced up from the correspondence he had been staring at without reading for the better part of an hour. The butler stood in the doorway of his study, coffee tray in hand, his expression perfectly neutral despite the concern in his voice.
“I am perfectly well,” Richard replied curtly, returning his attention to the letter that might as well have been written in ancient Greek for all the sense he could make of it. “Simply occupied with estate matters.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” Mr. Wilson set the tray on the side table with practiced efficiency. “Shall I inform Her Grace that you will be taking luncheon in your study today?”
The question struck like a physical blow, reminding Richard of yet another meal he would take in solitary splendor while his wife dined with Diana and Harriet in the cheerful warmth of the small dining room.
Seven days had passed since Jane’s devastating pronouncement in the entrance hall, seven days during which he had honored her demand for distance with the precision of a military campaign.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “That will be sufficient.”
Mr. Wilson hesitated at the door. “Forgive the presumption, Your Grace, but perhaps?—”
“That will be all. Thank you, Wilson.”
The butler withdrew with a bow, leaving Richard alone with his coffee and the growing certainty that he was slowly losing his mind.
The house felt different without Jane’s presence in his daily routine—quieter, emptier, as though an essential warmth had been drained from the very walls. He found himself listening for her laughter in the corridors, watching for glimpses of her through his study windows as she walked with Harriet and Diana in the gardens.
The irony was not lost on him that in protecting her from his overwhelming need to control and shelter her, he had onlysucceeded in making himself utterly miserable. Every instinct screamed at him to ignore her demand, to seek her out and somehow fix the damage his fear had caused. But the memory of her words—the pain and frustration in her voice when she had accused him of treating her like a child—held him back more effectively than any locked door.
A soft knock interrupted his brooding.
