Page 99 of An Unwanted Widow for the Duke
“I would love to see it, dear,” Wilhelmina said with a smile.
In her hands was her embroidery, which Gerard didn’t think she enjoyed doing. But what did he really know?
He watched her from a few feet away, holding a book in his hands. He had no plans to go to the drawing room, but he didn’t have the heart to say no to Hector. Not this time. He’d already broken the boy’s heart too many times.
“Well, are you two coming inside?” Hector asked again, tugging at his father’s sleeve. “The fort is not good unless all of us go.”
“I am coming in,” Wilhelmina cooed, but Gerard could tell that she was only doing it for the boy.
“There you go, Hector. Wilhelmina will be with you. I will join you another time. For now, I am occupied with things of import,” Gerard said.
The words left him sharper than he intended, and the flicker in Hector’s eyes, the slump of his small shoulders, struck Gerardlike a lash. He opened his mouth, the beginnings of an apology catching in his throat.
“But this is not the first time you said no. You’re always occupied, Papa,” Hector complained, his voice breaking and his shoulders slumping.
He looked so defeated that Gerard felt a pang of regret. Wilhelmina gave him a blank look, then she grabbed Hector by the shoulders and steered him into the drawing room.
“Let us take a look at this new castle of yours,” she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
“It’s a fort, Duchess,” he protested weakly, but a smile had somehow crept onto his face.
He was resilient, Gerard’s little boy.
Wilhelmina led him away quietly, and Gerard could not help but feel as though he would miss out on something.
After Hector fell asleep that night, Wilhelmina sat at her writing desk. Her quill hovered over the paper, which was a rare occurrence. Most of the time, it moved easily across paper, translating thoughts that flowed from a busy mind.
Yes, her mind was busy tonight, but not because of creativity. It was because of Gerard. He said he was hoping they could start something m ore, something better than an arrangement, and yet he was the one who immediately gave up on it.
Because of her churning thoughts, she could not even be Lady Silverquill. Tonight, she was Wilhelmina, a woman broken inside.
“I should go to Elizabeth,” she whispered to the room.
She’d been thinking about it. Perhaps she needed her sister’s kindness and some distance from Talleystone.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Just as Wilhelmina expected, Elizabeth welcomed her warmly. When the two of them were together, it didn’t seem to matter that they had different mothers. They were simply sisters.
“I don’t know if it’s the light, but you look thinner,” Elizabeth noted, concern seeping into her voice. “Is Talleystone starving you at his house?”
Wilhelmina chuckled, although she wondered if it sounded nervous. “No. There’s always so much food on the table, and mostly just the three of us.”
“Then what?” Her sister sounded genuinely confused.
“Gerard and I are… well, we are at odds,” Wilhelmina confessed, biting her lower lip.
Elizabeth’s face softened.
Wilhelmina knew that her sister had noticed her calling her husband by his given name. But Lizzie, being Lizzie, did not mention it at all. Instead, she led her to the sofa and offered her a glass of wine.
She sat across from Wilhelmina, simply waiting.
She was the right choice.Meek and mild, but wiser than most people gave her credit for.
“I thought we were already building toward something more,” Wilhelmina mumbled. “He said that was what he felt, as well. Now, he looks at me as if I were the one who betrayed him. It is as if he could not trust me anymore, just because—” She stopped herself.
Nobody else knew Robert’s secret, aside from Gerard. If only her husband knew how hard it was for her to share even with her siblings, and that keeping the secret wasn’t just an option that she wielded over his head.
