Page 73 of My Deceitful Duchess
“My stomach is often unsettled when I wake. I want toast.”
There was a brief hesitation. A wry sort of smile slid in at the corners of his mouth. “Toast,” he said. “I can do toast.”
∞∞∞
She’d promised him only Sundays, but he was clever enough to find ways to invade the other days of the week regardless. There were but two mornings that her nausea had abated enough for the walk to the bakery for brioche, and he had met her there on both occasions, with Charlie bouncing eagerly around for whatever bits of brioche she had cared to spare for him.
On the others, it was notbriochehe had sent on to Ambrosia for her, buttoast.
But it was not the only thing he’d sent. Books had begun arriving on Monday morning; at least one a day—not the lurid stories she’d shared with him from Ambrosia’s library, but romantic novels filled with florid language and dramatic character arcs. Jenny had considered herself an avid reader, but the sheer volume of them confounded her.
In the first had been inscribed:Until recently, I have not had the habit of reading fiction. I thought it could serve no purpose, that there was nothing to be learned from them. But while the stories may be contrived and somewhat overblown, the feelings contained within are real. I thank you for teaching me that.
And they were all tales of love gone awry, of losing it and finding it once again—of forgiveness, and hope, and joy. For a man who had never read fiction for pleasure, he seemed to have become a prolific reader of it just lately.
Most of the books were left untouched, donated, after a fashion, to Ambrosia’s library in deference toward those clients whose tastes in literature were somewhat more reserved. But a few of them she had held onto—and there had been a morning or two when, before she had turned herself over to sleep, that she had cracked the spines and tried to see for herself what he had learned from this particular novel, what it was about this book he had deemed important enough to send to her.
And sometimes, she could almost feel it—that intrinsicsomethingabout a book that would move a man who was swayed more by logic than feeling. Who might possess a great deal of words which, when strung together, could have expressed any number of feelings and concepts—but who, himself, might lack the talent or skill for doing so. Who might look to the written word to express those feelings he himself felt helpless to convey with any degree of efficacy.
He, who had little enough experience with the intricacies of conversation, and with whom she had been reluctant to speak besides, spoke to her instead through someone else’s words which he had found to be more proficient than his own.
And she didn’t want it.
No; that wasn’t true—she didn’twantto want it. Which wasn’t the same thing at all, but all the more ruinous for its weakness.
Though he hadn’t asked for it, there was that tiny part of her that wanted so badly to forgive. The part of her that had ached for love, for affection, and stretched toward those overtures he made. It was that part of herself that compelled her to eat the toast he sent to her, though he would never know it, and even though she could have had a better breakfast from the kitchens in Ambrosia. The part that selected a few of the books to skim, looking for hints of him within them. The part that had thrilled to learn that he had kept up her Saturday night vigil in her stead. Andthatwas true weakness. Wasn’t it?
∞∞∞
Saturday evening arrived with little fanfare. Jenny was in the office when Lord Clybourne sauntered in to collect the accounting books, which he tallied for Lottie each week. It had become a familiar ritual in the past few months, this process of him sneaking in through the servants’ entrance and surreptitiously secreting himself away upstairs.
But as she pulled down the accounting books from their shelves for him, in these few moments of privacy before Lottie and Harriet would descend upon her for their weekly meeting, she found herself…wondering.
“Lord Clybourne,” she said as she held out the books to him. “About Mr. Knight—”
“Has he offended?” he asked, collecting the books. “I can have a word with him, if you like. And if you have changed your mind—”
“I haven’t,” she said dryly. “Though not for a lack of effort from Lottie and Harriet. It’s only—they’re so angry about it that I cannot talk to them. They don’t approve.”
“Angry on your behalf. They only want what is best for you,” Clybourne said, a half-smile touching his lips. “I’m not certainIapprove, either. So why me?”
“Because you haven’t fussed at me as they have,” she said. “I wanted to knowwhy.”
The smile turned wry. “Because I know what it is to be the sorry bastard on the other end of this equation,” he said. “I didn’t give Lottie a choice when it came to our marriage. Butyouhave one, and it is only yours to make. And as much as I admire their loyalty to you, it can be a trap the same as any other. The burden of expectations and disappointment.” He tucked the book beneath his arm. “They’ll come round, you know. It’s just that they’re defensive of you. They simply don’t want to see you trapped within a marriage you don’t want.”
“Ishouldn’twant it,” she said.
He canted his head to the right. “Which of us was that meant to convince?”
She faltered, uncertain, though by the wry smile that crept over his face she gathered he had guessedboth. “Does it make me very weak, do you think?” she asked, hesitantly. “That there is some part of me thatwantsto forgive?”
He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Jenny, I could not possibly hazard a guess as to what is right for you. That is only your decision to make.” A brief hesitation followed. “But I can tell you from experience—myown—that having been granted such forgiveness, there is nothing that could make me betray it. I won’t claim to know Mr. Knight well enough to gauge his trustworthiness, but from what I witnessed when I summoned him round—”
“You—you summoned him? When?”
“Some weeks ago,” he said. “He came when I called, which was to his credit. And then he let me rake him over the coals, rather like he thought he deserved it—which he did. Also to his credit.” A shrug. “The man was a wreck. I can spare a morsel—onlya morsel, mind you—of sympathy for him, because I havebeenhim. And, for whatever it might be worth to you, I don’t believe he could ever be moved to such a course again.”
“But is it not weakness to forgive it in the first place?” Her voice gave a perilous little wobble. “What should be said of me, were I to do so?”
