Page 90 of Her Beast of a Duke
“I am not the Duke of Branmere, who can laugh with a child and a wife. I am not a healed man. I am scarred, and I am a beast, and nobody will ever believe otherwise because I cannot give them reason to. And you—heavens,you,Isabella—you deserve a gentleman. A man who would never dare touch you with the same hands that have hurt. A man with scarless hands. Not this brute who makes rooms fall silent, or makes ladies gasp in horror, or makes his wife have to scream his name just to bring him back down from a violent rage. Goodness, Isabella, I wanted to kill that lord for what he said, andI could have.What sort of husband is that for you?”
“The sort that I have and the sort that I am still here, fighting for,” she snapped at him. “Why will you not listen to me? I amhere,I am trying?—”
“And when you get tired of trying?” he shouted. “When you realize it does not work. Not for menlikeme, and I will not chain you to me any longer.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are free from this prison with a beast.” His words came out flat. “I married you to protect you, but what if the thing you need protecting from is me?”
“I do not need that,” she whispered, her eyes glistening with tears. “I have never needed to be protected from you. You are my husband, Oscar, and I swore to walk through your darkness with you, no matter how ugly you think it is. We can work through this!”
“My darkness will swallow you whole.” Oscar’s voice was so cold, so distant, and he hated how he sounded to her. She didn’t deserve any of this, but he was so lost even to himself. “You are light. You are goodness?—”
“I am tired of hearing that!” Isabella shouted, and he saw how he snapped at her, too. Her hands balled into fists, pushing against his chest. “I amtiredof hearing Isabella is so good, and she is light, and she is perfect. I have darkness, too, and it might not be violent, but heavens, Oscar, I feel anger. I feel rage that clouds every rational thought. I have felt it deeply with my mother, and I felt it deeply with Lord Henry.”
“And that is where we are too different,” Oscar intoned. “For you know when to stand down.”
“I would not have been with my mother tonight had you not been there. Shadows exist in us all, husband, but we are notmade to walk this world alone. I am here. You are my hero. Have I not told you?—”
“Do not,” Oscar managed to say. “Do not say that word to describe me. I am not and have never, ever been a hero. I am not yours, certainly.”
“Only I get to decide that,” she hissed. There was so much anguish in her eyes, and he wanted to take it all away. He wanted to dance with her again. He wanted to kiss her, to sweep her into his arms, and he wanted to shower her with goodness and light and love, but he was incapable. He was so, solost.
“Isabella—”
“No,” she spat. “No, Oscar. I have seen you behave violently before. I have seen you make men bleed. Lord Peregrine and Lord Stanton. I have seen you make them scatter away in fear. I have seen the darkness you live in, and I am not afraid of it, or of you.”
“Isabella, I saw your face?—”
“I cannot promise that I will not be stunned by what I see.” Her voice lashed out at him, angry and hurt. “I cannot conceal you from that, but I can promise that I am not afraid of you.”
“And if you ought to be?”
She exhaled exasperatedly, staring back at him with the most stubborn, unflinching glare. “Do you know what I think, Oscar? I think it is you who are afraid. You are afraid of yourself, afraid of not being good enough, of damaging me, or of making me run.Youscare yourself, and you are pushing me away because of it. But I do not need to be apart from you. I do not need your acts of martyrdom, not when it brings me no happiness.”
Oscar stared at her, his breaths ragged. He could see tears falling down her cheeks despite the hard set to her jaw, and he despised himself for it. He despised himself for causing her so much pain, and he turned his head away.
“Do not push me away, Oscar,” she whispered. “Not after all I have been through. Not after allwehave been through.”
“I want you to leave my chambers.” His command came as though it was winter itself, cold and icy, unfeeling. “I want you to leave, Isabella. I will not keep arguing about this.”
“So that is it, then? We are back to silence and dinners in our rooms? We are back to being strangers.”
He dragged his stare back to her and damned himself with one last question: “Was that not when it was best?”
“You can be violent, and you can have your darkness, but you do not have to be cruel,” Isabella whispered, her voice cracking so terribly. Oscar’s heart gave a horrible pound that he ignored, and he turned his back on her, but Isabella’s storming footsteps already sounded through his chambers. She left through themain door and shut it behind her so hard that the items on his desk rattled.
He closed his eyes, slammed a fist into his desk, and retreated to the northern turret.
Once there, he stormed to the gallery. He thought about tearing down every Godforsaken portrait of every person who had made him become this monster. Instead, he collapsed to his knees and let out a roar that spoke of every inch of his pain and violence.
Oscar, the Duke of Rochdale, wished to be better even as he knew he could not be.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Isabella spent the next day in her chambers, staring at the locked connecting door. She both hoped it would and would not open, and she loathed herself for both desires.
Oscar moved through his chamber, footsteps heavy and slow. His door shut, and Isabella turned her back to her room, trying to ignore her thoughts. The worst was trying to ignore the deep, slicing ache in her chest. She had poured her soul out to her husband the night before and had still been rejected.
