Page 74 of His Mad Duchess
She hesitated. Her hand trembled as it settled on his. Together, they retraced their steps to the golden light of the ballroom, curious glances trailing them.
He barely heard the farewells, barely felt the air when they stepped outside. If anyone noticed their flushed cheeks or the silence drawn taut between them, no one remarked on it.
The carriage waited, lanterns gleaming. He handed her in with careful formality, fingers brushing too briefly in a charged moment. When he followed and the door closed, the wheels lurched forward. Silence fell like a curtain.
The carriage jolted, pitching them together before rocking them apart. He fixed his gaze on the dark blur beyond the glass, jaw locked. If he looked at her, he knew he would seize her, damn consequences.
“You are quiet tonight,” he said at last, though the words felt hollow.
Her gaze did not move from the window. “As are you.”
Every turn of the wheels was a torment. At last, the townhouse. She gathered her skirts and slipped out before he could speak again. Her slipper caught on the step, and he half-rose, hand outstretched, but she righted herself with a jerking grace.
On the steps, she turned, pale but steady, though he saw the tremor in her hands.
“I… need time,” she said quietly, her voice carrying more steel than he expected. “To think. To process.”
And then she was gone, the door shutting behind her with soft finality.
For a heartbeat, he sat frozen, as if the night itself had swallowed her. Then, the breath he had been holding tore from his chest. He dragged a hand down his face and through his hair, the ordered gloss of it ruined beneath his fingers.
Her scent clung to him. The taste of her lingered, scorching, unbearable. With a muffled curse, he struck the carriage wall once with the side of his fist, the echo a poor substitute for the fire raging in him.
“What the hell are you doing, you fool?” he rasped, staring at the step she’d just abandoned, fury and disbelief twisting in his chest.
Alone, he let his head fall back, exhaling raggedly, every muscle taut with the memory of what he had not allowed himself to keep.
Margaret pressed her back to the closed door of her chamber, her breath still ragged from the carriage. The silence mocked her, heavy, unrelenting. She pressed her fingers to her lips—God, they still burned.She dragged them away as though the touch itself betrayed her, but the kiss replayed anyway, insistent, merciless, until her knees nearly buckled beneath its memory.
She crossed the room in agitation, half-pacing, half-stumbling. “You fool,” she whispered to herself, voice shaking. “He cannot want you. Not really. Not with your name, your stain…” Her words broke, strangled by a sob. She gripped the edge of the dressing table, knuckles white, and stared at her reflection—cheeks flushed, eyes wild, hair tumbled where his hands had been.
The sight undid her. With a sound too close to a cry, she snatched the brush from the table and hurled it across the room. It struck the wall with a crack and fell uselessly to the carpet. She pressed her palms to her temples, as though she might squeeze the ache out of her skull. “Stop it,” she begged herself. “Stop wanting him. Stop this madness.”
But the madness only deepened. The more she fought it, the sharper it clawed at her. Desire licked through her veins likefire, scorching her until she tore at the laces of her gown, pulling them with such force that one snapped.
She stripped the bodice away, cast it aside, and pressed her bare arms tight around herself as though she could hold in the breaking pieces of her heart. A sob wracked her chest, then another. She swayed where she stood, trembling. Tears slid hot and silent down her face. “I love him,” she whispered, shuddering. “God help me, I love him.”
The confession shattered her even as it left her lips, and she sank against the dressing table, clutching herself tighter, the words echoing in the cruel quiet.
Her fingers clutched at the bedpost as she stood, nails digging into the polished wood. “It cannot mean anything,” she said aloud, choking on the sound. “Not to me. Not when…” Her voice splintered. She pressed her fist to her mouth, as though she could trap the truth inside, but it spilled anyway, ragged and unstoppable. “I want it to be real. I want the marriage to be real.”
The admission scorched her throat, left her raw. She flung the words into the emptiness of the room as though daring the silence to echo them back. “But he does not, he never will. He will never want me so. Not as I want him.” Her body folded over, wracked with sobs that tore free despite her will. She seized a pillow and hurled it across the chamber, the muffled thud no match for the fury inside her.
Her tears streamed again unchecked, dampening the linen as she sank to her knees, clutching fistfuls of the cast-off fabric. Herbreath came in sharp bursts, her body trembling with the ache of desire she could neither master nor escape. She wanted him still, even now, even as she cursed herself for it. She wanted him with every ragged beat of her heart.
At last, she pulled herself onto the bed, the discarded silk tangling about her limbs. Her chest rose and fell in unsteady rhythm, lashes heavy and wet against her cheeks. Slowly… painfully… her sobs ebbed from hiccups into a trembling, fearful quiet.
And still, even as her eyes fluttered shut, the kiss returned… bright, ruinous, inescapable. The last thought before sleep claimed her was not of fear, nor of her madness, but of Sebastian—the warmth of his mouth, the taste of him, the impossible hope that he might yet stay. It was the last thing she thought of before sleep dragged her under.
CHAPTER 26
Margaret moved quietly through the chamber where Fanny, her ever-talkative maid, was fussing over ribbons and gowns still in need of mending after last night’s ball. At her side stood Mrs. Hardwick, the townhouse’s housekeeper, a plain woman of iron composure who oversaw the work with arms folded and a sharp eye for every detail. The scent of orange-blossom sachets hung thick in the air, failing to mask the faint dust of a house only recently reopened.
“Your Grace,” Mrs. Hardwick said with a small curtsy, her gaze lifting briefly to Margaret’s face. Her expression softened, with worry written all over her face. “If you would prefer to rest, I shall have hot water brought up for a bath. The night was… long.”
“No,” Margaret said softly, then firmer. “No, I think I will walk the house. Alone.”
Fanny dropped a bundle of stockings with a gasp of exaggerated horror. “Alone? In this creaky old mausoleum? Why, thecorridors echo so dreadfully, you’d think ghosts are waiting in the corners! No, Your Grace, I’ll trot along behind. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”
