Page 92 of His Mad Duchess
A sob broke loose, ragged and sharp, slapping her hands to her mouth as though she could swallow it down. Her chest heaved against the stays of her gown, every breath scraping raw as the truth seared itself into her.
All these years. All the nights she had woken sweating, hunted by the same face. It had been him. A man with a name. A man tied by blood to the one she had begun to love.
Her hands trembled against her mouth, and she pressed them hard together, as though she could hold herself steady by sheer force. But she could not stop the shaking nor the hot tears streaking her face.
The Dowager seemed to wither where she sat. Pride slipped from her shoulders, and for the first time, she looked small, diminished, as though the years had descended upon her all at once. The fine lines around her eyes carved deeper, her spine bent, and the light that usually sharpened her gaze dulled to something brittle and worn.
Her lips parted, but no words came; she shut them again with the frailty of someone who no longer trusted her own strength. When her voice at last emerged, it was no longer edged with iron but rasped low and uneven, carrying the weariness of a grief that had gnawed her hollow.
“From the cradle, he was everything to me—my companion, my protector, the one soul who understood me as no one else could. We were bound together more tightly than most; my childhood was his laughter, his shadow. He was brilliant, magnetic. The world seemed smaller when he was near, and I thought him invincible.”
Her eyes glistened, though no tears fell. Honoria pressed her palms to her temples, leaning back slightly, as if the weight of revelation might shatter her upright posture.
“When he confessed what he had done, God help me, I could not believe it. I would not. To face the truth was to lose him twice—once to his crimes and once to the punishment they demanded.”
A sharp, incredulous sound escaped Margaret before she could stop it—a scoff that cut the silence. Shock twisted in her chest in a knot of disbelief and revulsion.This was what she offered? Excuses, cloaked in the language of devotion?
Margaret’s eyes widened, heat flooding her face as the words echoed inside her. Her mother’s death, her father’s, and her uncle’s reduced her to “protection.”
“I told myself there must be a reason, some fever in his mind, some misfortune that drove him astray. And when the truth became too stark to deny…” Honoria’s breath hitched, and she pressed her hand hard against her mouth before lowering it again. “I chose silence. I chose him. Again and again, I chose him.”
Sebastian’s chair scraped against the floor as he pushed to his feet, his fury nearly ungovernable. “You chose him over justice, over innocence, over their lives. You chose him over us all.”
“I chose survival!” The words burst from her with unexpected force, her voice breaking with the strain. “You think me monstrous, and perhaps I am. But what was I to do? He was my brother. The last piece of my family. To betray him would have been to tear my own soul asunder. I told myself I was protecting him. Protecting us. Protecting the name.”
Her gaze cut briefly to Margaret, then away, as though she could not bear the reflection of her own words in the young woman’s eyes. “I did what I must. All I ever wanted—” Her voice cracked, and she drew in a sharp breath, mastering it. “—was to protect him.”
Sebastian’s hand struck the table, a violent crack that set the china rattling in its saucers. Margaret flinched at the sound, her own pulse surging with his.
“Protect him?” Sebastian’s voice was hoarse with rage. “You shielded a monster! And at what cost?” he thrust his hand toward Margaret, whose face was stricken, white as carved marble, her lips parted but soundless. “At her cost. You let the world believe she was cursed. You let them whisper that she was mad, tainted. You—” His voice broke, raw with the force of betrayal. “—you could have put an end to the whispers with just a declaration.”
The Dowager’s flinch was an involuntary crack in her armor, but even then, she did not yield. “I did what was necessary,” she said, her voice hardening, every syllable driven like a nail. “For this family. For you. I held my tongue when the truth would have destroyed us all. If her name was broken in the keeping of our own, then so be it. I would have given everything… my reputation, my conscience… if it meant preserving your name.”
“Preserving me?” Sebastian’s laugh was hollow, jagged, the sound of a man cut open. He stood rigid at the table’s edge, shoulders squared, every line of him taut with rage. His hands gripped the carved wood so tightly his knuckles blanched.
“Look at me.” His voice cracked like a whip, reverberating through the room. “Do I look preserved to you? Do I look whole? You poisoned my name with lies and hers with ruin!” He flung out a hand toward Margaret, pale and stricken in her chair. “All to keep a murderer safe in his grave.” His breath came fast, ragged, but his fury did not falter. “Do you not see, Mother? You preserved nothing.”
The Dowager’s eyes glittered with fury, but beneath it, something trembled, something perilously close to desperation. “You speak like a child, Sebastian. You know nothing of sacrifice. Everything I did… every silence, every cruelty… was for you. To protect you. To ensure you could carry the title untainted.”
Sebastian’s pulse hammered, fury scorching through him, but beneath it all lay something older, rawer. He had carried it foryears—through his boyhood, through every failed attempt to win her notice—and now, it tore free.
“You think I know nothing of sacrifice?” His voice came hard, cold, yet edged with something perilously close to pain. “Do you think I do not remember my boyhood? I spent my life breaking myself to pieces, trying to be what you and he demanded. I rose early, worked until my hands shook, rode until my body ached, all for a word of praise that never came. Nothing I did was ever enough.”
His jaw clenched, teeth grinding against the memory. God, how many times had he told himself tomorrow she might see him; tomorrow, he might be worthy? Tomorrow never came.
The Dowager’s lips parted, but he pressed on, voice rising. “Do you know what it is, Mother, to measure yourself against a mark that does not exist? To bleed and sweat for parents who had no measure for what was good, no warmth for what was true? You held duty before me like a rod, but never love. Never once.”
He stepped closer, his shadow cutting across the table between them. “Do you know what that does to a boy? To strive, to bleed, to starve for something that does not exist? You wanted obedience, not a son.”
His hand struck the back of a chair, the sound cracking through the room. “And now, you dare speak of sacrifice? I gave my childhood to it. I gave myself. And what did I receive? Nothing but silence, rules, and your cold hand pushing me into the life you demanded.”
The Dowager’s face tightened, but Sebastian saw it now—the flicker, the fracture. For once, she did not look invincible.
Too late,he thought bitterly.Far too late.
“I did it all for you,” she whispered, almost fiercely, as though the words themselves might mend what she had broken. “So that you would never stand alone.”
“And yet…” His voice cut through hers like a blade, shaking with disbelief, with fury barely contained. “And yet I stand here with no family left to my name.”
