Page 110 of Bound By the Duke
“Aurelia…” Her voice was filled with worry. “Are you daydreaming again?”
“Oh, she’s definitely daydreaming,” Hyacinth quipped, though her eyes searched Aurelia’s face. “Except it’s not the sort of dream that creates butterflies. Hers look like the kind that swallow you whole.”
Aurelia inhaled sharply and straightened her back. She had been caught.
She quickened her steps, trying to hide her inner turmoil. “I’m fine,” she said softly.
But she wasn’t. And they could see it.
“We can’t keep on like this, Aurelia,” Nora murmured. “You have been far too quiet. Something is wrong—I can feel it.”
Then, she asked the question Aurelia had been dreading.
“Are you… concerned about your husband?”
Aurelia froze mid-step. The mere mention of Percival was enough to make her heart skip a beat. She stared ahead, her lips trembling slightly.
Nora and Hyacinth exchanged another worried glance.
By now, Hyacinth’s playfulness had faded away. She stepped closer, her perfume like a soft floral cloud, and wrapped her arms tightly around Aurelia’s shoulders.
“Darling,” she whispered in her ear, “don’t carry it all alone.”
Nora reached out, too, and gently squeezed her sister’s hand. Her touch was so warm, like an anchor amid the storm rising in Aurelia’s chest.
“Tell us,” she pleaded. “Don’t keep it all in. Tell someone. Tell us.”
Aurelia’s throat tightened. For days, she had kept her pain bottled up. For nights, she had pressed her face into her pillow, pretending not to cry. For hours, she had lied to herself. But now, with their hands on her, with their hearts open to her, she couldn’t hold it back.
Her lips parted, her voice trembling. “I do miss him. Terribly. It burdens me that I should care so much for him when he does not return my feelings.”
Her eyes burned. Her tears threatened to spill over, but she blinked rapidly, refusing to let them fall.
“I love my husband, and yet… I think he is still in love with his first wife.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Hyacinth released her, stepping back only to stare into her face, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Still in love with his first wife?” she echoed, almost incredulous.
Nora’s brows knitted together, and her expression tightened as though she could feel Aurelia’s pain. “Sister…” she whispered.
Aurelia swallowed hard, her gaze lowering to the ground. “How can I compete with a ghost? How can I give him all of me when his heart was never mine to begin with? I can never have his heart…”
Her voice faltered, but the words were out. Her hands trembled as her vision blurred. Her chest was heaving under her bodice.
In that moment, under the bright Mayfair sun, Aurelia felt as though the entire world had stopped just to witness her break.
Nora squeezed her hand tighter, as though trying to press strength into her.
Hyacinth pulled her close once more, whispering firmly, “Do not say that. Do not believe that. Whatever it is you feel now, it might not be the truth.”
She was determined, as though she could fight Aurelia’s sadness into submission.
Nora nodded in agreement, fighting back tears. “You’re hurting, I can see that,” she whispered. “Please, don’t succumb to a fear that may not even be real.”
Aurelia tried to smile, but it came out broken and so small. She let them hug her again, their arms wrapping around her like a shield.
For the first time in days, she felt a fragile comfort, as though she might not be entirely alone in this.
