Page 69 of An Accidental Bride for the Duke
Iris sat herself up and pulled the blankets to her chest. Then she faced forward, unable to meet the duke’s probing eyes. There was no use lying to him. No use trying to talk around it. She needed to be honest and forthright and pray that was enough.
“It concerns Percy,” she said.
“It… it does?” he blinked. “What has my brother got to do with this?”
“Not this,” she assured him. “My meaning is, there is something you should know.”
“Which is?”
She took a deep breath. “The day that Percy arrived, you remember how he and I took a walk together? Through the forest.”
“I do.”
“Well, when we did, we spoke about a lot of things. I told him of my past, your other brother, and how this marriage came about. And in return, he told me of…” She hesitated, feeling the nerves take her. “I did not pressure him or try and trick him into telling me.”
“Telling you what?” His tone turned flat, and he leaned back as if he knew.
“About his birth,” she said with a sigh, bowing her head. “His mother, his father, and how he was raised. He told me everything…”
Silence fell between them.
Iris kept her head bowed, unable to look upon Philip as she wanted to do. She could feel his eyes on her, his glare probing, the realization of what this meant settling between them both.
“So, all this time…” he began, letting the implication settle.
“It was not on purpose,” she hurried to explain, forcing herself to look at Philip. Her eyes were pleading, and her tone was just asmuch. “And truly, I did not think about the implications when he told me. He wanted to tell me, and I was happy to listen.”
“I am sure you were,” he said sharply.
“Not like that,” she said. “It just came up and I… and I… I was not thinking.”
“And after?” Philip asked, tone still sharp. “You never thought to tell me what you knew? Were you trying to hide it from me?”
“What? No!”
“But you knew you had done the wrong thing.”
She winced. “I did not want to make it appear as if I was snooping or trying to pry. I wanted you to want to tell me. I wanted to wait until?—”
“But you did not wait,” he said harshly. “And earlier today, when you saw Percy come home in tears. You knew the reason. And earlier tonight, when I told you…” His glare hardened. “When I told you that I was not ready to divulge that side of my life, you already knew everything.”
“Philip…” Her body was shaking. “I did not do it on purpose. I did not mean to… I never meant to trick you or make you appear… as if I was trying to disobey you.”
“But you did anyway,” he said. “You were happy to pretend as if you understood me, that you were willing to wait until I was ready. But only because you already knew.”
“It is not like that!”
“Then how is it?” he demanded. “Iris…” His voice growled and she leaned back as if from a snapping dog. “From day one, I told you—I made it as clear as I could, that you were not to snoop around my personal life. Did I not say this?”
“You did, but?—”
“And did you stop to think about why that was? Did you even care?”
“I do care!”
“Clearly you don’t. If you did care, you would not have let Percy tell you what he did. And even if you could not have stopped him, you would have told me that you knew, rather than… rather than…” He shook his head. “Rather than acting as if you and I were in the same place. I mean…” He scoffed. “All this time, I thought that we were. That we understood where we were coming from. But that isn’t true, is it. How can it be?”
“It is, Philip.” In an act of desperation, Iris reached for his hands. Philip yanked them back and that action alone hurt more than anything.
