The Ugly Duchess

Page 26

Standing up and meeting her husband’s eyes took every bit of backbone Theodora Ryburn had. But stand she did, and she met his eyes, too. And she saw exactly what she expected: shame. That answered her last, lingering question. He had never wanted to marry her.
So she steeled herself. “I hope you enjoyed that,” she said finally. “As I’m sure you have guessed, it’s the very last time your wife will service you.”
“Daisy.”
“Must I spell it out?”
“Don’t leave me,” he said, choking out the words.
Theo had retreated behind a thick ice wall, where she felt utterly calm. And her brain was working with remarkable adroitness.
“Don’t be a fool,” she said. “I’m not leaving you; I’m throwing you out. I’ll mend the estate with whatever is left of my embezzled dowry. I think we can both agree, after your behavior at yesterday’s meeting, that you would be utterly unhelpful and won’t be missed.”
He swallowed, a faint sign of mortification that she welcomed.
“That being the case, there’s nothing to keep you here,” she observed. “You and your father are obviously not on the best of terms. He’s a vulgar, despicable criminal, and you are a weak-kneed fool—who deliberately ruined my life in order to cover up your father’s crimes.”
His eyes were burning, but still he was silent.
“You will leave this house, and then you will leave England altogether. You may have that boat you visited yesterday—take it somewhere. I don’t ever want to see your face again.”
James shifted from foot to foot, for all the world like a guilty child.
“The damnable part is that the marriage was consummated,” she continued. “There’s no getting out of it.”
“I don’t want to get out of it.” James’s words came out in a strangled growl.
“I expect you don’t. After all, there I was, kneeling at your feet, begging for favors you might toss my way. As your father so kindly pointed out, any man would be in seventh heaven; I gather such eagerness is generally paid for. I suppose you were reiterating the sort of demands you give a doxy when ordering me to not wear drawers? And to wear my hair down?”
“No!”
“Don’t bellow at me,” Theo responded. “I’m not a terrified scullery maid facing your father. If you throw a china shepherdess at me, I’ll pick up the bloody dining room table and throw it at your head.”
“I have never thrown anything,” James stated.
“You’re just coming into your own. I’m sure when you’re as old as your father you’ll have equal bragging rights to being a bastard. Or . . . wait. I think you’ve already earned them.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m just so sorry, Daisy.”
His face was contorted, as if he was trying not to cry, but she didn’t feel a bit of pity. Safe behind her icy wall, she felt nothing.
“You’re beautiful, and I’m not. But you know something, James? I’d rather be me a hundred times over. Because when I fell in love with you, I did it honestly. I was a fool; I realize that now. But I loved you last night. I truly loved you. I hope you enjoyed it, because I think I’m probably the last person stupid enough, and fooled enough by your beautiful face, to think that there’s anything worthwhile inside you.”
His jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
She had one more thing to say. “When someone falls in love with me—and he will, because life is long, and this marriage is over—he’ll love me for who I am, not for my face. He’ll be able to see inside me, and he’ll want me for more than my dowry, or the fact that I could be ordered about and turned into a prostitute without even understanding my own humiliation.”
“I didn’t do that!”
She managed to keep her voice steady. “You are disgusting. Utterly disgusting. But the saddest part of this is that I did all that with you because I thought I was in love with you, and that you loved me as well. I didn’t do it for money, which is why you did it. So I think your father had it wrong: it seems that I just had two very expensive nights with a cicisbeo.”
“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice little more than a rough whisper. “Please, Daisy, don’t. Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Tell you the truth?”
“Break us apart.”
She waited, but he found no more words.
“There is no us,” she said, feeling suddenly shattered. “I’ll expect you to leave the house within the day.” To her horror, she realized that the sight of him still warmed some errant part of her heart, and the very realization drove her on.
“I would never have done this to you.” For the first time, her voice almost cracked. “I loved you, James. I really loved you. The odd thing is that I didn’t even realize it until we were married. But even if I hadn’t loved you that way, I wouldn’t have betrayed you, because you were my closest friend. My brother. You could have just asked me, you know.”
His face had turned deathly white. “Asked you what?”
“Asked me for my money,” she said, head high, eyes dry. “People who love . . . they share. They give. I would have given you that money. You needn’t have walked over me to get to it.”
She turned and left, closing the door precisely behind her.
She climbed the stairs to the second floor feeling as if she were a hundred years old, as empty and wizened as a beldame. As she walked down the corridor, the duke emerged from his chamber.
She met his eyes without even a tinge of shame. She was not the one to be ashamed.
His eyes fell.
“I own this house,” she told the top of his head. “I want you out of it. As I learned yesterday, I seem to have promised you a generous allowance. You can rent your own damned house with it.”
His head jerked up and he bellowed, “You can’t do that!”
“If you are not out of here by tomorrow, I will take that lying estate manager, Reede, and deliver him and his records directly to my solicitors, not to mention to Bow Street. Say what you like. Tell your friends that you can’t bear to see my ugly face in the morning. But move out.”
“Tell her she can’t do that!” her father-in-law shouted.
She glanced down and saw James standing at the bottom of the stairs, his hand clenched on the banister. “He’s leaving, too,” she told the duke. “I’m closing this house to save the expense of running it. I’ll be living in Staffordshire for the foreseeable future, but if either of you wishes to communicate with me, you can do it through my solicitor.”
“I will not communicate with my wife through a solicitor,” James said from below.
“I agree. I would prefer that you not communicate at all.”
“You’re a virago,” the duke snarled, his voice shaking with rage.
“There’s nothing to throw in this hallway,” she said, looking at him with distaste.
“You cannot make me leave my own house, the house my grandfather built.”
“No, I can’t. But I can air the evidence of your embezzlement of my dowry, left in your care by your best friend. Interesting, that.” She glanced back down at James. “Best friends seem to be no more than fodder for betrayal in this family.”