Colin sighed wearily. “I wanted to marry her without revealing to anyone how much I wanted to marry her, so I cornered her in that cloak room and arranged with Lady Helena to find us like that to make everyone think Elizabeth had been compromised. Don’t say anything,” he lifted his palm when Sophie opened her mouth. “Please.”
“She ought to leave you,” Hawkins spoke instead.
“I agree and I’m certain she will,” Talbot said without any bite to his tone.
Sophie nodded approvingly.
“Her mother said that she never forgives,” he said dejectedly after a while.
He felt Sophie sit down next to him, but didn’t look away from his boots. He couldn’t bear to see her stomach again.
“Do you know what happened with her and your father, Hawkins?” He asked.
“No, what?”
“Growing up, Elizabeth knew nothing about your father’s real life or the reasons for his long absences from what she believed was his home.”
Sophie made a sound of disgust at the mention of the late Duke.
“Her mother had made the mistake of telling her that the Duke had the habit of promenading in St. James’s Park, without realising that, when she missed him, her daughter would simply go and look for him there.”
“No,” Nicholas breathed, horrified, apparently able to guess where the story was going, unlike his wife, who frowned at his reaction.
Talbot turned to her, “Elizabeth found him walking with Charlotte in the Park one day, and he pretended not to know her.”
Tears were now freely flowing down Sophie’s beautiful face.
“Lizzie told me she never really spoke to him after that. She’d greet him whenever he was visiting with them, and she’d answer his questions, but it was like her heart had closed forever; that’s how her mother described it. I’m worried the same thing might happen now, with the two of us, or the two of you,” Talbot now looked at Nicholas, whose face was the picture of despair.
“You two have to make this right,” Sophie said in a small voice. “I cannot even imagine… Poor Lizzie.”
Talbot nodded and felt Sophie’s eyes on him. He met her gaze, and it was different from all the other times they’d interacted. It was as if some of the animosity she normally showed him (which he never knew the reason for) was gone.
*
The truth was that Duchess Elizabeth Talbot had been waking up every night, and when she did, her gaze would immediately fly to her husband sleeping fitfully in the cot next to her bed.
Faced with the sight of his familiar, young face (for everyone’s face regains some of its youth in sleep), she’d be overwhelmed bytenderness and tempted to reach over and smooth back the lock of hair covering his brow (He never lets his hair get this long,she’d mused on the first night.Why isn’t he in bed with me?), before remembering what an evil, selfish, scheming, deceitful scoundrel he was.
In the brief, fever-free intervals she experienced nightly, she was plagued by a different sort of illness – anguish. Lady Helena’s words tormented her endlessly. She revisited and re-evaluated every moment of her marriage with the newly discovered betrayal in mind.
What was real and what was a lie? What kind of man have I been living with?
In her agitated state, all the men who had wronged her would ultimately blend into one giant, cruel man – sometimes he wore her father’s face, sometimes Nicholas’s, but most often, her husband's.
The combination of shock, the aftermath of the betrayal, being weakened by her illness, and the overall lack of comprehension of everything that had led to that fateful night at the Pearsons’ and why, all made it impossible for Elizabeth to untangle all her feelings or examine the facts rationally, not to mention come to any decisions. So, whenever the helplessness and frustration would overwhelm her, she’d close her eyes and reach for a fantasy she hadn’t entertained since she’d been a child.
As ridiculous and dark as it was, Elizabeth would imagine what would happen if she were to succumb to her illness. She’d imagine herself lying in a coffin at her own vigil, completely and utterly dead.
All the people who’d harmed her in the course of her short life would be there, and they would all be devastated.
Her husband, Colin, would be inconsolable, sobbing like the real version of him never would, and telling all the other (numerous) mourners who’d gathered at the vigil how deeply he regretted how his callous disregard for Lizzie’s feelings, reputation, and good name had led to the illness which ultimately claimed her life.
She’d picture her brother on his knees, devastated by the loss of the sister he never bothered to truly know. In Lizzie’s fantasy, several people would approach him and tell him wonderful things about her that he’d been unaware of, or relay interesting and exciting experiences they had shared with her. He would finally be aware of how badly he had misjudged and maligned her.
And her mother would bitterly regret ever having put Lizzie on this earth as an illegitimate child, forever to be branded by her parents’ sins, and to be sentenced to a life as an outcast from the glittering world that should have been her birthright.
For good measure, she imagined Lady Georgiana receiving news of her demise and clutching her chest in disbelief, immediately regretting her cruel letter to Elizabeth.
