“If I was accepted, tell me, would you have treated Charlotte the same way if it had been her in that coat room with Talbot? Would she have had to marry him?”
Nicholas clenched his jaw, and his unspoken answer hung in the air, apparent to all three of them. Elizabeth looked hurt by this, like she had been holding on to a kernel of hope, against her better judgment. She slumped back in bed, drained of all her previous vigour.
“Well, this ill-bred bastard has had enough,” she said in a hoarse voice, and poked the centre of her chest with her index finger as she said it.
The hurt radiated from her in waves strong enough to knock both men over. Colin wanted to take it and inflict it on himself instead. Unlike him, she didn’t deserve it.
“All this time, I worried that Talbot was forced to give me his name, like my father had been. I should have known better than to trust a duke,” she whispered, and both men shifted uneasily. “They always find a way to make you feel like dirt.” This time, she looked directly at her husband.
“You won. I’m too tired to fight what you two think of me. So go, enjoy your relationship with your well-bred, proper, full sister, Your Grace, and leave me to rot here,” she choked on her tears, and Talbot tilted his head at the door to indicate to his friend that it was time to leave.
“And tell Aunt Isolde to leave me alone!”
Nicholas opened his mouth to say something, but Talbot shook his head decisively, and his friend ignored him. It seemed that Nicholas shared that inclination with his sister.
“I’m not leaving you to rot. I shall keep coming back until this between us is resolved, sister. I’m sorry about everything,” Nicholas said in a strained voice. “I thought I had done everything I needed to do by overcoming my resentment of our father enough to make contact with you. I gave you the monetary and societal protection of my title and influence without looking beyond the superficial and without understanding what true fraternal acceptance meant. I will do better, I promise.”
Lizzie never moved her stare from the window. Nicholas quietly left the room, and Talbot took one step towards the door before turning around to look at her. She was still looking at the window, her face reflecting nothing but scorn.
Dejected, he followed Nicholas into the hallway. His friend was trying to inconspicuously dry his eyes, and Talbot turned away to give him some privacy.
“Get your mistress’s maid and send her to Her Grace’s room,” he told a maid who came out of one of the rooms.
“Let’s talk in my study,” he told Nicholas, and the two men went into Talbot’s study, where they smoked by the fire for a while, each lost in his own thoughts.
Colin was horrified by the depths of his wife’s wounds and was only now fully aware of his role in salting them.
“We need to rectify this,” he said, and Hawkins nodded.
“I agree, but how does one heal a hurt this deep?”
“Putting her name in your family’s prayer book might serve as a gesture of acceptance,” Talbot said reproachfully.
“She told you she wanted that?” Nicholas seemed both surprised and ashamed, like it had never crossed his mind to record her name in it and now, to his credit, he looked like he hated himself for it.
“Yes, idiot,” Talbot said and felt a little better. “And talk to that uppish sister of yours. Your family needs to do better.”
“What about you,idiot?” Nicholas retorted.
Talbot stared at the fire like it held all the answers.
“I’ve had some time to think about this. I said awful things about her, I broke her engagement and forced her into another one, and tarnished her name in the process. I think I shall start working on undoing the damage my selfishness has done to your sister’s name. I’ve already seen to it that a certain Mr Thorpe only writes flattering articles about my duchess from now on. Next, I’ll pay visits to Lady Georgiana and Lady Helena Grey, if you wish to join me?”
“Absolutely. And then?”
“And then…” Colin sighed. “Then I need to give her something that would make up for what I took.”
“You think such a thing exists? And if you find it, she’ll magically forgive you?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. Perhaps not. In any case, I shall bear your sister’s wrath for as long as she deems appropriate.”
“What if it’s forever?”
“Then so be it,” said the man whom Nicholas couldn’t recognise any more.
“I cannot stop thinking about that little girl in the Park,” Nicholas said after a while. “Ever since you told me about it,I’ve been holding my daughter a little tighter, horrified at the thought of her going through something like that. Girls adore their fathers. I’m Emma’s hero. If I were to publicly renounce her like that, it would break her. Can you even imagine the damage something like that inflicts on a person?”
”According to Miss Williams, Elizabeth was never the same afterwards,” Talbot said somberly, then frowned. “I’ve been thinking about your father for a while now. Why do you think he left them so little to live on?”
