If Valeria married Roger, Duncan would lose her. If he did not take action, then he would lose the chance of being a better man, like his brother. If he did not at least tell her how he felt, then he would lose all hope of ever being anything but lonely, filling his days and nights with empty, soulless encounters that only made him lonelier.
“Is that what you want me to do?” he whispered, closing his eyes. “Am I forgiven? Please, may I be happy now? Please, say I am capable of loving her… for I would rather join you in your earthy beds than break her heart.”
The wind through the willow tree sang him to sleep, leaving the answers to his questions for the morning.
Nursing a sore head and an unsettled stomach, soaked through by the morning dew, Duncan returned to the manor by the light of what promised to be a beautiful summer day. He could not remember much of what he had done the night before, but he had the agitated sense that he was forgetting something important.
“Oh, thank goodness!” the housekeeper cried, seeing him plod through the front door. “I was about to send the dogs out, Your Grace.”
He smiled sheepishly. “I fell asleep. I apologize for worrying you.” He paused. “Might I have some tea and toast brought to the study?”
“Of course, Your Grace.” The housekeeper hesitated. “There’s a fire going in there already. You ought to warm yourself, or you’ll catch a chill.”
He nodded. “I will.”
A blast of welcome heat greeted him as he entered the study, staving off the shivers from his damp clothes. He eyed the decanters of liquor on the side-table, tempted to begin the carousel of self-destruction again, but he waved the thought away and sat down at his desk instead.
An increasingly tall tower of correspondence awaited his attention, neglected over the past week. Figuring there was no time like the present, he began to work his way through the letters as he waited for his toast and tea.
Halfway through the dull stack, his blood ran cold, eyes darting left to right across a letter that was dated from a week ago. But there was another date upon the page that sent his heart lurching into his throat.
At ten o’clock on Tuesday, the Twenty-Sixth Day of August, at Campbell Hall, Cornwall.
“I will be too late,” he rasped, shooting to his feet. The invitation to Valeria’s wedding had been there for a week, and, in his foolishness, he had not seen it. Indeed, heshouldhave been searching the post every day for that very invitation, hunting down the details of the wedding if one had not arrived.
It was almost ten o’clock on Sunday. Campbell Hall was at least two days’ ride from Thornhill. If he left at that very moment, changing horses and riding through the night, not pausing for anything, he might just make it.
For the first time in years, there was no hesitation. His mind was clearer than it had ever been, no weight of guilt or doubt upon his broad shoulders. He knew what he wanted to do, what hehadto do, and if he did not make it in time, if he did not pour everything he possessed into getting there before Valeria was lost to him, he would not have to beg forgiveness from anyone but himself.
“My horse!” he roared, sprinting through the hallways. “Saddle my horse!”
There was not a moment to lose.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Adistant church bell—the church where Valeria would soon be married—chimed out nine clanging strokes, each one juddering through her heart, clattering down her spine, turning her stomach into a seething mass of writhing anxiety.
“The air is so fresh here!” Amelia said brightly, sticking her head out of the sash window of the Dower House.
Valeria and her wedding party had been accommodated there to prepare for the occasion, while the dowager herself had moved back to the main house. A cold sort of woman who had made no secret of her doubts, asking snide questions about Valeria’s age, and why she had been seven years in society without a single offer of marriage.
“One could easily get used to such a view,” Isolde added encouragingly, as she slotted fresh lavender into the ribbon band of Valeria’s bonnet.
The viewwasextraordinary. Campbell Hall perched upon a cliff, overlooking the twinkling sea, dramatic coves, curves of sandy beaches, and a grassy headland where a solitary bench offered unending peace.
“I do not think this feather complements the flowers, Valery,” Isolde said, moving to remove the feather.
Valeria caught her friend’s hand to stop her. “I need it, even if it does not suit the bonnet. It is… a reminder of why I am doing this.”
Through the reflection of the mirror in front of Valeria, Beatrice caught her eye and quickly looked away again. The younger woman had not said much about Duncan over the past few weeks, but Valeria could not rid herself of the feeling that her cousin had something she wished to get off her chest.
“What do you mean?” Isolde asked, frowning. “You are marrying him because you like him, are you not?”
Amelia turned her gaze up to the ceiling, as though a very interesting fresco had suddenly appeared. She, too, seemed to want to say something that she was holding back.
“I… think he is a fine man. We will enjoy a… nice companionship,” Valeria replied, her lungs squeezing, wringing the air out, leaving behind the tight feeling of panic.
But I do not want to marry him. I have never wanted to. Duncan was correct. Roger isnotright for me, if for no other reason than the fact that he wants children and I do not.It was a fairly vast incompatibility, and guilt kept surging upward, punishing her for not telling him as much.
