He tried to move, to speak, but his legs refused him. His throat burned with unshed words. The air tasted of metal. The walls of the room beat like a heart, breathing in tandem with Helena’s anguish.
“You and your horrible father!” she sobbed. “I begged my family not to do this. I begged them! I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to be with you. I didn’t want any of this.”
He took a step forward, trembling as her nails scraped against the headboard.
“You wanted an heir,” she hissed, baring her teeth in agony as her body convulsed. “So take it. Take it!”
Her bloodied hand lifted off the bed, trembling as she pointed toward the wailing infant cradled in the midwife’s arms. Her face twisted into something almost inhuman with hate.
“You can take it to your father,” she spat, voice rising into a near scream. “Take it to that cold bastard and show him what a good son you are. Tell him ‘Look, Father, I’ve done as you asked. I’ve broken her, bled her out, torn her open like a sacrifice.’ Take it!’”
“Helena–”
“I hate you!” she cried, voice cracking. “I hate every inch of you, Valentine Price. You took my life and handed it to your father like a gift.”
Her eyes, red-rimmed and full of venom, met his. “I curse you.”
Valentine flinched.
“I curse you to never be happy. Ever. You don’t deserve it. Not after what you have done to me. I hope you live with the fact that you don’t deserve to live a happy life, knowing that you ruined my chances of one. I hope this child grows up to despise you for what you and your father did to its mother. I hope–”
Valentine woke with a start as a strangled sound caught in his throat. His chest heaved as though he had been drowning, and only now broken through the surface. He dragged in a breath that didn’t satisfy, and then another that burned. The air felt thick, poisoned, like it carried the bitter smoke of Helena’s last words.
Valentine wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, but he was panting and almost drenched in sweat. His hands were shaking.
He pressed a palm to his heart, but the hollowness there gaped wide, deeper now than ever. That same black void he had spent years building walls against, years pretending he could ignore, had returned. He was certain of it. It felt freshly carved, raw, and howling as if Helena herself had clawed her way through time and flesh to remind him that some sins could not be outrun.
He blinked. Beside him, Cecilia slept. Her breath was slow, even. One hand curled near her cheek, peaceful and soft. In that moment, he hated himself.
Who are you kidding, Valentine?
He turned his face away from Cecilia with worry knitted in his forehead. His throat tightened. He had forgotten so quickly the hurt that had defined the last five years of his life.
Helena had been right.
He had ruined her life. Whether or not he had known, whether or not it had been arranged or expected, it didn’t matter. He hadn’t seen her pain. He hadn’t stopped long enough to ask what she wanted. He’d been so eager to please his father, to secure the dukedom’s future, that he’d never once questioned the cost.
Even now, all these years later, her words hadn’t faded. They echoed louder the happier he became, like joy itself was an affront to her memory. Now, looking at Cecilia, who had crept past every wall and taken up quiet residence in his soul, all he could think was no. No, he couldn’t allow it.
He had to stop.
Before he ruined another life with the misery that crowded his own. Before he let her give her heart to a man who was too broken to give anything whole in return.
Valentine swung his legs off the bed. He sat for a moment, hunched over, elbows on his knees, his hands tangled in his hair like he might pull the guilt out by force.
He needed air. to breathe something other than the ghost of Helena’s voice. So, quietly and carefully, in order not to wake Cecilia, he rose from the bed. Thankfully, they had not gone too far. It would still be possible, painful, perhaps, but possible to put distance between them before Cecilia’s expectations of him spiraled into something he could never fulfill. Before she began to believe he was capable of offering her the very things he had long ago buried with his first wife.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Will His Grace not be joining us this morning?” she asked Hawkins, reaching for her cup of tea on the dining room table.
When Cecilia arrived in the dining room, Abigail was already at the table, chattering gently with the maid beside her. Cecilia has bent to kiss her cheek before taking her seat.
The butler gave a slight bow. “His Grace has gone out, Your Grace. He left earlier, on horseback.”
“Oh,” she replied, managing to keep her expression neutral. “Thank you.”
That morning, she had woken up alone, with Valentine nowhere to be found. The space he had occupied when they fell asleep in each other’s arms the night before was cold to touch when she roused from sleep. He had been gone a long while.
