“Why would you wish to stay here, anyhow?” Charlotte asked.
“Oh, Lottie, why do you think I should return home?” Evelyn asked. “So that Father can wait scarcely long enough for propriety’s sake before he marries me off to another old man? So he can use all the funds from my jointure for himself? I think not.”
“He would never,” Charlotte said.
Marianne and Evelyn looked at her. Silence filled the space for a moment, and then Charlotte sat down. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
“You ought not speak so badly of your father,” Aunt Eugenia said. But even her voice lacked conviction.
“Aunt Eugenia, please do not defend him. We are aware that he often uses you to settle his debts when he is unable to do so himself. I think you ought to stop. It does nobody any good to continue to pretend as if all is well while his daughters pay the price for his actions.”
“He is my brother. He is an earl. His position commands our deference,” Eugenia said.
“He is worthy of no such respect. And I will not come home,” Evelyn said. It wasn’t until she spoke the words aloud that she realized she meant them.
Of course, she had been upset when she heard the dower house was not available to her, and when she first heard, she had somewhat resigned herself to returning to her father’s manor. But as she had walked up the stairs, as she thought of all she had endured—the humiliation, the stares, the whispers behind her back—she realized she did not deserve to be discarded like an unwanted pair of shoes.
She had done her part. She had married that old man. It wasn’t her fault he had swallowed a date core and suffered some sort of apoplexy—or whatever had caused him to hit his head. She had done her duty.
She deserved to be free.
She curled her hands into fists and then looked up.
“I want you to stop packing—all of you. In fact, I want you to go home—the three of you. Return to our London residence.”
“Evelyn,” Marianne called.
“No. You will not dissuade me. I have had enough. I shall no longer submit to the dictates of others. This is my time. I will not return home and let Father use me as a pawn again. I am the Duchess of Sinclair.”
She resisted the urge to stomp her foot. It would look petulant—and the last thing she needed was for anyone, even her own family, to see her as a child. She was a grown woman. A widow. She would no longer let others dictate her life. She would determine the course of her existence.
Determined, she hurried back downstairs. But when she arrived, the dining room where she had earlier received the news regarding the house stood open. Both Crenshaw and Nathaniel were gone. She stamped her hands on her hips and marched to the window. A carriage was just leaving—a plain one, the sort the solicitor usually traveled in. So he was gone. But what of the new Duke?
She made her way through the house, past servants scattering back and forth. All of them now wore black ribbons around their upper arms to signify a house in mourning..
She saw her reflection in the mirror, blurry, but it was there despite the brightness of the afternoon. She was clad in black as a widow should be. She didn’t feel like a widow, far from it. She felt set free, but for a while, the black widow’s attire would be her shield against remarriage. And she would wield it with all her might.
She wasn’t familiar with the Sinclair estate—she had only visited a few times. So she walked, confused, through the vast halls. Nathaniel had to be somewhere. Surely he was already prowling about, counting which paintings he could hoard, taking inventory of the silver, deciding what might be worth something.
As she rounded a corner, she stopped.
An undertaker stood outside the parlor, placing tall black candles in silver holders at the door. This is where he was—not the new heir, but her husband.
She slowed her pace and peered inside. The undertaker adjusted the curtains. The entire space was cloaked in black. The windows were shrouded. Every piece of furniture not in use was covered in dark fabric. The mirror in the corner was likewise concealed. And in the center, on a table, lay her husband.
He was wrapped in a silk shroud.
“You may enter, Your Grace,” the undertaker said. “If you would like a moment alone with your husband.”
“No,” she said quickly. That was the last thing she wanted. She hadn’t wanted to be near him in life, and she certainly didn’t wish to be near him now, in death. He hadn’t been a kind man. She felt no remorse at seeing him this way.
For a moment, an image of her mother appeared in her mind—her mother, displayed in the parlor after succumbing to a fever. That parlor had never been empty. Friends and family came, wept at all hours until it was time to lay her to rest.
But nobody had come for Bertram. Nobody would.
He had married multiple times but never kept in contact with his former families. Once their daughters and sisters had served their purpose and failed to provide him with a male heir, he had no further use for them.
As he would have had no use for her—unless she had borne him a son.
