The sound hung in the air, both prayer and curse, longing and regret intertwined in those four syllables that had somehow come to mean everything.
The next two days passed in a similar fashion, with Ewan avoiding Percy, snapping at servants, burying himself in estate matters that required no immediate attention while neglecting those that did. He rode out alone at dawn, pushing his horse to dangerous speeds across Hyde Park before the fashionable crowds appeared. He returned only when physical exhaustiondemanded it, hoping that sheer fatigue might grant him a few hours of dreamless sleep.
It rarely did.
On the fifth day of Samantha’s absence, Ralph reappeared, his expression suggesting he expected no warmer welcome than their last encounter had provided.
“Before you order me from your presence again,” he said as he entered the study without waiting to be announced, “I should inform you that I’ve come with news.”
Ewan looked up from the correspondence he had been attempting to focus on for the better part of an hour. “What news?”
“Your duchess attended the Athena Society meeting yesterday,” Ralph replied, watching closely for his reaction. “Lady Jane mentioned it when I called upon Lord Norfeld’s household this morning.”
Something tightened in Ewan’s chest, although between hope or dread, he could not say which it truly was. “Is she… well?”
Ralph’s expression softened just a fraction. “According to Lady Jane, she is bearing up admirably, though she sleeps poorly and has little appetite.”
The knowledge that Samantha suffered as he did brought Ewan no satisfaction—only a deepening of his own pain. “Why have you come to tell me this?”
“Because someone must break through this ridiculous impasse,” Ralph replied bluntly. “Whatever disagreement has driven you apart, surely it cannot be worth the misery you’re both clearly experiencing.”
Ewan turned away, unable to meet his friend’s searching gaze. “Some differences cannot be reconciled, regardless of… sentiment.”
“Sentiment?” Ralph echoed incredulously. “Is that what you call it? For God’s sake, Ewan, you love the woman! Anyone with eyes can see it. And she quite clearly returns the feeling, if her current state is any indication.”
“Love is not always sufficient,” Ewan said softly.
“Perhaps not,” Ralph conceded, his voice gentling. “But it is certainly necessary. And worth fighting for, I should think.”
Ewan remained silent, his gaze fixed on the gardens below where Samantha’s roses continued their relentless blooming, heedless of her absence.
“Percy intends to call upon her,” Ralph continued after a moment. “He’s quite determined to repair the breach between you, with or without your approval.”
CHAPTER 27
“He wouldn’t dare,” Ewan growled, though he knew the threat was empty. Percy’s devotion to Samantha had grown deep in the months of their marriage, his theatrical nature finding in her a patient audience and genuine appreciation that Ewan himself had sometimes lacked the temperament to provide.
“Oh, he absolutely would,” Ralph corrected with a hint of amusement. “The boy may write dreadful poetry, but he has a good heart. And he’s as miserable without her as you are, though considerably more willing to admit it.”
A reluctant smile tugged at Ewan’s lips despite everything. “He does wear his heart rather prominently on his sleeve.”
“Unlike his uncle,” Ralph observed dryly. “Though I must say, your current state hardly qualifies as concealing your feelings effectively.”
Ewan sighed, the fight draining from him as suddenly as it had appeared days ago in the Marchwood drawing room. “What would you have me do, Ralph? Compromise on a matter of fundamental importance? Pretend I can be something I’m not?”
“I would have you be honest,” Ralph replied simply. “With yourself first, and then with your wife. Fear makes poor counsel, my friend, and you’ve been listening to its whispers for far too long.”
The words struck with uncomfortable precision, echoing his own thoughts during sleepless nights when the walls he had built around his heart seemed less like protection and more like a prison of his own making.
“I shall consider what you’ve said,” he conceded finally.
“See that you do,” Ralph replied, moving toward the door. “Before that remarkable woman decides her happiness lies elsewhere than with a stubborn duke who cannot recognize a blessing when it stands before him.”
As the door closed behind his friend, Ewan remained at the window, his gaze drawn inexorably to the roses that Samantha had planted with such care in the early days of their marriage. The crimson blooms nodded in the gentle breeze, their beauty achingly perfect against the green of the surrounding foliage.
“She would never leave,” he told himself, yet even as the words formed, doubt crept in like a shadow.
Hadn’t he told her to go? Hadn’t he declared their entire relationship a mistake? And wasn’t that precisely what he had feared from the beginning—that allowing himself to care for her would inevitably lead to this ache of loss?
