Except for leaving me.
Estwood had looked into Kinkaid’s background for David, as well as the ownership of the cottage. Kinkaid was the son of a moderately prosperous farmer who’d fallen on hard times. He’d become a soldier when his father’s farm was sold, but Estwood had been unable to find out how Kinkaid had met Emelia in the first place. They had struggled financially, especially when Emelia's family had disowned her over the scandal of leaving the Duke of Granby, but the pair had been otherwise happy. After fleeing to this charming backwater to hide, they had presented themselves as married, though they didn’t wed officially until Horace died. Kinkaid followed Horace, barely two months later, so Emelia was a widow twice over, though he doubted she had cried over his father.
“Your Grace. I wasn’t expecting you,” she said from the doorway.
“My apologies for not informing you of my visit,” he replied politely, though his fingers clenched tightly against his thighs to stop the rage. Disgust. Scorn.Anguish. The pain of the boy he’d once been screamed out in pain as the only person whom David had truly loved, had abandoned him.
Moisture gathered behind his eyes, and he looked away, ashamed.Christ.Andromeda had done this to him. She and Aunt Pen. They’d conspired together to unman him.
Weak. I always knew you were your mother’s son. I’ll have to make a proper duke of you.
He turned back to Emelia, watching as she dabbed her eyes with the corner of the apron tied around her waist. She looked about to burst into tears at the sight of him.
“Will you come in for tea, Your Grace?” She pushed at Ren who stood behind her. “I’ve a spice cake. Your favorite.” Her hands fluttered to her throat. “I mean, you used—”
“A slice of cake would be most welcome.” An ache started inside him, looking at the woman he hadn’t seen since he was a child. She had remembered spice cake was his favorite.
Ren glared at him with warning as David followed Emelia into the cottage, stooping low beneath the doorway.
“If you so much as bring a tear to her eye, duke or not, I’ll make you regret you ever came here.”
David paused and took in his bastard brother, no more than a lad, whom he’d spent the vast majority of his life detesting. Scornful words about his brother’s parentage begged to spew from behind his lips. He leaned over, gratified when Ren stepped back a pace, and answered.
“I already do.”
31
Romy pulled a pin from the tiny cushion attached to her wrist, tacking it on the hem of the gown she worked on. The storeroom had once been used for fittings before Madame Dupree had enlarged her establishment, but Romy now used the area as her workspace. It was good to be back at the modiste’s shop, surrounded by so many of the things she loved. Her sketches were strewn across a table in the middle of the room, while the remainder were tacked on the wall along with corresponding swatches of fabric.
The muted sounds of Madame and her assistants filtered through the walls, but Romy kept well out of sight. The talk about her plying a needle as modiste had ceased to circulate, and she’d returned to Madame Dupree’s, albeit discreetly. She no longer roamed the front of the shop, offering her advice to young ladies. It was deemed too risky by both the modiste and Romy’s brother.
After the Ralston ball, the gossip about her and Granby had slowed to a trickle. According to Theo, who heard it from Rosalind, Beatrice had finally confessedshehad refused Granby during the house party but had been too fearful to tell Lord and Lady Foxwood of her decision. She dismissed Romy as nothing more than an attempt on Granby’s part to make her jealous.
Now, instead of gossip, Romy was the subject of sympathetic looks and unwanted pity.
While it wasn’t flattering to be thought of as a consolation prize in Granby’s pursuit of Beatrice, Romy dared not contradict any of the talk. Her reputation was battered enough for now. The entire affair left her with an oily feeling in her stomach, as if she’d eaten too much cream sauce. Granby had been adamant he would not marry Beatrice, but maybe not for the reasons Romy had originally assumed. She meant to ask Granby if he ever returned to London.
He’d told her he wished to talk to her. He’d be gone at most a fortnight, he’d said.
Notan entire month.
No one, not even Haven, who called on her with strange regularity, though she suspected he was really looking for Theo, or Estwood, who had taken her to view a collection of Egyptian mummies, had spoken to Granby.
It doesn’t matter. He finds me too flawed for him. Unsuitable. He is an icy giant incapable of love.
Unfortunately, repeating those lines every time she thought of Granby, which was far too often, didn’t make thelackof him any easier to bear. He’d broken her heart and stomped upon it, yet still, she longed for him, even knowing he couldn’t return her feelings. Not really. Physical desire was certainly wonderful, as she’d recently found out, but it could not replace love.
I want him to love me for me. Drawbacks and all.
She breathed out, rubbing the patch of skin over her heart. Before Granby, Romy would have scoffed at the notion that she, a duke’s daughter, was considered remotely unsuitable. But the Barrington Bubble, as she liked to refer to the protection her parents had encased her and her sisters in for so many years, had popped.
It was amazing the things one learned about the Barringtons if you only listened.
Ruffling the lace on the bodice of the gown she worked on, Romy took a bit of ribbon, trying it against the shoulder. She hadn’t quite forgiven Granby for his view of her. It chafed against her heart. Was it worse to be unloved because she was unsuitable? Or preferable to be unloved because Granby wasn’t capable of the emotion?
She leaned back against the table, indescribably sad, thoughts of him taking all the wind from her sails. The dress before her no longer held any interest. Nor did her sketches. What she really wanted to do was go home, sit on a chair before the fire in her room, and wallow in self-pity. Maybe cry. She’d done so last night, but it hadn’t helped.
“I thought I might find you here, though I didn’t expect you to be so distressed, especially when surrounded by mounds of fabric and fripperies. Did someone steal your pins? Destroy a bolt of tulle? I know, someone unraveled your ribbons.” The words rumbled from directly behind her.
