Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

Evie had once thought that a person with a broken heart would never be able to survive. Her own father certainly had not, so when her mother decided to burn down an entire wing of their estate in her maddened grief, he had managed only to secure Evie’s safety before he walked into the fire himself to join her.

Colin had told her the tragic tale of their parents just before his wedding to Alice, and Evie had been rightfully horrified to know the truth behind what was the most traumatizing thing to ever occur to her.

She had been but a child back then, caught up in the tangled lives of her parents and the dark secret that lurked in her beautiful mama’s heart—a secret that devastated their family and left Evie and Colin orphans.

“Evie? Evie, dearest, are you all right?”

Evie blinked, and all at once, she was back in the sunny parlor of Blackthorn Estate, surrounded by Alice, Phoebe, and Scarlett, who were all looking at her with concern written all over their faces.

After nearly a week of hiding in her rooms, furiously working on her paintings and flinging her emotions onto the canvas, she had managed to emerge from it all.

She could recall the shocked look on her grandmother’s face, as well as those of Alice and her brother, when she stumbled into the dining hall one evening, dressed for dinner with her hair done up neatly and elegantly.

However, as much as she presented the facade of the Evie they once knew, she knew that she had been irreversibly changed on the inside—and not just because she had lost her innocence.

In the past few days, she had bid goodbye to her childish dreams of romance and embraced reality with the eyes of a woman who had seen what her younger self had not beheld.

Evie liked to think she was stronger for it, but it still took one step at a time. Perhaps in another fortnight or so, she might deign to venture outside for a turn about the park—in her carriage, of course. She was not so brave as to promenade.

“I… was in my head for a moment,” she murmured with an apologetic smile. “What did I miss?”

Her friends did not look convinced, so she smiled a little brighter.

“We were just talking about the new opera singer,” Phoebe told her with a gentle smile. “Word has it that her arias are simply divine and she has the voice of an angel.”

Evie pretended to at least be a little interested. “How… lovely.”

She had no interest in stepping outside of Blackthorn Estate at the moment, and going out to see an opera, no matter how talented the singer, was presently inconceivable.

Besides, what was she going to do if she met Daniel at one of those events? There were many amongst the ton who went on with their lives separately from their spouses, but Evie was not one of them.

Perhaps she did inherit her father’s passion and her mother’s tenacity to hold on to her past affections.

A curse, if there ever was one!

But people can learn to live with their own burdens, and Evie had resolved to do the same. She had her weekly meetings with Mr. Turner, and she lacked for nothing. She no longer hoped for the same things as she did in her youth—she simply wished to live the rest of her life in peace.

Perhaps, if she had learned to be content early on and not dared to grasp at the impossible, she would not have been in the situation she was in right now.

“If you wish to hear her sing, then maybe we can have Colin invite the lady for a private show,” Alice suggested. “It will simply be us and Grandmother.”

Evie shook her head and smiled at her sister-in-law. “That would be too much of an imposition, and I really do not have an ear for music, I’m afraid.”

The past few days, Alice had been most solicitous, and Evie did not wish to further burden her. It was already enough that her honeymoon had been cut short when she and Colin rushed back to London to “rescue” Evie from Daniel’s clutches. She could not afford to have the new Duchess bend over backward on her account—she adored Alice too much.

Perhaps more than she did her own brother.

“Whatever you need, dearest, just let me know.” Alice winked at her over her cup. “Even if you want your brother out of sight, I can manage.”

“Oh, no doubt you will!” Scarlett snickered mischievously at her best friend. “Ever since you married, the Duke of Blackthorn has been most thoroughly managed!”

“Scarlett!” Phoebe was absolutely scandalized, her face red from embarrassment.

“Oh, you will understand soon enough when you are married.” The redhead grinned at her.

“And now, thanks to you, I shall gain enlightenment much sooner,” Phoebe grumbled with a shake of her head. “Truly, Scarlett, do you know no shame?”

“None, whatsoever!”

Phoebe hung her head at the redhead’s irreverent grin. “Mama will be so disappointed to know that most of my education had been received prior to my wedding.”

“Oh, do not fret, dearest sister,” Alice remarked wryly. “Mama was not much help on my wedding day either!”

The ladies all burst into laughter, and even Evie managed to smile a little wider.

There were moments when the heartbreak seemed to break her spirit. Moments when she felt that dying would have been much better than living.

But there were also moments like these when she felt as if she could perhaps hang on for a little longer. Mostly, when she painted, she could actually recall how it felt to live again.

Evie lived for these moments. These tiny pockets of sunshine that she could find in everyday life.

One step at a time.

How cruel was it that heartbreak could happen in an instant but learning to live on would probably take her entire life.

“Your Grace, Miss Jane has sent word that Her Grace has been eating her meals now.”

Daniel looked up from the document he held in his hand, his green eyes bleary from overwork. All of a sudden, there was a shift, and his gaze landed on his butler, who was standing before him with nary an expression on his stoic facade.

“Has she… has she gone outside?” he inquired.

Evie was like a sunflower with her face and her smile always turned towards the light. He could not bear the thought of her holed up in her rooms.

It tore through whatever remained of his heart.

“Miss Jane says that Her Grace has taken a tour around the gardens this morning.”

That was a blessed improvement from her self-imposed isolation in her rooms, and Daniel nearly cried out in relief.

In a few more weeks, when he would finally manage to quash all the rumors that surrounded them, Evie would be able to promenade in Hyde Park as she used to. He did not care who he had to threaten or how much he had to pay to get it done, but he would.

He would craft and mold the whole world to suit her if that is what it took.

“His Grace, the Duke of Blackthorn, also wishes to relay a message to you.”

Daniel arched an eyebrow at that. He could not imagine what his old friend had to say to him after everything that happened with Evie.

“What did my good friend, the Duke of Blackthorn, wish to say to me?”

The butler looked uneasy and cleared his throat—wholly unnecessary, Daniel was certain.

“He told you to leave Her Grace alone,” Barnaby replied. “Although the wording was not quite as polite, I’m afraid.”

Daniel laughed harshly at that. He was quite certain Colin had a great many words for him, none of which could be uttered in polite company, and he deserved them all.

“Do you want me to relay your response, Your Grace?” his butler asked him.

Daniel waved his hand dismissively. “There is no need for that, Barnaby.”

There was nothing he could say that Colin would heed anyway. The man was as stubborn as a mule, and he knew that better than anyone else.

“Also, you have a guest, Your Grace.”

“I am most certainly not in the mood to entertain callers, Barnaby,” he replied sarcastically.

“I did not come to call on you, Ashton,” a cold voice intoned from the door. “I came to see if you have come to your senses. Apparently, you have not.”

He looked up to find Hudson standing in the doorway, a broad shoulder leaning against the frame.

“You came all the way to check up on me?” Daniel sneered. “Some recluse you have become.”

“I came to see just how stubborn you are and if that same stubbornness has killed you already.”

His friend pushed off the doorframe and stalked towards him like a panther prowling in the jungle.

“You must be disappointed to see that I am still alive, then,” Daniel replied with a casual shrug. He glanced briefly at his butler, who bowed politely before quietly exiting the study.

“Cut the crap, Ashton,” Hudson grunted. “It took you less than a day to get a special license to marry her. It would not take you this long to get an annulment. If you truly wanted to sever ties with your Duchess, you would have done so already.”

“Annulments take time, you know?”

“Not,” Hudson sneered, “if you did it the day after the wedding.”

Daniel glared at him. “I was not aware that we were working under time constraints,” he shot back sarcastically.

If he annulled the marriage the day after the wedding, where would that leave Evie? He had barely finished cleaning up the mess that bastard Sidmouth and his sister left with her last publication. If he were to annul the marriage so soon, Evie’s reputation would suffer another blow.

“I do not want her to suffer anymore because of my mistakes,” he told his friend softly. “I have already done enough damage, don’t you think?”

“Well, you sure as hell aren’t doing anything to fix it.” Hudson glared icily at him. “You know that you have it in your power to fix all this. You just refuse to do it.”

Daniel clenched his hands into fists. “Do you think I am not aware of that?” he growled. “Do you think that I enjoy knowing how much I have hurt her? That she could barely hold her head up high in Society after that blasted scandal sheet came out?”

The truth was that he wanted nothing more than to rush over to Blackthorn Estate and take Evie back to Ashton Hall, where he would properly make amends for all the hurt he had caused her.

However, he also knew that being with him would only make it worse for her.

“I swore that I would never have children,” he admitted harshly. “I swore that his line would end with me.”

And Evie wanted children. A family.

She had so much love to give, so much happiness she could bring to the world. If she remained married to him, his darkness would consume them both until there would be nothing left of her light.

He would take and take and take until there was nothing left of her.

“Then you are a fool, Daniel,” Hudson murmured, sounding tired. “You are a fool for letting a foolish man—a dead one, at that—dictate your future and your happiness, and by doing so, you have damned her with you.”

Daniel watched as his friend stood up with a cold expression on his face.

“If you had known this was going to happen, then Colin was right—you should have stayed the hell away from her.”

It was the most that Hudson had ever said to him in recent times, and the truth of his words gutted him.

As he sat there alone in his study, his head in his hands, Daniel honestly wished that he at least had the decency to leave Evie alone.

But he damned well did not, and that was his greatest sin.