Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Say something.

Every part of Claire's heart felt as if it were breaking anew. The fractures she had spent all of those years repairing were unglued, and any moment now, she would simply dissolve into tears. She could not allow it. Tears welled in her eyes and she stubbornly refused to let them fall. Dorian owed it to her to give her answers, if nothing else.

He ought to have known her better than that. They had practically been raised together. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that Dorian loved her just as fiercely as she loved him.

It had to mean something. It had to stand for more than this. The years of suffering and loneliness could not have been for nothing. Claire wanted to beat her fists against his broad chest and demand he explain himself. She wanted nothing more than to hear how he had missed her and thought of her every day of her absence. She longed to hear that he had attempted to search the country for her or some other tale that was romantic and heroic.

It was a pointless dream that only fed into her delusion. She knew that. Somehow, that seemed to hurt worse.

Since he would not fill this wretched silence, she would.

"I searched for you," she admitted with more bitterness than she ought to have. "Can you imagine the pain that was inflicted upon me when I arrived to your home, thinking that our engagement would be announced to your family, only to be met by your sister at the door? To have Dolores sneer at me and tell me in no uncertain terms that you no longer wished to have anything to do with me?"

"That is not true," Dorian whispered.

It only fueled Claire further. "She stood there with her arms folded smugly across her chest as if she had won some great victory over me. She told me you must have gotten what you wished from me because you were no longer interested in me or anything I had to say. How was I supposed to interpret that?

Perhaps I am simply more stubborn than you, but I would not accept it. I could not take Dolores at her word. I tried to sneak in through the servants' quarters like you and I used to do late at night, only to be told by the staff that I was forbidden. Forbidden!"

Dorian looked as if he were going to be ill. Clearly, Dolores had left out all of this information when she had confessed her misdeeds to her brother.

"I was stunned and heartbroken, of course. I vowed that I would find a way to contact you. I needed to hear it from your own lips that you wished to have nothing to do with me. I needed closure."

Claire shook her head, bits of her hair falling loose from the way it was pinned and framing her face. "A month went by and I knew I would not have the luxury of waiting for you. Not unless I wished to spend the rest of my life embroiled in scandal and infamy."

Claire's hands dropped to her stomach, resting low on her abdomen over the ghost of a memory.

She could very distinctly remember waking up expecting her monthly courses and finding nothing. She waited a week after she was due to convince herself of what she knew in her heart. It was so easy to slip back into the mindset of that young woman. The fear and longing for Dorian that had consumed her, knowing she was pregnant and there was no way to even tell him of the child he had fathered.

Her hands dropped from her stomach, hanging by her sides for but a moment before insecurity forced her to wrap them around her torso tightly. She lifted a shoulder into a shrug and dropped it. This was the moment. She needed to tell him about their daughter. She might never have another perfect chance, but her mouth would not allow her to form the words.

It took everything in her to lift her gaze to meet Dorian's.

This was a moment that she had played out so many times over the years. She had imagined every possible way that the scenario could go. Sometimes she imagined that he showed up with flowers and a perfect explanation as to his absence. He would meet their daughter and know instantly the truth before sweeping both of them up into his arms and promising to never leave either of them ever again.

But, more often than not, she would play the conversation out much more as it was actually happening.

Sometimes, in her mind's eye, Dorian would storm off in a fit of rage. Other times he would deny their child and accuse her of lying. But the worst of them all was when he would simply refuse to say a single word to her. In those nightmares, he would simply crinkle his nose at her in disgust.

That was the version of events that she would not be able to handle.

Dorian was silent for a moment too long. Her eyes lifted slowly, almost against her will, only to see shock and some emotion she could not name welling in his eyes.

He understood then that Eleanor was their daughter, conceived the very first time they ever consummated their love on the night of the ball.

***

Could it be true?

Claire had no reason to lie to him. She certainly had no reason to infer that he had a child when it was not truly his. She would gain nothing by a falsehood.

Dorian staggered back a few paces. His body moved while his mind reeled. He needed to see her for himself. The urge to confirm what he had just learned was wholly overwhelming. She had looked so familiar to him. It all made sense. Claire could not have waited for him even if she had wished to. They had been robbed of any chance at a happy future.

He tore through Claire's home in search of her daughter— their daughter.

Through the kitchens and down the servants' hall until he found the staircase and main sitting room. A modest house with thin walls easily carried the sounds of a child's merry laughter to him. Eleanor sat on the rug with her governess. It appeared they were in the middle of a math lesson. Between the two of them was a game similar to one he could remember playing with his own governess as a child.

Eleanor instantly perked up the moment she saw him, smiling brightly. "Hello, my lord. Have you come to fetch me for a riding lesson?"

Of course she looked familiar to him. It was more than just the fact that he could recognize so many of Claire's features in her daughter. Eleanor was also looking at him with the same eyes that his own mother had.

The curve of Eleanor's jawline was aligned with Dolores and Mother's. Her complexion mirrored his own. The longer he gazed at her, the more features he could assign to their individual genetics. How could he have missed it? How could he have not known his own flesh and blood?

He had a daughter.

So many years lost. All of the firsts and milestones that he would never get a chance to witness. Even coming into her life now would not make up for that. A sorrow deeper than he could properly fathom started to well within him. This was not a mistake that he would ever be able to undo.

"Sir?" Eleanor asked, her smile fading.

He ought to move. He was frightening her. He ought to not look at her with such intensity, but he could not stop. Dorian had a need to memorize her every feature. He was seeing her for the first time in a whole new light.

"Mama, the lord is frightening me," Eleanor said as she started to cry. Her governess reached for her, but before she could pick her up, Claire swooped into the room. She picked Eleanor up off of the floor and held her against her chest, automatically soothing her.

Dorian would never have that. He did not know how to bring paternal comfort. That was a dream he had given up on long, long ago. The vision he had had for his future was standing right in front of him in a wholly different capacity than he had imagined it. Everything had gone so very wrong and yet somehow ended up exactly as he had hoped it would.

He simply had not been there to witness any of it.

It was too much. The intensity of the emotions that ripped through him like a hurricane was overwhelming. He could not face it. As he stood there in the doorway, enduring the concerned and alarmed look on Claire's face as she did her best to calm Eleanor, the oxygen seemed to leave the room. He could not breathe. The walls felt as if they were closing in on him.

He could not breathe.

Dorian's hand braced against the doorframe for a long moment, and then pressed into his chest. He rubbed painful circles into the space but it did not abate his symptoms. He attempted to mutter something about needing a moment to breathe but he did not know if the words were actually audible.

How to deal with something as large as this?

Something so utterly life-altering just thrust upon him? He could not have even begun to label the emotions he felt. He did not know how to deal with them.

Dorian's feet carried him out of Claire's home and did not stop.