Chapter 36

36

She was gone.

Dorian's fists clenched and his chest felt like it was quivering in helpless convulsions as he stood in the door frame of her bedchamber—it was the first time he'd ever been there.

He could still smell her here…roses.

Her desk had papers scattered on top of it. Potted plants brought a personal charm to the orderly chaos of the room.

He felt her absence like a giant, sucking hole in his soul.

He'd had her, the wondrous being that was Patience. And she'd fled from him. A monster, she'd called him. And she was right.

He could still see the incredible heartbreak in her eyes, the moment it all fell into place in her mind.

The moment she knew what he had done.

"What a fool I am," he said to the room where his wife couldn't sleep alone.

His stomach burned, and he couldn't stop his hands from shaking. He felt like every muscle in his body was as hard as wood. The need to smash something, to destroy, was coursing through him like poison.

He didn't dare to step inside this room as helpless tears of rage filled his eyes. He should have come to her every night that she had chosen to be with him. He should have come to her and made sure she could sleep, that she slept as deeply as she possibly could. He should have made her feel safe and loved.

Because he loved her more than life itself. And he'd never even told her.

Tension in his chest built to the point where he thought his rib cage would burst.

Unable to look at the empty room any longer, he marched back down the hallway into his bedchamber.

His sister was staying with his aunt in London. Save for servants, he was truly alone.

He picked up the prettiest vase he could lay his eyes on and smashed it against the floor. Shards spilled onto his shoes, onto his breeches. He felt one fly by his face. That didn't make him feel any better at all.

Pryde was right. This was always going to end in disaster.

He didn't deserve her. Didn't deserve to be loved. Didn't deserve to be happy.

He was a murderer.

A lying monster.

He deserved to be punished this way. To touch the divine for a few miraculous weeks, only to have it be snatched out of his hands so cruelly.

He hooked his hands around the edge of the night table and threw it across the room. The crash exploded in his ears, the sound of wood breaking both satisfying and yet not enough to ease the pain.

More… demanded the beast inside him .

More.

He took two large steps towards the chair by his desk and lifted it, throwing it through the window.

Glass and wooden panes shattered. Pain stung him as shards cut his face and ears, stuck in his hair and the creases of his cravat, his shirt, his tailored coat.

The sound of a crashing wood from outside, somewhere below, was much too satisfying.

Good God , came a terrifying thought through the haze of fury, what if someone had walked by? He rushed to the window, but thankfully there was no one below, just the splinters and the ruined chair. He wanted his entire world to be in splinters.

He wanted to burn this house to the ground.

Because that what his life would be without Patience.

Pure hell.

One week later, Rath Hall looked like the aftermath of a war.

He'd broken every vase, every cup, and torn apart every painting apart. He'd smashed the mirrors, the sofas, the tables. He was covered in bandages, but only for the worst of his cuts. His knuckles were encrusted in caked blood. He'd destroyed every single thing in the house except for those that Patience had touched, slept on, commented on, or admired.

He slept in minute increments huddled on the sofa where he'd deflowered her, with the curtains pulled closed, in darkness.

I could force her to return , came a selfish, pathetic thought. She broke the terms of our marriage and left me before the year was over.

Mrs. Knight had told him she was back at her parents' home. He could go and fetch her and threaten her with the terms of their agreement. Either she would come back, or he wouldn't give her parents the estate and the income he'd promised.

But no. He'd taken so much from her already. He wouldn't take her freedom to choose. She had every right to leave him. She should have done it long ago.

He couldn't bear looking at the garden. And her roses, which were now in full bloom, looking more and more beautiful every day. Resilient and breathtaking, their pink petals reminded him, so painfully, of Patience's lips, the color of her nipples, and of her sweet sex.

Lucien and the dukes came to visit and were appalled at the state of him. They tried to convince him to come to Elysium. Perhaps now he would find solace in Lilith's arms. Or, if not, drinking and playing cards would take his mind off of things. He threw a chair at them.

Mrs. Knight and the footmen watched everything with their usual cold observation.

Not a word of judgment was spoken.

They quietly cleaned and tidied the mess he left behind him. A carpenter came to take measurements for the new window in his bedchamber.

The only rooms in the house that still had furniture were Patience's rooms and his mama's sitting room. He hadn't bathed. He didn't remember if he'd eaten anything. If he drank anything, it was brandy.

Now, he lay curled on the sofa, his body aching inside and out, covered in cuts and bruises.

Not bothering to knock, Mrs. Knight strode into the sitting room. She put a tray bearing toast, butter, and coffee on the tea table.

His eyes burned when she went to the windows and mercilessly shoved the curtains apart.

The sunshine, just like on that day when Patience had changed him forever, flooded the room, and he covered his face with his hands.

"Perhaps a walk outside," she said. "If you'll forgive my impertinence."

Through the window, he stared at the roses. Vibrant. Glorious. Resilient.

Patience's triumph.

His weakness.

God, what would he do to have her back? She'd return for her roses, would she not? But not for him, surely? Of course not. Not for her brother's murderer.

"No," he said.

His head was exploding.

"There's no more furniture or things to break in the house, Your Grace," said Mrs. Knight. "Perhaps a ride on Erebus, then. He hasn't been ridden for over a week now."

He couldn't imagine allowing himself any pleasure. He had to be punished for what he'd done, and riding, swimming, being in the fresh air would bring him pleasure.

"Leave me," he growled. "Take the food away. Bring more brandy."

Mrs. Knight stiffened, her eyes full of concern. "Your Grace, I'm speaking out of place, but?—"

"You are." He shot to his feet. He didn't deserve anyone's concern, let alone this woman's who had been looking after him and his family for years. "Leave."

"But—"

"I will not repeat myself!" he roared, hating himself for raising his voice to her. She didn't deserve this. But he didn't know how else to send her away. "One more word and you will be sacked!"

Mrs. Knight's eyes clouded with hurt and she left him, picking up the tray on her way out .

He put his hands on the curtains to shut them when his eyes fell on the garden again.

The glasshouse.

Goddamn it, he wanted to see it burn. Wanted to cut the new trees with an ax and see the petals of roses flying through the wind.

The last thing that reminded him of her. Of his pain.

Of the wonderful days she'd gifted him.

Yes. He just needed an ax, oil, a candle, and a tinderbox.

He found a tinderbox and candle on the fireplace mantel in the sitting room. Now he needed an ax and the oil. Oil for lamps would do perfectly well. Whale oil, too. He walked through the hallway where the footman stood at attention the moment he saw Dorian, and Dorian suspected he might have been listening through the door.

He barged through the door into the servants' area.

Several of them sat around a large table in the servants' hall, talking about him in quiet, sad voices. Mrs. Knight was there, as well as the cook and her undercooks, the butler, and the footmen. They all sprang to their feet, faces drawn, eyes wide.

"Your Grace," said Mrs. Knight. "Is the servant bell not working? Can I help you?"

"Yes," he barked, his hand clutching the striking steel shaking. "An ax and a bucket of oil. No, five buckets."

The servants looked at each other.

"May I ask what for?" said Popwell carefully.

"No, you may not. Do I have to find them myself?"

"Your Grace, clearly, you're out of sorts," said Mrs. Knight pleadingly.

Mrs. Knight never pleaded. She was the perfect image of a housekeeper, especially since she always closed her eyes on his insanities .

"You are on very thin ice," he growled at her. "Will someone help me or not? I will find them one way or the other."

"Very well, Your Grace," said the butler, hiding his concerned expression under the mask of a respectful servant. "They are in the backyard. Please follow me."

He fetched the ax and a bucket of foul-smelling whale oil. Dorian inspected them and then marched towards the garden, his guts burning with an insane frenzy.

He stopped at the entrance to the garden, feeling the servants' worried eyes on his back. He turned to look over his shoulder. They were lined up outside, three dozen of them, all staring at him. The footmen, no doubt, at the ready to fight whatever fire he might set.

He looked back at the garden. It was not just the fruit of Patience's hard labor. But that of many of these footmen. Every stone laid out lovingly and with care, every tree planted with intent, and her roses… Her goddamn, gorgeous roses.

Angry tears burned his eyes like acid, his chest bursting like it had been set aflame.

No. He couldn't do this to the garden. No matter how much he wanted to hurt himself or her. But he could destroy the place that had made him the monster he was. The place his father had used to forge his son into a blade of wrath.

The place that had made him into a killer.

"Go back into the house!" he roared towards the servants. "Under no circumstances are you to try to save me or come near. Do you understand?"

They didn't move.

"Otherwise you're all sacked! I am not jesting!"

Slowly, they turned around and, one by one, disappeared into the house.

He marched along the beautiful, meandering path, white gravel crunching under his feet. Bees flew from tree to tree, flower to flower.

He wouldn't touch them.

If he had just destroyed the glasshouse like he had intended many years ago…

He'd feel better. More sane.

Maybe destroying it would heal him, make him a normal man. A man who didn't burst into angry flames, who didn't hit walls and furniture, who didn't yell at people who cared about him.

A man who didn't kill.

Twelve years… he thought as he stood before the door to the glasshouse. He hadn't been inside for twelve years. Even during Patience's work to restore the glasshouse, he had never been inside, the sight of it still unbearable.

He swallowed hard, and his hands ached as he remembered the cuts and the blood. His father's cold indifference.

The glasshouse stood tall and intact, glass panes clean and transparent, held by a freshly painted iron frame. Within the walls, he could see plants. Droplets of condensation clung to the glass, catching the sun and casting playful specks of light.

He lifted the iron bar latch and opened the door. He stepped in.

Behind him, the door shut more forcefully than he expected, and he heard the soft sound of metal knocking against metal.

His heart pounded hard. It smelled just like all those years ago. Wet and grassy, like water and damp earth. He could feel the humid air on his lips. The central aisle of the glasshouse stretched out before him, flanked by citrus trees, palms, ferns, and figs, their leaves almost brushing against each other overhead, creating a tunnel of greenery.

Just like then, he felt small, insignificant, powerless. His only way to deal with his deep emotions, his passionate nature, was to rage.

As his father wanted.

Rage was acceptable—tears and tenderness and laughter were not.

That was what Papa had taught him. To be powerful and successful as a man and as a duke, the only emotion he could have was wrath.

To hell with him, Dorian thought as he poured whale oil over the lemon tree, the ficus, and a palm.

He wanted a strong son? He'd have him.

He poured oil on the ferns and on the flowers he didn't even know the name of to his left. He was shaking. He was not actually sure this would work given the dampness in the air and the foliage. He struck the flint and steel over the tinderbox, and once a spark caught, he used it to light the candle.

He touched the flame to the plants glistening with oil. The oil began burning, and then the dry strands of a palm tree. Slowly, fire began blackening and consuming green parts of grasses and plants. Black smoke rose from the palm tree and the plants. The stench of smoke was acrid and sharp in his nostrils, tickling his throat.

He then threw the still-burning candle to the other side of the glasshouse. That side was a little harder to light because there weren't many dry parts, but the oil did its work. The ferns had some dry tips, and those caught fire quickly, then the thin leaves.

He began coughing. Smoke could escape slowly through a few panes that were open for ventilation, but most of it was trapped in the glasshouse. Despite the humid air, the fire was winning. It was a wet fire, with plenty of smoke.

Dorian watched the fire burning, waiting for the raging pain to subside, for the anger and resentment against the tyrant who'd dictated his entire life to die away.

He waited for the healing to come.

It didn't.

Instead, his lungs were filling with smoke, and soon it was hard to see. His eyes burned, and he was coughing in rough, dry heaves.

More and more plants down the aisle were consumed by fire. It became very hot, and he was sweating.

What was he doing? Chasing a ghost from his past? Trying to kill himself?

He didn't want to die. He wanted the wrathful part of him to die, the part that had gotten him into so much trouble in the first place. So that he would become worthy of the one person who mattered the most to him.

His wife.

He loved Patience. He wanted to live for her.

And to be worthy of her.

He needed to get out.

He hurried to the door and pushed it.

It didn't move.

Dorian's mind began to go black. It was just like when he was a child, and he felt as helpless and as small and as sinful and as worthless as he had then. He pushed with his shoulder. It was the damned latch! The sound he'd heard before—metal clicking against metal—it was the latch falling into the lock.

Panic made his heart beat faster. He kept pushing, but nothing happened. Goddamn it, he'd left the ax right there; he could see it leaning against the outside wall on the other side of the glass.

He looked around frantically, falling into another coughing fit. There was no trough, nothing except the bucket he'd brought the whale oil in, which was now also consumed in flames. Perhaps in the farthest corner of the glasshouse, which was not yet aflame, he could find a potted palm and use that to break through the glass. But he'd need to get past the wall of fire rising from the oil bucket and the plants that fell onto the path.

He felt faint. His head and his eyes hurt. He could barely breathe. He moved towards the wall of fire, hoping to somehow get past it, but he staggered. Good Lord, he was going to fall right into the fire.

He was going to die, wasn't he?

He swayed and fell to the floor. Panic took over at first as his chest burned, and he exploded in a fit of coughing. His mind was numbing.

These were going to be his last moments. He could feel death present, the strange sense of time slowing, stretching like melting glass.

But he wasn't afraid.

If these were his last moments in his life, he'd spend them well. He'd go feeling love. He'd go thinking of one person who mattered.

Patience…

Love for her filled his whole being. He was full of her gentle touch, the spark of light in her eyes, her lips stretching in a smile that was like his personal sunlight.

He should have told her how much he loved her. He didn't need to rage anymore, throw things out of the window, challenge anyone to a duel. What a waste of time.

As everything began to fade into black, he thought he could smell a whiff of fresh air, and feel someone holding him.

"You goddamn fool! What the hell did you do?"

Lucien.

It was Lucien's voice. Dorian opened his eyes to a blue sky and white, dreamy clouds and a rising column of black and gray smoke.

Smoke was still billowing from the glasshouse. Footmen and maids were passing buckets of water in a line and throwing it into the building.

He was being held by someone, but not Lucien because Lucien towered over him, his face distorted with rage and concern.

"What if Chastity were here?" Lucien roared. "Have you thought about your sister at all? Your poor aunt? Patience, for God's sake?"

Dorian's throat hurt so much it felt like there was an actual fire inside.

Lucien was right. He hadn't thought of his sister or his aunt.

"I was a selfish arse," he confessed.

"You were," said the voice directly above him.

He looked up and saw Spencer Seaton, a deep frown furrowing his dark eyebrows on his angular face.

He was pressed against Spencer, who was crouching and holding him half upright.

"What are you doing here?" Dorian croaked, his voice like sand against glass.

"I asked him to come," exclaimed Lucien.

Dorian rarely saw Lucien serious. Even more rarely did he see his friend terrified and pacing, like he was now.

"You clearly didn't want to hear from me, or the rest of the seven. Lord Seaton is the only friend of yours I know who is actually…well…"

"Happily married," chuckled Spencer. "But who had been a selfish arse and almost lost everything important to revenge?"

"Well…" Lucien gestured with many circles of his hands. "Yes. Exactly. "

"You once saved the woman I love," said Spencer as he looked at Dorian, who actually felt glad to see him. And, although he'd never say it out loud, he agreed with Lucien. He wouldn't listen to his six friends because they were all…corrupted. Some even worse than him.

But Spencer wasn't. He had gotten his life back together.

Dorian sat straighter. Mrs. Knight, who appeared out of nowhere, handed him a glass of water.

"One of the few items of glassware that are left in the house," she said.

He drank the water without protesting, enjoying the cool, soothing comfort that it brought to his sore flesh.

"Explain to me," said Spencer as he moved from crouching to sitting on the white gravel. "What were you thinking?"

"I didn't think," Dorian said. "Well, I did think. I wanted to destroy the glasshouse. My rage started there."

Lucien stood with his arms crossed over his chest. "When he was a child, his father trapped him in there for days. He finally broke through the glass, cutting his wrists and suffering much blood loss in the process."

"Good Lord," said Spencer.

Dorian breathed through his ragged, scratchy throat. He looked around. He was so glad he hadn't destroyed Patience's garden.

Or the glasshouse, which still stood intact, even though her plants had been burned.

He'd buy her new ones. A jungle of new plants if that was what she wished.

Though he didn't expect her to forgive him.

"I—" he said with a coughing breath. "I was a fool."

"You can't go on like this," said Spencer softly. "Take it from another fool. You and I…we're similar. I, too, was consumed by rage, by thoughts of vengeance against the man wh o had me press-ganged. I, too, lost the woman I loved when I chose revenge and destruction over my love for her. You were there, you know. It was only by surrendering and deciding to change my stupid ways, to be a better man, to forever abandon my rage and my pride and my destruction that I was able to be good enough for her. To be happy."

Dorian stared at him. Yes, he had been there when Spencer had fought with his enemy, had achieved his goal. Only to give it up completely for Joanna, the woman he loved.

He'd witnessed Spencer fall apart and be saved by love, and knew he was now a happy man.

"You're right," he said. "I know I must become better for her. But I—I don't deserve her. I never will. I—" He swallowed hard and leaned closer to Spencer. "I killed her brother in a duel."

This wasn't exactly the full truth, but it would seem too dramatic to say he murdered her brother, and this wasn't the time to explain the details to his friend.

Shock froze Spencer's face for a few moments. He nodded and looked at Lucien, whose raised eyebrows and grim expression said, I know. It's bad.

Then he stared into the distance. "But you love her?"

"I do," Dorian croaked out. "I love her more than anything."

He should have spent precious moments with her, telling her how much he loved her, making her smile brighter, making her the happiest woman alive. He should have confessed to her about John, told her the whole truth, dropped his defenses, and surrendered. How silly it all seemed now that his life had almost ended.

Him fighting against himself. His love for her. Running away from her.

When all along he should have run towards her. It was her love that showed him he could be better.

"You have to decide if your love is stronger than your wrath," said Spencer.

Dorian looked at the glasshouse, which now emanated only a weak, dark stream of smoke. The footmen and the maids were taking a well-deserved rest by the house, wiping their foreheads. He wondered distantly why his beast was not raging, why he did not want to take the ax and destroy the rest of the glasshouse.

Perhaps, he thought, he had died in some way in that glasshouse after all. There was no more fear, guilt, or any need to control others or protect himself with wrath.

And instead of wrath, what he felt inside his chest…was love. Wide, deep, all-encompassing, accepting, and forgiving love.

Love that gave him the strength of acceptance and redemption. The power to kneel and ask forgiveness of John's family.

And then he needed to give himself to the authorities. He was a murderer. And even if he was a duke, he needed to be punished for what he had done, take responsibility, and face the consequences.

Even if the punishment for murder was hanging.

Even for a duke.

He looked at Lucien. "I won't say a word about you or Pryde."

Lucien's face fell, but he nodded solemnly. Slowly, he stood up.

"Where's my valet?" Dorian asked. "I have a trip to make."