Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Jackie did not wish to speak to her father.

She knew that she would, eventually, need to, but that did not signify. Her father was a villain for what he had done, plain and simple, and there was nothing that he could say that would help matters. She hated him, and did not want to see him, even if she had no choice but to.

She gestured to Elizabeth, who left without another word. Her father entered, pale and clearly unsure of what to say.

“You need not speak,” Jackie sighed. “We do not need to have the same conversation over and over about our situation. What’s done is done, and I am happy to give it a try.”

But as she was talking, she saw that her father seemed close to tears, and she came to a stop. Her father never cried, never showed any emotion besides anger and contempt. She had thought that he saw himself as a strong man for that, but now that he was standing before her, she did not know what to think at all.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said shakily, for the first time that Jackie had ever heard.

“Father, you did what you thought was best for us—”

“No, not for that. That was a necessary evil, a way out for us after everything that I have done.”

“I understand, truly I do, but could there not have been any other way? We could have handled matters ourselves, found the root cause of the issue and gone from there.”

Jackie knew the cause of their misfortunes, of course, and that was none other than her own father, but it was nothing that could not be fixed.

“I thought I could find a way,” he confessed. “I thought that if I simply had one good bet, one good move on my part, I could save us. I never did, and so it became worse and worse until—”

His throat was so tight that he was choking on air. Jackie knew that the right thing to do was comfort him, but she did not know how. This was a problem of his own doing, and nobody else’s, yet when she looked at him, all she could see was a boy that had been caught doing something that he should not have been.

Reluctantly, she did what she had always done when it had been her mother. She placed a hand on his back, rubbing gentle circles, until he composed himself.

“It is bad, Jacqueline,” he said gravely. “I promise you that I never would have done this to you if I did not need to, but it is past the point of no return. If this does not work, we shall be on the streets before the year is out.”

Jackie took a step back. She knew that the situation was bad, having been the one handling the day-to-day spending, but she had no idea of how terrible his debts had become.

“I tried to hide it from you,” he continued. “I tried to shield both of you from it all, believing that eventually I could save us, but I have to know when to give in, and it is now. If your courtship does not work, then we shall be destitute.”

Jackie made the decision not to tell her father what the duke had promised her, not because she had a burning desire for their courtship to continue but because she did not know how her father would react to it. Would he force her to keep up appearances and marry him regardless, worried that he would never find a dowry for her, or would he call it all off and take the money and leave?

More startlingly, she asked herself, which outcome would she dislike more?

“How could you?” She whispered. “How could you do this to us? You must have known after a certain point that there would be no coming back from what you were doing, and yet you continued.”

“I have been trying to control myself!”

“You knew that we had to do this weeks in advance, given that you had arranged all of this with the duke. So, if you knew how dire it all was, why were you gambling until the night before we arrived?”

“Because I thought that I could fix it. Do you honestly think that I would marry you off to that beastly man if I did not have to?”

She flinched at the suggestion that the duke was a beast.

“Yes, I do, because you always had a choice. You could have chosen not to be so reckless when Mother died. You could have chosen to stop before it went too far. You chose this, whether you want to believe that or not, and that truth does not cease to exist simply because you want to feel better about yourself.”

“I know that, and now I am trying to fix it in whatever way I can. I am doing the best that I can, you cannot ask more than that of me.”

“I can, and I should have. I should have asked for more when this all started, asked that you not keep secrets from me while also relying on me for the household to function. I should have asked for so much more, because then perhaps I would not have received so little.”

“What else could I have done? You might have lost your mother, but I lost my wife. She was the love of my life, Jacqueline. I had to lean on those vices to stay alive for the two of you, or else I never would have used them.”

“You did not need them,” she snapped before taking a breath. “You did not. You could have come to us. I know that you saw us as young girls, and that you still do, but we were your girls. We should have struggled together, not apart. Did you know that I told Elizabeth, a year after Mother died, that I felt that I lost both parents that day?”

At last, her father broke. Her words had been harsh, and she had not thought herself to be capable of such cruelty, but she could no longer allow herself to tell her father that their situation was nobody’s fault when all along it had been his.

“I do not wish to talk about this anymore,” she said gently. “What’s done is done, and now we must press on. I cannot say that I forgive you for what you did, but perhaps one day I might understand.”

“For your sake, as well as that of anyone you love, I hope that you never do.”

Jackie thought about his words as they left the room, going their separate ways. She wondered just how tormented her father had been all that time, and why he felt the need to carry such a burden instead of talking to his daughters about it. Suddenly, however, her thoughts were broken by the sound of pianoforte.

She thought Elizabeth had been asked to play, but only for a moment, for whoever was playing sounded nothing like her sister. Elizabeth had always played well, but daintily, as if afraid of damaging the keys. This was something else entirely, haunting almost, as if they were taking out their sadness through music, and Jackie felt a connection to that.

Following the sound, she arrived in a music room to see the duke himself at the pianoforte, his back to her. There was no sheet music as far as she could tell, proving that he was not simply mimicking a work by a composer. It was his own piece that he had written, and Jackie could not help but be enthralled.

She knew that it was not proper of her to approach him, as they could not be alone together but also because he seemed to be in want of privacy, but she could not think properly. All that she could do was listen, and feel. She sat in a chair nearby, watching him play for a moment and studying him.

He was sitting upright, just as a professional would, his fingers moving deftly across the keys. She closed her eyes, feeling as though watching him made it too intrusive, as it was bad enough that she was there to begin with.

The piece was beautiful, but also filled with sorrow. Was this how the duke truly felt? Anguish, sadness, longing? He was in pain, she knew that, but she had never questioned how he felt beyond that. Was he angry about what had happened to him? Did he have regrets about what had led him to whatever had happened? Surely, he missed the life he had led before, but did he blame himself for his condition and therefore believe he deserved it?

Above all else, however, the only thing that came to mind was simply how sorry she felt for him. She had faced difficulties of her own, and the biggest had only just hit her, but at least she had always felt like herself. She wondered how it would feel to look in a mirror and not recognize the person before her, but she could not imagine herself any other way than how she was. Did the duke remember how he once looked?

Without warning, she felt tears stream down her cheeks. She wanted to pretend it was due to her argument with her father, but she could not lie, even to herself. She was crying out of sadness and pity for a gentleman that could have been so much more than a reclusive duke hidden away for fear that he would be hated.

The music ended, and she opened her eyes. She did not know how much time had passed, but she did know that her eyelashes were wet and there were spots of tears on her new gown. It had been a beautiful song, and she would have asked him to play it again under any other circumstance.

She heard his stool creak, and as she looked up, she realized that he had turned around and was looking at her. She expected him to tell her to leave, or quickly put his mask on, but he did neither. He continued to watch her, his own eyes damp and his cheeks shining from tears of his own. She met his gaze, and even though she did not know anything further, she could not help but feel as though she understood him.

He had, indeed, not quickly placed a mask over his face, and so for the first time she saw him clearly. Leathery skin, just like his arms, and different mottled shades of brown and white and red. She had expected to feel some sort of disgust at his disfigurement, but it never came. Instead, she felt an immense feeling of anguish in his place for how much pain he had to be in, not to mention how horrible the physical pain must have been when it happened.

Studying him further, she realized that she could not feel disgust, simply because in spite of the scarring he was indeed still a very handsome man. There was a kindness to him that not even a terrible accident could take away, and even after everything that he had been through he had not allowed himself to become bitter, and that was all she needed to know when deciding the contents of his character.

She wanted to make him feel better, to take his pain away so that he would not be hurt anymore, and the thought of it made her freeze. She had never felt that way before for anyone, and she knew exactly why that was. The duke was a handsome man, a kind man; the sort of man that she could find herself attracted to.

Which was certainly something that she had not expected to discover.