Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

T he bottle of brandy hung loosely from Hugh's fingers as he stared at the ceiling. The meeting with Duncan had gone as expected. Sandhurst was making his final preparations to leave the country. He had won. His sister would be free, and his enemy would leave his homeland with nothing but the pennies in his pocket.

It ought to have been a good feeling. Duncan himself had said so himself, but Hugh had just snapped at him to get out. So much for victory; he had expected the sense of it to be sweet.

Instead, he merely felt as though he had lost something precious.

He tried very hard not to think about what that was. He was Hugh Ashcombe, and he needed no one. He had needed no one since he was fifteen years old, placed in a role he was too young to ever have endured. And now, fifteen years later, he still needed no one.

There was a tap on the door. He cracked an eye. "Come in." His voice, usually so crisp and full of command, was downright slurred.

Margaret poked her head around the room. "I thought I might speak with you."

He waved a hand. "Speak away."

"We need to discuss your situation."

"My situation?" He raised both brows. Or at least, he thought he did. They seemed somewhat unconnected to his muscles. "What about my situation displeases you?"

"The fact that you're drunk," she said bluntly.

"I'm a grown man now," he said, waving away her words, though Duncan had looked at him with similar disgust.

You're better than this, Hugh.

"That doesn't give you leave to behave irresponsibly. If anything, you should be capable of behaving with more rationality."

Capable and desirous were two entirely different things. Could he forsake his brandy and face the grim reality of the world he inhabited? Of course. Did he want to?

No. He did not. Which was why he was here.

"Am I neglecting my duties?" he asked. "I still see my men. I still settle their petty squabbles and see to their needs. I am still the duke, Margaret."

"I know. But you're still drunk."

"And? My duties for the day are complete."

Once, he could never have imagined saying those words. His duties were never done; when one was the owner of so much, one rarely got to rest. But now he had no energy to see to all the letters that were on his desk or to oversee the new work that was being carried out on his land.

There had been three babies born that week—usually, he wrote the fathers a note of congratulations, with a small pouch of coins, but he had been lax on that, too.

There just seemed so little point . The world would go on turning whether he oversaw this or not. His estate would continue to flourish, not from his overseeing hand but from the ability of his workers.

"Hugh." Margaret leaned closer, her expression pleading. "If she means that much to you, go after her."

His vision, blurring a little, snapped at her. "Excuse me?"

"If your wife?—"

"Do not mention her again."

She sighed. "But Hugh, if you could just?—"

"Enough." He slammed his palm down on the arm of his chair and spilled the remainder of the brandy. "Leave me."

Without another word, Margaret backed out of the room, and Hugh glowered at the empty fireplace, bringing the bottle to his lips and taking another long swig.

* * *

Evangeline tucked her hand firmly in Clara's arm as they promenaded along Hyde Park. Slightly ahead of them were their parents, strutting along proudly as people did a double take at Evangeline. News had spread that she was back in London, and her parents were absorbing every part of that attention.

"Lady Clara!" a voice said from behind them. "And if I'm not mistaken, her sister, too. The new Duchess of Eldermoor. What a wonderful surprise."

"Lord Leighton." Clara turned, and Evangeline didn't miss the slight flush that ran up her cheeks. "I hadn't thought I would see you here."

"And why not?" He looked at Evangeline, the corners of his mouth tilting in a dashing smile. "Your servant, ma'am."

A flirt, then. And one that Clara particularly liked, if her shining eyes were anything to go by. Evangeline knew of Lord Leighton—a charming man, or so he had been when she had been introduced a couple of years ago, and a broke one. His estate was heavily encumbered, and it was well-known around town that he was in search of a wealthy wife.

Yet as his eyes fell back to Clara, Evangeline noted the way they softened.

Heavens, her sister had attracted a rake. And from the looks of it, he was well on the way to falling in love with her.

"May I accompany you to your parents?" he asked. "It seems only right that I pay homage to them, too."

"Of course," Clara said, a little shyly, and Evangeline released her sister so she could take Lord Leighton's arm.

She watched them as they both talked, their heads together. Lord Leighton was still in his twenties, young enough that Clara's youth and innocence appealed, and no doubt her fair beauty did, too.

And, by the way their parents greeted him, his attention was not new.

Yet Evangeline had seen him during her Season, and although even then his family had wished for him to marry, he had not so much as glanced at her. Then, her family's situation had been less than agreeable, and she suspected his family had not so much as allowed him to make her an option.

Now, however…

Clara laughed, the sound trilling into the air.

Evangeline let out a long breath. This was why she had made the choices she had; it was to ensure Clara's future. And although Lord Leighton wasn't necessarily the choice she would have made, at least they seemed happy together.

"Well," Evangeline said to her sister as they left Hyde Park and returned home. "Is there anything you would like to tell me?"

Clara smiled innocently. "About what?"

"You know what. Lord Leighton."

"Did you like him?"

Evangeline was struck by the intensity of the question. She chose her words carefully. "I could see that you liked him."

"He is very charming." She touched one of her curls, winding it around her fingers. "And he is very good to me."

"Has he offered you marriage?"

Shocked blue eyes turned to her. "Marriage? Oh no, not yet. But I have hopes that perhaps… that perhaps he might ."

They entered the carriage with their parents and were silent on the topic until they arrived back home, and Clara resumed it under her breath as they removed their bonnets and gloves.

"But he has said all the right things to make me think he does intend marriage," she whispered. "And you know I am so happy to think that might be true."

"You would marry him, then?"

"If he asked, then of course! He is everything a gentleman should be." Her face turned dreamy before she turned her attention back to Evangeline. "But tell me what your married life is like. Up in the wilds of the north." She giggled. "Your day-to-day, I mean. And anything else that I might need to know before being married myself."

A lump came into her throat at the thought. Her married life. With Hugh .

Images of them together in the library, working as though nothing in the world could come between them and their domesticity.

The other things they had done in the library.

Waking up in his arms.

Her eyes stung. Sometimes she wondered if she'd made a mistake leaving when she thought of all she'd left behind. If he didn't care for her, how much did that truly matter when she still got to enjoy those moments? Could she not live for those and forget about the rest?

"Married life is…" She paused, trying to find the right words. "You'll be closer to him than you are to anyone else in the world in some ways, but you won't always understand him. He'll be kind to you in ways you've never experienced, and…"

She hesitated, unsure how to explain the physically intimate part of their lives—and equally unsure whether how Hugh was to her was how other men would be to their wives.

She had a sneaking suspicion not.

"And you will be in charge of the household, but if he has an established housekeeper, you should listen to her and take her guidance, because she has run the house far longer than you, and above all else you want the servants to like and respect you."

Another lump formed in her throat as she thought about the way Mrs. MacDonald had hidden Lily's existence from her.

"Do you miss it?" Clara whispered, seeing the shining, faraway look in her eyes. "Do you miss him?"

"I—" Evangeline had intended to deny it, but some part of her soul, one that had awakened when she had moved to the north, to the sea, yearned for the wild moorlands and the restless ocean.

And curse her, she missed him .

"Yes," she said, and her voice cracked. "But I don't know if I can ever—I don't know if I can ever return."

The door slammed open and her mother stormed in. "Evangeline Ashcombe, what do you think you're saying?"

It stung to hear the way Hugh's name sat at the end of hers, and she was blinking back tears as she faced her mother. "Excuse me?"

"Did you think I wouldn't hear you? How could you do something like this to us?"

"Precisely what do you mean?"

"You said you don't know if you can ever return. You said that. The duke, the man to whom we gave you in marriage—you have ruined things with him so much that you are estranged? After mere months? Do you know how this will appear?"

"And how will it appear , Mama?"

"It will appear as though we have lost our connection to the duke. Our family will be cast off to the wayside again. And what about when we need to apply to him for more funds? Did you even think before acting, you stupid, thoughtless girl? Did you consider that your actions might have more far-reaching consequences than merely your own life? Everything you do has a direct impact on my life!"

Evangeline swallowed in the instinctive impulse to apologize. All her life, she had been offering her parents apologies for the crime of having independent thoughts and feelings.

When she had not immediately leaped at the idea of marrying George, they had told her that she must. When she had not wanted to brag about her father's business acumen, she was told she was selfish. She was selfish for needing new clothes when there was no money; for being old enough to be presented at Court when there was no money for that, either.

All her life, she had come second to the wants and whims of her parents, and she was done.

"I am selfish?" she demanded. " I ? Is that truly what you believe? That because I am miserable now, I must have done it in order to spite you? Or perhaps you are the ones who are selfish—and have been for all my life. Everything you have ever done has been to benefit yourself, and you think nothing of forcing Clara and me into the mold you set for us. You don't care for the fact that I might be unhappy . You have never cared. I used to think that at least you loved us, but this—what you are doing now—is not love . Heavens, I can't believe I ever thought it was. It is greed and selfishness.

"When you heard that I was unhappy, was your first thought to comfort me, because surely something dreadful must have happened to cause me to flee back here? No! Your first instinct—your only instinct—was to chastise me for no longer suiting your plans for me quite so perfectly."

Her mother's face was drawn and white, and she heard quick footsteps down the corridor.

Her father appeared, face flushed red. "How dare you speak to your mother like that!" He snapped.

"Oh, you are not exempt, Father. No, indeed you are not. You are just as terrible, steering our lives from further behind, but your hand is no less obvious. Mama might be telling us that we are selfish for needing new clothes, but you are the one denying us the money for our clothes so you can go after another failed business deal. And when that doesn't pay, you sell us instead into marriage.

"Not once did you consider that I didn't want to marry the duke. You had decided, and so it must be." She threw her hands into the air. "I lived my life as though it was yours to dictate, but that is not the truth, Father."

His face turned puce. "You cannot speak to us this way."

"You are mistaken, sir; I most certainly will." Evangeline turned to Clara. "Come upstairs with me. I have nothing more to say, and I certainly won't let you remain here to broker peace."

Clara raised her chin the way Evangeline usually did. "I would not even attempt it," she said, just coldly enough that Evangeline believed her.

Together, the two girls left their stunned, blustering parents behind them as they ascended the stairs. But although Evangeline kept her expression calm for Clara's sake, she could not help thinking of her place in the world—and the fact that she had now just alienated the only two homes that she had.

If her parents ever kicked her from their house, she wasn't sure where she would go.