“I know.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
Anne set the folded fabric down and turned slightly toward him. “Because I cannot ignore the fact that I stopped feeling safe the moment I saw it, and because I cannot stay somewhere I am already bracing for loss.”
“Anne—”
“You believe I deserve better than you. You did not need to say it out loud. I see it in the way you look at me, as if you are already preparing for the moment I realize that this entire marriage is nothing more than a mistake.”
“That is not true,” he protested.
“It is what I feel,” she said simply. “And I cannot keep living in a place where I am waiting for something to end before it has evenbeen allowed to begin properly.” Her throat tightened as she spoke, though she kept her voice steady. “I cannot survive loving someone who already expects to fail me.”
Silence settled heavily in the room. Even Clara had stopped moving.
Anne pressed on, her hands curling briefly before she forced them still. “Let me keep what dignity I have left. I gave you all my trust. I cannot stand here trying to convince you to hold onto something you are already half prepared to let go of.”
The words left a visible mark on him. His eyes lowered, something breaking through the control he had been holding onto since the night before, though he still did not move forward. Anne saw it and felt it in equal measure.
He swallowed once. “I do not want you to leave.”
“I know,” she murmured.
A pause followed, longer than she could stomach. Then he spoke again, his voice lower, almost unsteady.
“If you go, I will not stop you. Know that this is a choice you alone are making, and while I do not want you to make it, I cannot prevent it. I do not want a wife who does not want me.”
The admission settled into the space between them.
Anne looked at him for a long moment, searching for something that might have changed what she was going to do. But there was nothing.
She gave a small nod.
Behind her, Clara continued packing, even though Anne knew that she agreed with her husband. She felt like a fool for doing what she was doing, but it had to be done.
Dorian stayed where he was, not stopping her, not arguing further, not crossing the distance that would have meant choosing her over what had made him keep her at a distance.
Anne understood clearly enough that whatever he felt, it was not enough to keep her there.
CHAPTER 26
Ashford Hall no longer felt the same.
Dorian noticed it in the smallest ways first. The corridors seemed longer. The mornings were quieter. Even the stablehands spoke more softly around him.
He told himself he would carry on as usual, as though nothing had happened at all. But he was not successful in such an endeavor.
Work piled up on his desk, becoming nothing more than papers he had read twice without retaining their meaning. He moved through the estate, but he was simply following a routine he no longer wanted to have, pausing occasionally in places Anne would have passed through, only to realize how often that happened when she was there.
“What happened between the two of you?” the housekeeper asked him as soon as he was settled in his study.
“Nothing that I wish to discuss. I dare not even think about it. It is going to make me unwell.”
“Then that is all the more reason why you should think about it.” She approached him then, and though he did not wish to hear what she had to say, he knew that he needed it. “Whatever it is, I hope that you find it in you to fix it.”
“How do you know that it is something I broke?”
“Because Her Grace would only leave if she were given no other choice. She is clearly devoted to you, Your Grace. Anyone can see that.” Then she left.
