What a stately man, the duke was. So stiff. Even sitting on the edge of his desk had him appearing stern and handsome and so awfully irritating. She wished she didn’t think of him as anything. Not anything besides this dreadful man who was still holding to his secrets and privacy at the expense of everything else around them. Including her.
Why did I think I could trust him? When did I start trusting him when I was trying the other way? I don’t understand how I grew so distracted.
“I have lived a long enough life to know what I am doing,” Verity interrupted Dominic before he could go any further. “Before we met, I didn’t need protection. I didn’t need someone making decisions for me. Which means I can continue to do without you. All you’ve done is complicate everything.”
Inhaling deeply, Verity braced herself for his defense. Or his own argument to tell her that she was wrong, that she was at fault for all of this, that she couldn’t get out of her own way.
Except Dominic did no such thing.
He shifted his weight slightly on the edge of his desk as he proceeded to cross his arms and stare steadily back at her. He had nothing to say.
The gall of the man!
She couldn’t stand this. Moving her weight from one foot to the other, Verity felt the silence grow tighter and tighter. She didn’t know what might explode first, the tension or her patience. They couldn’t keep doing this. She couldn’t keep doing this. Whatever was between, Verity realized they had to stop. They had to stop everything.
A final breath was pushed out loudly to break the quiet. “I am done with this. With you. We will return to what the marriage was meant to be. Separate without control over one another,” she added sternly.
It shall be a marriage without trust.
Dominic stood up like he was about to speak, a slight crease in his brow forming.
But Verity wasn’t ready to hear him. “You can handle your own matters and I will handle my own. I am not interested in… in any more cooperation. No suppers together. No social functions. There’s enough room in this house for us to never see each other again. So… Good bye.”
Her voice cracked in a way that expressed more than she was willing to admit to him or herself. So Verity left.
There was the smallest piece inside her that feared he would follow. Or that he wouldn’t. She could hardly breathe for all the hammering in her heart. But she didn’t look around. She kept going.
Out the front door, into a hackney, to the Ashbourne house.
Everything was familiar. Not a single thing had changed as she greeted the footman who welcomed her inside. The grand hallway towered over her. There was the faint scent of florals from a bouquet she supposed one of her sisters had made or received on the table next to the platter for the daily post.
Usually, the sight and scent of home was comforting. Today it was terribly annoying. Her family, Dominic, had said. This was all about her family.
And it’s time I stop waiting for someone to tell me what is going on.
“Cassian. The viscount.” She glanced up the stairs. “Where is he?”
The footman, one of their oldest and the most charming, was wise to say little beyond noting, “He’s alone in his study, Your Grace.”
“Thank you, Theodore.”
Taking long strides, Verity reached the study before long. It had never been a comforting room. When their father was alive, he never permitted them entry. She didn’t think her mother had even stepped inside. Her uncle had asked to borrow it once or twice. And now Cassian had begun to bury himself in it like a mole.
She didn’t bother waiting for a reply after she gave the door two neat raps. Pushing it in, she ignored her brother’s exclamation of surprise and swept right through.
“Verity!” Cassian was startled and annoyed. A rather familiar expression of his for his siblings, though rarely her. “What is it? What are you doing here?”
“I am here for answers.”
It was a general enough announcement. She had been ready with a fresh breath to launch into her spiel, but paused at the way he reacted.
Every bone in Cassian’s body seemed to lock. He tensed, nearly shrinking in on himself. His expression shifted from the shock to something else she couldn’t quite describe. But he wouldn’t meet her gaze. His head drooped slightly like there was something wrong.
He knows. He knows exactly what I’m here for because he’s been waiting for me to come to him. Why didn’t I do this sooner? I was a ninny to expect anyone might freely tell me anything.
“Verity…”
“What happened to Uncle Will?”
