Page 60 of A Necessary Wife

He closed his eyes. The stockingless legs he found particularly disturbing and impossible to forget still.

“She stopped at the top step and turned to me. Shouting out my inadequacies for anyone to hear. She sneered. Told me she would continue to do exactly as she pleased, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop her fun.”

“That must have made you angry.”

He paused. “No. It devastated me. I stood there—I remember just standing frozen, her words ringing in my ears—and I knew then that she likely had never loved me. She’d wanted to be a duchess above all else, and she would be one day. She would mire the duchy in shame with her debauchery, and it would last decades unless I divorced her. And even that would create its own scandal.”

He was silent for a long moment, reliving those last horrible moments. The scorn on her face she didn’t bother to hide, which turned her as ugly as her heart. Her impatience for his father to die, just to wear the jewels he kept from her in the safe.

“I turned away, and then she screamed⁠—”

“You turned away from her before she screamed?” Amelia interrupted, sitting forward, brow raised.

“Yes, I…” Milo stilled and stared at Amelia, too shocked for words by what he’d just said.

He hadn’t seen the fall—because he’d turned his back on his wife and their marriage.

Turned and took a few steps away, in fact, hiding his disappointment and disgust and tears.

He’d not been standing close beside his wife, as he had always believed he’d been.

Not close enough to save her.

Amelia touched his knee. “Perhaps it was your pride, that great heart of yours, that imagined you could have saved her and your marriage.”

He focused on Amelia’s eyes and her words, his heart beating wildly. She already understood what he had forgotten. “I turned away from her before she fell.”

Amelia smiled gently. “You turned away. You were not at fault.”

He sat back in shock. “I had turned from her because I knew our marriage was over. I knew she would never change. And it made me sick to my stomach—how she intended to trample my feelings. I turned away, took several steps, giving her up as a lost cause. And then she screamed.”

“If you took those steps away, you could never have saved her,” Amelia said. “No one could.”

“No. I couldn’t have. But how did you know?” he whispered, staring at Amelia in awe. Her belief in him hit Milo like a blow that cleared away his guilt, and his sore head, too. His fear that he was somehow responsible had always been there. That was at the heart over refusing to consider loving anyone ever again. “I would never have let someone I loved fall, had I been close enough to save her.”

Amelia nodded firmly, her expression understanding. “That is what I suspected when I heard the rumors and put two and two together. You cannot feel guilt over such a death. Your guilt was not over her fall, but because you had given up on her and your marriage. But that was long after she had given up on you, Chatham. I see no reason for any guilt on your part at all. Yes, you fought. Yes, you were at odds. Yes, you had fallen out of love with her that day. That can happen in any marriage, I imagine. But it is also what happens when love isn’t returned in full measure. There’s only so much pain, betrayal, a body can stand. You were a good husband. You are a good man at heart.”

He nodded, struggling still to accept her praise.

Amelia stood and leaned over him, stretching out her hand to his face again. Her fingers brushed across his cheek, removing the moister there…and he realized he’d been crying.

Something he hadn’t done in a very long time.

He drew Amelia closer and pressed his face to her belly—and let it all go.

Let go of his pain.

Let go of his torment.

He had been a good husband. He had played no part in his first wife’s fall and death.

He clutched Amelia hard and sobbed against her body, little caring that he was allowing his emotions to control him again. The release was what he needed—a release from guilt, a release from everything that had been holding him back. Every emotion he’d struggled to suppress for years.

He held tight to Amelia, and she let him cry his heart out for the guilt and pain of his failed first marriage…and he marveled at her compassion after what he’d said the night before.

“It’s all right. I’m here now. I’m here,” she whispered. “I’d never hurt you like that. I’d never be so cruel.”

He drew back from her and looked up. “I know.”