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Chapter Seventeen
Carmen’s eyes widened in shock and horror. “I beg your pardon?”
Arthur nodded, an infinite sorrow in his eyes. “I was responsible for her death.”
“You don’t mean that,” Carmen said.
He looked at her, a sad smile on his face. “But I was. You see my wife had a condition of the blood, but as time passed, she was recovering. I thought it was a reason to celebrate so one terrible night, three years ago I insisted that we go out.” Arthur looked out at the distance as if he was remembering his past. “Lady Davenport wasn’t feeling too well but I thought that it was nothing to worry about, her physician had assured me that she was completely fine, so we went out to see a play and just before the second act ended, she collapsed. I watched her die. I tried to call out for help, but nobody could hear me over the music.”
“I’m so sorry,” Carmen said. Her eyes were heavy with tears. His pain echoed in hers as she sat forward and took his hands in hers. “I didn’t know.”
“Nobody does,” Arthur said. “Well, some do, but I’ve never told anyone of the terrible details.”
Then why are you telling me?She thought to herself. It couldn’t be more obvious that the Duke distrusted her. “I’m glad you told me,” she said. Carmen took a deep breath. “Since you trusted me with one of your secrets, I’ll tell you one of mine.”
She tugged on her dress sleeve to reveal the mangled skin just below her elbow. “I didn’t get this scar in my childhood. It is old, yes, but it was given to me by a man.”
Arthur took her hand in his, running a thumb over the skin. It didn’t pain anymore, in fact Carmen didn’t feel any sensation anymore. “Your tormentor did this to you?”
Carmen nodded and then ran ahead of him. “The one who pulled me into flesh trade, yes.”
Arthur followed. “Why did you—”
“Allow him? I fancied myself in love with him. I was willing to do anything he asked of me, and that included giving up my body. He loved me too, or I suppose he led me to believe that he loved me. But the truth was I wasn’t the first girl to fall into his trap and I wasn’t the last either.”
“He tricked you,” Arthur said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it was. I was naïve and I was foolish and at seventeen I thought I knew exactly what love was and it was a man who had made me fall in love with music in the first place.”
Arthur frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Jaxon Maguire, he was my piano teacher, a man decades older than me. My parents had introduced me to him. You see, I wanted to learn to play so bad that my parents had no choice but to bring in a tutor for me. That’s where he came in,” Carmen said as her mind was consumed in old memories. “My father was a duke, and he was mostly away taking care of our country seat and my mother was more interested in gossip columns. Jaxon gave me the time that my parents never had for me and eventually he convinced me to elope with him to Ireland.”
Arthur had stopped walking. When she dared to glance at him, his face was clenched in a fury. “If I ever find the man, I will kill him.”
Carmen was startled at his confession and the fact that her story had managed to bring such a strong reaction out of him. Why did he care anyway? She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. He’s long gone.”
“You’re a duke’s daughter. You should go back to your parents. You don’t deserve to stay here in this manner.”
“I like my life here,” she said.
‘I get that but what happened to you was unfair and it doesn’t mean that you have to pay for it for the rest of your life.”
Carmen looked away. “My family will never accept me.”
“Maybe—”
“No,” Carmen bit out. “Don’t you get it? I’m dead to them. I was dead the moment I left my home with Jaxon. After I came back to London, I wrote to my mother and asked her to come back, if only for my little girl’s sake but she was firm and clear in her answer. I was no daughter of hers.”
“You have a daughter?” Arthur asked, his eyes widening in surprise.
Carmen nodded once. “I had a daughter. I don’t know where she is, or how she is but I can only hope that she’s alive.” In the distance, she could see Nora feed chunks of bread to the ducks that had clustered in the water around her.
Carmen nodded her chin at her. “You know why I like her so much? She’s as old as my daughter would have been and she reminds me of her in so many ways.” Fresh tears prickled at her eyes and this time she couldn’t hold them in. Except for Lily, nobody knew of her story and she had never thought she would volunteer this information willingly to someone.
And now that she had, the pain in her felt fresh and it was slowly tearing into her. Her legs shook beneath her but before she could collapse, Arthur held her to himself. She leaned on him and he carried her weight as he led her to a secluded part of the park, behind a cluster of thickly branched trees. “You need some shade,” he said as he deposited her to the base of a trunk. They were the only ones there.
Carmen sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m fine. It’s just that—"
