Accidentally Compromising the Duke(71)

Then as if embarrassed for her emotional state, she inclined her head and walked with evident false serenity from the drawing room.

Adel slowly gathered herself. Edmond loved her. The assessment felt right, but if he really did, based on what Lady Harriet just revealed, he was truly lost to her.





Chapter Twenty-Four

Weeks of being apart from his duchess had not dulled the agony pounding through Edmond’s heart. He rolled his head back against his shoulders, trying to ease the tension. Though when he wrote to his daughters, he was careful not to feed his weakness to learn about Adeline. Sarah and Rosa had no such qualms.

He glanced down to the letters he had splayed on the desk in his library. Dozens of them, and he had taken ink and underlined the phrases that mentioned his duchess.

Dear Papa, Adeline is puking again and seems very low in spirits.

Papa, Adeline smiled today, but then she promptly burst into tears when Mrs. Fields mentioned another letter had come from you.

Papa, Mamma says we must decorate a nursery, but she is unsure where to have it established since Mrs. Fields explained you ordered every trace of the previous nursery destroyed and it has now been made into Lady Adeline’s library.

He had read that last letter a dozen times. His girls referred to Adeline as mother. He cleared his throat and looked to the next underlined words in the next letter.

Today was the first morning since you left that Adeline came downstairs to break her fast. She looked so beautiful.

He rustled through the mound and selected his favorite.

Papa, today Mamma took a walk in the gardens. She helped us escape the schoolroom, and Mrs. Fields packed a small hamper for us. We had the picnic by the lake and it was glorious. Sarah and I wished you were here, and Mamma smiled. I think that means she wants you home…we miss you. We also picked names for the baby! Sarah and I are so excited. We are hoping for a brother.

He was a damn fool. For some reason God had found favor in him, and Edmond was squandering it. He should be at Rosette Park with his wife and children. He should be holding Adel, comforting her, rubbing her feet and her back when she was weary. Holding the chamber pot for her when her stomach rebelled.

Instead, he had fled to London, rousing his staff in the dark of the night and setting them on their ears. He had been holed up for days, not visiting the sights as he had been lying in his letters. He did not want his daughters to know he had not been eating and that he was coldly miserable.

The door opened and he glanced up.

Westfall strolled in unannounced, took one glance at the letters spilling all over the desk, some on the floor. The man said nothing, simply moved to the sofa closest to Edmond and sank onto it, tilting his head back and staring at the decorative plasterwork on the ceiling.

“You’ve been in London for six weeks, and I do not believe you have left the residence,” the marquess said.

Edmond grunted.

“There is gossip that you have separated from your duchess.”

It had taken Westfall long enough for his curiosity to get the better of him.

“I’d not thought you a man to listen to that kind of rumor.”

“I heard it from my valet who seems to have a cousin who is an upstairs maid at Rosette Park.”

Edmond arched a brow.

“So what is happening with your duchess? You rested your honor upon marrying her when you did not have to, so why are you mucking it up?”

Edmond leaned back in his chair. “I care for her…deeply.”

“Truly?” the marquess asked, with sincere incredulity. “You have truly fallen prey to the same affliction twice?”

Edmond chuckled without humor. Westfall was certainly right in thinking this a damnable curse. Edmond could not sleep or eat without dreaming of Adeline. His first few nights had been tormented with nightmares of losing her, of seeing blood pour from her, and beautiful accusing eyes damming him to perdition. Then they had slowly transformed into dreams of walking beside her on their lake, a child of their own running on the lawn with the girls, seeing the joy on her face. He’d remembered those images, and his fear of losing her had been strangled by the fear of truly never getting to know her in her entirety. If he had only days with her, or months, or years, as he had been praying for, he should treasure whatever time God allotted them together.

Life without Adel was too bleak to contemplate, and it was time for him to return to Rosette Park.

He’d fallen in love with Maryann through the rose-colored spectacles of a young man, who had needed to be awakened. He had seen there was more to life than fulfilling his duty conserving everything his father had left behind. With Adeline… Edmond scrubbed a hand over his face. The depth of emotion he felt for her was truly too frightening at times, but in the midst of the passion, there was a calmness, a joint meeting of souls like he’d never felt before. The realization ached worse than a fist to his gut. He half laughed, half groaned. He was becoming a damned poet.