Page 97 of From Unwanted to Duchess
CHAPTER 31
James
James returned to an empty house.
Technically, it wasn’t empty. All his servants still bustled about, as it was early in the day, and it wasn’t as though the furniture had gone missing. But it felt empty. Hollow. As though something vital had been carved out of it.
He stood in the entrance hall and looked around. Everything was in its place. The marble floors gleamed. The sconces were polished. The paintings hung perfectly straight on the walls. Franklin had already taken his hat and gloves, had already murmured something about preparing tea.
But it felt wrong.
It wasn’t just that Frances was gone. She hadn’t been here for days, after all. No, it was something else. Something deeper. Something much more profound.
The future that could have been… that was what was gone.
These last few days, even when he had convinced himself that it was best for him to be alone, that he had done what was best for Frances as well, there had always been the possibility that he could change his mind.
In the back of his mind, he had thought that if he ever decided he had been wrong, he could go to her and she would forgive him. That she would love him.
He had been so certain of it. So confident. And now that possibility was gone too.
He made his way to his study and fell into the chair by the fire. The chair where he had sat the night Aunt Eugenia had come to scold him. Where he had poured whiskey after whiskey and convinced himself he was doing the right thing.
What a fool I have been. What a wretched fool.
This was his worst fear. This was one of the things he had been so afraid of—losing Frances.
Yes, he had dreaded that she might die the way that his brother had. But there had been that other fear, too. The one he had never quite admitted to himself.
That she would simply stop loving him.
For if he were being honest with himself, that was what he had been worried about. That was what had always hurt him the most. Because he did remember that when he was a little boy, his father had loved him. He had carried him around on his shoulders.
Or was that his imagination? Sometimes he couldn’t be sure if what he remembered was reality or not.
But he did remember the change. The slow withdrawal of affection. The coldness that crept in.
And he had been terrified that Frances would do the same. That one day, she would wake up and realize he wasn’t worth loving. That he was broken and damaged and too much work.
So he had left her first.
And in doing so, he had made his worst fear come true.
“Your Grace,” Franklin said, entering the room.
“Not now. I am not in the mood.”
“Very well,” he said, but made no move to leave. “So it did not go well?”
James shrugged. “I went thinking I was going to save Frances from her father, but I did very little. She saved herself.”
“She has always been a very self-sufficient lady.”
“Indeed. More so than I thought possible.” He rubbed his face. “Oh, Franklin, I have been a fool. A complete and utter fool.”
Franklin raised his eyebrows, his whole posture reeking of agreement with the assessment.
“I asked her for another chance. Asked her to come back to me. And she said no.”
