Page 61 of A Duchess Untouched

Two Days Later

“Do you not think it is time to stop drinking, Matthew?” his mother asked, her voice gentler than he had ever been used to. “You may need to drink some water before you sit down and listen to me. I have something important to tell you.”

Matthew still gripped the decanter as if his life depended on it. He knew what he looked like, and what the whole thing looked like. He stood behind his desk with his dark hair uncombed. He no longer knew where his cravat was, having discarded it earlier in the evening.

“Apologies, Mother, but I am not in the mood for a lecture,” he rasped. He sounded as if he had been coughing like Oliver. He indeed felt sick. Drinking glass after glass of whiskey through sleepless nights was never a good idea. “If you are here to comment on my appearance and drinking, you may return to your drawing room.”

Antoinette did not leave. She watched him with pursed lips, and Matthew could almost imagine his mother comparing him to Harleigh Quinten, though she had not yet said as much.

His mother moved closer, entering the gloomy room. She came to intervene and sit beside him, but Maximus did not make room for her to come any closer. He had not left Matthew’s side for a moment, as if sensing his master’s pain. His mother stared suspiciously at the mastiff, but she settled into a seat opposite Matthew.

“It is not a lecture, Matthew,” she said. “It is something that I should have told you a long time before.”

While he could see how earnest his mother was, he had the unreasonable urge to laugh. It had to be the whiskey. It burned down his throat. It was burning his soul, but it could not ease the emptiness he felt.

His wife was with child.

It was supposed to be a celebration.

Yet discovering that he had merely been the target of a seduction scheme, while his wife could not wait to leave, had devastated him. He had lived in his own hell for years while searching for Mary, with guilt following him at every turn. He thought it would be the worst feeling of his life until he had heard what Selina thought of their marriage and of him.

Nothing. I mean nothing to her. I deserve it, too.

Now, he had to deal with the ghosts she had left behind in every corner of the house, not just in the places where they made love but also in the places where they worked together to keep the household running smoothly. Her laughter still sounded musical in his mind, but it also carried a hint of mockery.

Matthew knew that some women married to secure their places. They gave birth to heirs to large estates. He just could not accept the idea that Selina would be anything like them. That she would walk away from him once she had gotten what she wanted from the union. And yet, he knew he had no right to blame her after abandoning her for so long. He had not done anything to stop her.

“I do not care to listen to anything, even if it is not a lecture,” Matthew mumbled. “I am in my study. It means I have work to do.”

Antoinette rose and moved toward the hearth, as though trying to shake off an inner chill. She held herself straight and regal, but sadness was etched across her face. Her eyes looked dull and melancholy.

“Matthew, as I said, I have come to say something I should have said years ago. Six years ago, to be exact,” his mother murmured, her voice lowering to an unfamiliar level.

He braced for her words, his shoulders aching with tension beneath his rumpled shirt. He looked away from her and fixed his gaze on the ink stains across a sheet of parchment.

“We do not need to resurrect things that happened six years ago,” he said.

Matthew knew he was lying to himself and acting like a hypocrite. What had happened six years ago was why he had been scrambling from village to village, hunting for Robert’s former mistress, and why he had abandoned his own wife. Why he had ruined his own marriage.

“Of course, we do,” his mother insisted, her tone carrying a confidence that was more characteristic of her. “I have spent six bitter years watching you drag yourself along the road, punishing yourself. You faced your guilt. But I did worse than you, my son. I let my own grief build a wall between us. Instead of considering your pain, I thought only of my own. It was selfish.”

Matthew slowly turned to look at his mother. He imagined what she might see and how it might frighten her. His eyes were probably bloodshot, and neglect had left him with stubble.

“How can you know what I have been through? How I have spent my years? You blamed me for what happened to Robert. I felt it and could still feel it,” Matthew said, his words heavy like lead. “You looked at me after they retrieved his body from under the carriage, and you wished it had been me instead of him. I cannot even blame you. I was your burden, your rake of a son who spent most days drinking and whoring. Then, you lost the heir, the man who was supposed to be the duke.”

His mother winced, her hand flying to her mouth as if she could keep her pain trapped and quiet.

“It was grief, Matthew,” she admitted, her voice trembling. “In my mind, I was not blaming you for what happened to Robert. I regretted not having sat down with you to tell you what I felt then.”

Matthew swallowed hard and gripped the edge of his desk. His mind was still foggy from the drink, but his mother’s words were drawing him out of the purgatory he had chosen.

“I never blamed you for his death,” his mother continued, her gaze locking with his. “It was not your fault, yet I never told you so, did I? What happened to Robert was an accident.”

The words Matthew had been waiting to hear from his mother came six years too late. He had spent the past six years trying to survive what he believed was his mother’s resentment. When she had pushed him to marry out of duty to his position, he did not complain. He felt he had no right. So he had married the woman his mother had deemed the most beautiful and gracious among the debutantes.

“Is it not a bit late now for such words, Mother?” Matthew asked, a bitter smile touching his lips. “I have spent six years believing that you completely blamed me for Robert’s death. I felt like a monster, and I spent years carrying the weight on my own.”

For the first time in a long time, Antoinette raised her hand and placed it on her son’s face. He could not help but look at her then.