Page 101 of Duke of Rath

Dorian reached for her, his voice urgent. “Patience, please, you don’t understand. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

She flinched away from his touch, her heart shattering. “Don’t. Just…don’t.”

“What is happening, my darling?” asked Lady Buchanan from just behind Patience, her voice quavering.

“Sister, what is it?” Chastity asked, finally reaching her side after making her way through the crowd.

Gathering her skirts, Patience fled the hall, tears streaming down her face. The cool night air hit her like a wall as she burst through the doors, gulping in desperate breaths.

She heard quick, heavy steps after her and a hand caught her elbow and whirled her around. The courtyard of Burlington House was empty save for several carriages visible in the flickering lights of the gas lamps hanging from them.

It was Dorian. His gaze was haunted. He looked shrunken in on himself, like a cornered animal. “Patience, I— Please don’t run away. I wanted to spare you the pain⁠—”

She tore her arm out of his grasp, tears escaping her eyes to run down her cheeks. “Do not dare to ever touch me again!” she cried. “You killed him, didn’t you? You fought him in a duel and killed him and arranged it to look like a suicide?”

He closed his eyes tight, as though waiting to be struck, and hung his head between his shoulders. “Yes.”

“And you lied to me! You let me believe you were an honorable man… You monster!” she yelled and shoved against his chest. “You selfish bastard! You couldn’t control your anger, could you? That’s why John is dead.”

“Yes.”

“And then you married me. Touched me with your hands. Oh God… Oh God… You made me fall in love with you! My brother’s murderer!”

A chasm was opening in her chest, a ragged, bleeding wound.

His head snapped back up and he looked at her with a pained intensity.

“You have lied for years,” she growled. “You have lied to me since our wedding day. You should have never married me! What is this, you’ve been using me to what…make yourself feel better? To atone by giving my family charity for the life you took from us?”

He was breathing so fast she thought he might be having an apoplexy. His eyes filled with tears. To her utter amazement, he dropped to his knees in front of her, grasped her hips, and pressed his head into her stomach.

“I am sorry,” he muttered. “Do not leave me. Please, forgive me. My darling…”

“Forgive you?” she spat out.

Fury and pain she never thought she was capable of mixed in her chest like fire and oil. This rage was what he must have felt for years, his whole life.

“You were right, Dorian,” she said as she stepped back. “Your father did create a monster. But what your father did to you doesn’t excuse what you did to John! To my family! You could have atoned so many times before now! You took a man’s life—my brother’s! And then you lied to us. Do you understand how long my parents have wondered why he took his own life?”

He was silent. Tears fell from his eyes as he stared up at her, kneeling, his head hung low, as though ready for a final blow. For an executioner’s blade. Her heart cracked all over. He stretched one arm out for her, but she stepped back, out of his reach.

“Do not try to find me,” she said. “Do not write. Do not look for me. Do not talk to me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re no longer my husband and I’m no longer your wife. I know the law won’t let us separate, but in every other way, I do not belong to you. I wish I had never met you.”

She whirled and ran towards their carriage.

Behind her, Dorian’s anguished call of her name echoed in the darkness, but she couldn’t bear to look back. The weight of the truth crashed over her, drowning out all else.

There would be no more hiding, no more pretending. Only the stark, painful truth, and the long road ahead to find her way through the darkness.

She was married to a murderer.

36

She was gone.

Dorian’s fists clenched and his chest felt like it was quivering in helpless convulsions as he stood in the door frame of her bedchamber—it was the first time he’d ever been there.

He could still smell her here…roses.