Page 29 of Duke of Rath

“Dorian—” Lucien said quietly, but with his usual warning. “This is a little too far.”

“Your Grace, please—” Patience whispered, taking a tentative step towards him, her eyes wide with fear and concern.

A footman hurried over, gathering the broken pieces of the vase.

“Stay back!” Dorian snapped at Patience, unable to control the fury that coursed through him. “You do not understand the forces at play here, nor the danger you place yourself in by seeking answers!”

Patience hesitated, her brow furrowed. “But why? What did I ask?”

“I will not be questioned by a naive, sheltered girl who knows nothing of the real world!”

As the words left his lips, Dorian could see the hurt they inflicted upon Patience, her face paling as if she had been struck. And in that moment, he knew that the tiny glimpse of happiness he’d just allowed himself to experience earlier today was gone.

“Very well, Your Grace,” she whispered, her voice brittle with heartache. “If that is how you truly feel, then I shall trouble you no further.”

With a final, anguished look, Patience turned and fled from the room, leaving Dorian with ladies and gentlemen staring at him in the wreckage of his rage.

“Pryde, you’ve never been so right. There are no two people as wrong for one another as she and I.”

10

Patience hugged her knees under the silky sheets and hid her face in them. Her room was dark, the outlines of gorgeously carved furniture and the shadows behind paintings on the walls were like silent sentinels, guarding her desolation.

A scratch at the window made her shiver. A branch of the ash tree, perhaps? It must be.

The night behind the closed curtains and windows was quiet but felt menacing. She shivered, listening, but there was nothing but the wind rustling the branches and the grass.

She blinked her heavy eyes. They felt like they were full of sand, and her body ached and felt overheated, as though she was running a fever.

Since her wedding, she had been unable to sleep properly, lying awake most of the night. She missed her sisters’ warmth, the sound of breathing, occasional snoring, and the dipping of the mattress as they moved. The sheets at Rose Cottage were scratchy and had holes, the sheep wool of the mattresses gathered in clumps at places. But it felt familiar.

Here… She lay on silky sheets on an inviting mattress, in her big, beautiful room, surrounded by exquisite furniture. There was no one snoring or kicking her in their sleep, and yet she lay awake, miserable.

There were no carrots to scrub, no caterpillars to pick from cabbage leaves, no wasp nests to fight. Every day, she could eat meat that melted on her tongue and fish so fresh it still smelled of the sea in sauces with names that sounded like myths and tasted like something straight from heaven.

She had servants who sprinted to fulfill her every need at a single word.

She wore beautiful gowns that were every girl’s dream and had a lady’s maid who knew how to make her look like a goddess.

She could take multiple baths every single day.

And yet, she had never felt as alone and as abandoned as she felt now.

All of this felt false, like a golden cage where her eyes burned with insomnia and her body was so exhausted she felt as though she was slowly dying.

But your family will be free from debt and your father will avoid debtor’s prison.

That was what she told herself every night when she performed her family’s special ritual of putting bad emotions into a box. That did make her feel a little better. But she still couldn’t sleep.

If only she had a warm body next to her to help her feel less alone… Even if it was a cat!

One year like this. That was the agreement.

Then he’d ship her out to another estate, where perhaps she’d finally be able to do her gardening and botanical work. Perhaps she’d even be able to invite Anne to live with her, if Mama could spare her. Once the duke would give them an estate to bring in income, they would be able to hire a servant or two, and her sisters wouldn’t need to do all of the housework.

She and Anne would spend their days dedicated to science with no one watching over them. Anne would write another treatise. The first one had been published quite unexpectedly, given a woman’s work on mathematics has never been published before. Her poor sister had a wounded heart that would not heal. She had secretly confided in Patience four years ago that Justin, now the Earl of Chans, had proposed and then left her. Yet another man playing with a woman’s emotions, Patience thought.

But it did no good to dwell on that. For now, all she needed was to know if Rath really had paid off her papa’s debts. If all this loneliness and isolation she felt was not in vain.