God, Rhystan wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her. She was in a word…queenly.
The duchess bowed her head. “I intend to. I truly am sorry.”
“Then I accept your apology.”
His mother let out a ragged breath. “So that’s it,” she said, her gaze drifting to Rhystan. “That’s what I came to say.”
She stood there, uncertain, and suddenly looking rather old and frail. He let out a breath. It took both courage and humility to admit when one was wrong, reinforcing his thought that the duchess was one of the strongest women he knew.
He stood and pulled her into his arms. “Thank you, Mother.”
“Oh, oh, dear boy,” she whispered, hugged him back, and then pulled away, dabbing at her eyes. “That’s quite enough. Wouldn’t want the servants eavesdropping outside that door to think I’ve gone soft now.”
Ravenna’s cheeks were wet, and even Sarani had a suspicious sheen to her eyes.
“Would you like to stay for breakfast?” Rhystan asked.
The dowager duchess smiled. “I would like nothing more.”
* * *
Sarani’s heart had swelled for both Rhystan and Ravenna. What had happened at breakfast had been a step toward them reconnecting as a family and the only thing she had ever wanted for him. For someone who had no family left, she knew how important it was to hold on to the loved ones you had. Her Grace’s astonishing confession, while heartwarming, didn’t change anything for her, however. She still had to leave.
“There, Princess, those trunks are packed,” Asha said, neatly stacking a few hatboxes to the side. Most of the fancier clothes would be donated to a local orphan asylum, where the residents could take what they needed and sell the rest. A sleepy seaside village in Cornwall did not require formal ballgowns. And now that Sarani’s banker in Bombay had been able to transfer the rest of her inheritance to London, she had no immediate need of money. Once the dust settled with Talbot, she intended to return to Joor. Something would have to be done about Vikram.
“Thank you, Asha.”
Tej pouted, sitting on one of the trunks. “I don’t understand why you have to leave. Everyone is talking about the duchess saying she was sorry.”
It amazed Sarani what got out through perfectly solid, closed doors. Then again, she wasn’t surprised. The duchess’s declaration had floored them all.
“I am grateful,” she said. “But that’s not the reason I’m leaving.”
“Then why?”
Because the duke does not love me.
That was part of it. It had everything to do with the letter he’d written her years ago and her place in his world. They’d both made mistakes, and though he’d written those sentiments in anger and apologized, that didn’t make them any less true. The truth was, a union like theirs was destined to be doomed, and if he did not love her, nothing on earth would save it.
Her heart squeezed. “Because I must stand on my own two feet, and I don’t belong here. Regardless of the duchess’s changed feelings toward me, she wants only to protect her family. The scandal will die down if I am gone, and soon the fact that the Duke of Embry was engaged to a woman of my petrifying ilk will be forgotten.”
“What about Lady Ravenna?”
“She’s promised to write and to help you write letters as well.” Sarani grinned and chucked him in the arm. “I expect to hear wonderful things about your excellent marks and your new school.”
Ravenna had not taken well to the fact that she was leaving. Sarani had sworn her to secrecy. She would tell Rhystan herself when she was ready…when her heart and mind were both prepared. In truth, if he asked again whether she would be his paramour, Sarani wasn’t sure she would have the strength to say no.
She had to stay the course and do what was right.
Even if it felt like dying.
“Don’t pack that one,” Sarani told her maid, pointing to a heavy, magenta-colored gown with intricate gold embroidery. “I’ll wear it for the ball tonight. Go out fighting, as the pugilists say.”
Asha’s dark eyes widened. The dress had not been acquired here in London. In fact, it’d been designed in Joor as a coronation gown, and Sarani had not wanted to leave it behind. It had cost a small fortune. If worse had come to worst, she’d planned to sell it. But for now, she’d wear it with pride.
It was undeniably the most magnificent gown she’d ever owned. Part European, part Indian, the dress had seemed to bridge both her halves. A fitted bodice with heavily embroidered, scalloped edges curved down toward her waist where a heavily embroidered stomacher adorned with gold flowers, connected the top with the bottom.
The lower half of the gown was even more extravagant than the top. The full skirts were sewn with hundreds of elaborate flowers, studded with tiny pearls and diamonds, and paired with a cream-colored gold-stitched underlay, visible only at the hem. The design was elegant but bold in both color and style.
A perfect amalgamation of Eastern traditions with Western flair.
And if she wanted to make a statement, which she did, this would be the gown to wear. It was a statement that she would be seen, no matter who wanted to render her invisible. It was a statement that she mattered.
That she was there, not to stay, but there nonetheless.
* * *
God knew why his mother wanted to throw a ball of all things. Rhystan sighed. Half of the ton had accepted the invitation out of morbid curiosity. The other half had been too afraid to decline, given her influence, which apparently had not waned as much.
Rhystan had not seen Sarani since she’d returned to Huntley House. It was to stave off any more salacious gossip, she’d said, especially now that the scandal sheets had painted her as a greedy fortune hunter with the most eligible duke in London in her grasp. Not that they knew that she had more money than most of the ton combined.
He shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d laughed off the awful caricatures.
“If only my eyes were that large,” she’d joked. “Or other parts of me.”
Rhystan had grinned. “Other parts of you are perfect as they are.”
Not that he’d seen any of said parts since the bathing chamber, a cherished memory that had gotten him through a number of lonely nights since. Neither of them had spoken about what would happen next. His ship was leaving in a week or so, and he knew that she was still set on finding a quiet cottage somewhere. Who was he to take away her choices?
The ballroom at Huntley House was enormous and it was already crowded, even though it was early in the hour. The sharks were out for blood, while other smaller fish circled in the hope of scraps. Rhystan couldn’t believe that Sarani had agreed to this, but she understood what the duchess was trying to do. His mother wanted to show the peerage that the Huntleys were a united force. He knew it was her way of making amends.