“I want this to be a true marriage again—I want us to be together. I want to spend my days and nights with you. And I think you want that, too. But I want you to trust me beyond all measure. I want a real marriage, and I don’t think we can have that in the absence of trust. And I don’t think we can have that until you stop allowing your obsession with your father to dictate everything about our lives. You were thrown from a horse less than a fortnight ago, a horse you never should have been riding in the first place. And you cannot tell me that your foolishness had to do with anything other than your obsession with showing your father your worth.” She paused, swallowing around the lump that had appeared in her throat. “I already know your worth. You don’t need to prove anything to me. I need for my opinion to be the one that matters the most to you, because I am your wife. So please, James, I am begging you. I am leaving now, and please don’t come after me until you can make that true.”
And, with more strength than she had known she possessed, she turned from him and walked to the library door. Deep in her heart, she knew that she was somehow hoping he would race after her, block her exit, refuse to let her leave without fixing this, once and for all. She didn’t want him to follow her for the wrong reasons, it was true—but she could not help hoping he might already understand the right ones, and that he might not let her walk away after an argument once again. And yet, when he made no sign of stopping her departure, she prided herself on the fact that she left the room without once looking back.
Seventeen
After Violet left the room, James lingered. He didn’t wish to—every instinct in his body was screaming at him to run after her, apologize once more, promise her that he would never lie to her again. He’d fall to his damn knees if he had to.
And yet, something held him back. She still thought him in thrall to his father. She still thought him unable to trust, to love her the way she deserved. He needed to prove to her, somehow, that this wasn’t true. But how?
How could he show her what he felt so deeply? He was an Englishman, after all; dramatic declarations weren’t really his forte. How could he make her trust him? Trust them?
An indeterminate amount of time later, Wooton appeared at the door. “The Marquess of Willingham and Viscount Penvale, my lord.”
James looked up wearily from his seat by the fireplace. It was an unseasonably cool day for July, and the weather had turned gray and foggy in the afternoon; he was seated in his favorite armchair, another glass of brandy in hand. He could still feel the faint stickiness on one side of his face where he’d failed to entirely wipe away the drink that Violet had hurled at him. Despite his rage in the moment, his mouth now twitched slightly at the memory.
“You look terrible,” Jeremy said without preamble, appearing behind Wooton and sauntering into the room.
“It’s not been my finest day, I must confess.” James gestured lazily at the sideboard without rising, merely raising his own glass. “Help yourselves.”
“It will take a fair bit of work to catch up, from the smell of you,” Penvale said severely as he, too, entered the room, sounding slightly like a disapproving governess, much to James’s amusement. His disapproval, however, did not stop him from crossing to the sideboard and filling two glasses. He handed one to Jeremy, who had already sunk down into a chair opposite James, and kept the other for himself as he leaned against the mantel.
“Where’s your wife, Audley?” Penvale asked, apparently having no time for niceties.
“At tea with her mother.” James took a healthy gulp of brandy, then rubbed a hand over his forehead. “And then dining with your sister,” he added, directing his words to Penvale. “And then at a godforsaken musicale with Lady Emily.” He cast a dark look at Jeremy.
“You can’t mean to imply that you have any desire to join her at any of those events,” Jeremy said incredulously over the rim of his glass.
“Of course not. But I did have every intention of retrieving her from her mother’s house approximately a quarter of an hour after her arrival and bringing her home again, with no intention of departing the house again for several days.”
“What seems to be the problem, then?” Penvale asked lazily, swirling the liquid in his glass. James wasn’t deceived by his casual demeanor; he knew Penvale was paying close attention to every word that was spoken.
James debated for a brief moment trying to explain the whole story, then quickly rejected this idea; for one, it would take too long. Additionally, he thought he might yell with frustration.
“I need to convince her that I trust her,” he said shortly. “And also that I’m not allowing my father to run my life.”
“So just visit him and give him his bloody horses back,” Penvale said practically. He sounded casual, even disinterested; James, however, stared at him.
“What?” Penvale asked, shifting uncomfortably. “You’ve been killing yourself trying to manage the damn stables, just to prove to your father that you can. Why not just give them back? Won’t that show Violet that you trust her judgment?”
Give them back.
It was a simple idea—deceptively so. And one that he didn’t really have a strong motive for rejecting—Violet’s dowry was generous, his inheritance from his mother fat. Did they truly need a house in the country? He suspected Violet’s answer would be no, if in return she received a husband who was not spending a sizable portion of his waking hours trying to prove himself to his bastard of a father.
It seemed outlandish somehow, and yet—why not? He needed to make some sort of grand gesture, and he needed to do it fast. He refused to spend another night without her in his bed.
In his life.
He tossed back the last of his drink, then stood, clapping first Jeremy, then Penvale on the shoulder. “Thanks for the friendly advice, chaps,” he said, striding for the door.
“I didn’t say anything,” Jeremy called after him in protest.
“Probably for the best,” James tossed over his shoulder. “You can show yourselves out, I trust?” he asked, pausing briefly at the doorway. Without waiting for an answer, he strode into the hall, bellowing for Wooton and his horse.
It was the habit of the Duke of Dovington to pass several afternoons a week at his club when he was in town. The duke was fastidious in his routine, taking great pains to appear at the venerable doors of White’s at the same time on each afternoon, so that any who might have business with him would know just where he might be found. He being a duke, there were any number of men who took advantage of this predictability.
Until that day, however, his younger son had never been one of them.
James found his father in the library at White’s, his head bent over a volume of Pliny the Elder. The duke did not look up as he approached, apparently so absorbed in his reading that he did not hear the sound of rapidly advancing footsteps. James, who had never seen his father read for pleasure in his life, took this for the nonsense that it was and, in one neat motion, reached out beneath the duke’s very nose and flipped the book shut.
“Audley,” the duke said stiffly after he had looked up to see what audacious soul had the gall to do such a thing. “I might have known it was you.”