“I would raise the child,” she said, her voice cracking. “If he is yours, I would love him as my own, give him every advantage, every opportunity. I would help Laura find a respectable match, provide her with a dowry that would secure her future happiness.”
Hope flared in Damien’s chest, painful and desperate.
“But,” Eleanor continued, and that single word crushed his burgeoning relief, “I will not forcefully take him away from hismother, and I will not share my husband. Not with Laura, not with anyone.”
Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now, and each one felt like acid on Damien’s skin. “Eleanor, I love you.”
“I know you do.” Her voice was broken, exhausted. “But love isn’t always enough, is it? We will remain married in name only. I will not seek scandal or divorce, but I will not pretend to be a wife to a man who belongs to someone else.”
The finality in her voice cut him deeper than anything he’d felt—deeper than when his brother betrayed him or when Laura rejected his proposal. “You would cut all ties between us?”
“I would have to.” She brusquely wiped her tears with her palm, as though they were merely an annoyance.
The devastating consequences hung between them, stark and uncompromising. Damien watched his wife—his brilliant, fierce wife—systematically rebuilding the barriers he’d spent weeks breaking down. The careful distance she was already placing between them felt like a preview of the hell his life would become if, for once, Croft told the truth.
“The child might not even be mine. Croft could be lying about everything,” he said desperately.
“You’re right.” Eleanor’s voice was professionally distant now, the intimate warmth he’d grown addicted to absent. “Which is why I will dispatch my people to investigate immediately—about both the child and your brother.”
She pulled out fresh paper and began writing with swift strokes. Damien wanted to cross to her, to somehow bridge the chasm that had opened between them, but the rigid set of her shoulders warned him away.
“Until we know the truth, there’s nothing more to discuss,” she said without looking up.
The dismissal was clear, but Damien couldn’t bring himself to leave. Not when he could see the slight tremor in her handsas she wrote, not when the woman he loved was severing the connection between them with each careful word.
He studied her profile—the way she held her head high despite the tears that had left tracks on her cheeks, her willingness to face devastating truth rather than live with comfortable lies. God, he loved her. Loved her strength, her integrity, her refusal to accept less than she deserved.
But Eleanor was asking him to choose between two different kinds of love, two different definitions of honor. The love of a father for his child versus the love of a husband for his wife. The honor of providing for one’s offspring versus the honor of cherishing one’s spouse.
“I am truly sorry. I never meant for this to happen,” he said quietly.
Eleanor’s pen stilled for a moment, and when she looked up, her eyes were bright with fresh tears. “I know,” she whispered. “That somehow makes it worse.”
The afternoon dragged by with agony. Eleanor had dispatched her messages and retreated to her study, while Damien paced his own chambers like a caged animal. Every instinct screamed at him to call on Croft’s hidden residence, go to Whitehall, but he couldn’t leave his wife.
No, he needed to maintain his physical proximity to Eleanor. She wouldn’t change her mind, he knew, but he wouldn’t have his wife wondering if he was with his “other family”.
Thankfully, the reply from Mrs. Dove-Lyon arrived with unseemly haste, delivered by a messenger who waited for his response.
Your Grace,
The matters you inquire about require discussion in person. Come immediately with the duchess. Others will join us who have information pertinent to your situation.
S. Dove-Lyon
Damien found Eleanor in her study, her correspondence spread before her in neat piles. She looked up as he entered, her expression carefully neutral—a politeness so formal it felt like suffocation.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon requests our immediate presence,” he said, extending the note.
Eleanor read it quickly, then set it aside. “I see. She’s assembled allies.”
“Will you come with me?”
For a moment, he thought she might refuse. Then she nodded, rising from her desk with movements that seemed to require tremendous effort.
The carriage ride to the Lyon’s Den passed in tense silence. Damien sat rigidly upright, acutely aware of the careful distance Eleanor maintained between them. Gone was the easy intimacy of their recent weeks together, the casual touches and heated glances that had become as natural as breathing.
Damien’s hands clenched into fists in his lap as he watched his wife. The knowledge that he might lose her felt like a slow death by inches.