In a very unladylike fashion, Althea raced along the Duke of Grafton’s corridors, letting her legs fly; her breath rasped noisily in her ears, and she continued running, pausing only long enough to let herself out the doors, and then she resumed her sprint, over the terrace.
As she neared the top of the stairs, leading down into the gardens below, Althea slowed her steps, too late.
She stumbled, catching the stone railing to keep from tumbling headfirst down the stairs.
The suddenness of that movement jolted her sideways, and she welcomed the painful bite of the limestone against her hip.
Finding her feet, she steadied herself, and then took the steps sideways, quickly.
Until her feet found purchase on the bottom, and then she resumed her flight.
She ran as fast as her legs would allow, running towards the pond.
She ran until her side ached, and her lungs threatened to burst.
And she’d welcome it.
She wanted it, because then it would mean that she was free…from this latest humiliation.
At least, for now.
Ultimately, this suffering was the norm for so many ladies. Women were at the mercy of men. Some women had protective papas, devoted to their happiness. But most? Most were born to men who saw their daughter’s only value as chattel: pawns upon a chessboard to be moved and sacrificed, to advance their coffers or positions of power.
A quiet sob bubbled up from deep within her chest, coming from a place of misery, pain, and regret.
“Althea?”
A familiar, deep baritone cut across the quiet, wrenching a gasp from Althea.
Shock sent her whipcord-straight, and she tensed.
Him.
Davenport.
Davenport was safe enough, of course.
Their families had always been in attendance at the same events, and as such, she and Neill had known one another since they’d been young children. They’d forever teased one another, gotten into mischief together, and they’d always been true friends. Friends, but never confidantes. She’d been too ashamed of how her father—and now husband—treated her to ever share that with Neill. They’d always been too much alike: each of them trying to best one another.
Except for that brief time, one summer, when she was a girl and he a lanky boy, they’d shared a kiss…but it was a lifetime ago.
And in this instant, it didn’t matter if he were her very best friend in the world—she didn’t want him here. She didn’t want anyone here.
Discreetly, brushing the tears from her eyes, she kept her gaze trained on the water.
Please go. Please, leave.
Because she didn’t want to see anyone. But she especially didn’t wish to see London’s most charming, affable gentleman. The former rake, who, after a decade of sowing his wild oats, had finally decided to settle down.
Alas, there was to be no sanctuary for her this day: from her husband of eight years, from her future, from this man. From anything.
“I’d recognize that hair anywhere. Even with your locks sheared off as you have,” he drawled, gravel and stone crunching as he joined her.
“I didn’t cut them off,” she gritted out.
“Your maid, then.”
Her husband.
It had been her husband.
Her husband, who’d taken a pair of scissors in one hand, and her plait firm in the other, hard, had wrenched her head back.
Her neck muscles ached and screamed with the remembered pain, and she reflexively touched that still sore flesh.
And here she’d believed there couldn’t be anything worse than those ridiculous wigs her father had insisted she don, if she were to leave the household—even before she’d had her Come Out.
She was besieged by another urge to cry, and she angled her face away from Lord Davenport, praying he wouldn’t notice. Praying he’d leave. Praying she could escape the hell that was her life.
“Hey, now,” he murmured, taking a step closer. “It isn’t all that bad.”
“Nay,” she said softly, more to herself. “It is worse.”
The marriage, which her mother had promised would at least allow her freedom, had only proven a worse hell with a husband who mocked her and shamed her, and thought nothing of yanking her hair, and cutting it off and—
“It’s bold, and it suits you.”
She blinked slowly and glanced over. Her mind muddled from misery sought to make sense of what exactly he was saying. “What?” she blurted.
Davenport stretched a hand out, as if to touch her short curls, and her breath caught—for no grown man had ever spoken about those tresses with anything but disgust, and certainly none had ever touched them in reverence. His fingers lingered in the air, hovering a moment, and then he gestured briefly, before letting his arm drop. “Your new coiffure.”
And her breath caught. Even if she was married. Even if Neill was soon to marry another, far luckier, young woman.
She raised a hand once more, touching the back of her head, and for a moment she believed he was sincere, because when he lingered his gaze upon those tresses, it appeared like he was lost in thought, and not in the same way that her husband scowled at those strands.
Except—
Althea let her arm fall to her side. “It is horrible,” she said tightly, hating herself for imagining that admiration…for wanting to see more from this man—from any man—other than unkindness.
“I wouldn’t say all that.”
“I just did, Davenport,” she said flatly, and she began to pace, the back-and-forth movement growing increasingly frenetic, as the misery of her marriage, and the suffering of this house party threatened to suck her under. “They’re the color of sin and brash and loud.” The words came rote; as though memorized…because they were. She’d heard them endless times from her father, and now her husband.
He snorted. “They’re the color of sunset and sunrise all rolled together, Althea.” And then he stopped, his eyes unblinking…on her.
As if in a trance, he came closer, and lifted his hand a second time, hovering it there, midair, as if he wished to touch those hideous crimson locks, but fought a battle with himself.
Which was ludicrous. She knew precisely what those locks looked like to a man. She knew they were horrid, and that no one could ever desire her or them or find her beautiful in any way.
Her breath hitched.
“Where are youuuu?”
That singsong voice slashed through the moment, and she and Neill jumped apart.
“I’ve been looking for—oh.”
The young woman, Neill’s betrothed, Lady Hazel, came to an abrupt stop. She looked back and forth between her fiancé and Althea: her eyes lingering briefly upon the baron, before settling on Althea. “Hello,” she spoke, her voice halting.
“Lady Hazel,” she greeted, with all the grace as she could manage in the moment. Althea’s stomach muscles constricted as she saw plainly before her, the assumption the young woman had drawn. Knew that she’d assumed Althea had designs upon her soon-to-be husband. And what was worse? For a not-so-very-brief moment here, she’d wanted to know his kiss. He, a recently engaged—and soon to be happily married—man. “I was just leaving.”
Neither made a move to stop her.
Why should they?
In fact, Lady Hazel looked desperately eager, frantic even, for Althea to go.
Dropping a curtsy to the couple, Althea knew the precise moment she’d been forgotten, and she hurried to take her leave. As she did, their hushed whisperings reached her.
“I saw the way you were looking at her, Neill…”
And because she was a glutton for punishment, Althea peeked out from behind the trunk of the yew tree and stole a glance at the young lovers.
“How could I ever want any other woman, with you in my life?” Neill murmured, in soft, quixotic tones, and Althea winced. “She is a friend to me,” he was saying in response to some whispered words Althea couldn’t make out from his betrothed. “Only a friend. We’ve known one another forever, and there’s never been anything more between us.”
Her gut clenched.
Lady Hazel tipped a quivering chin up. “There isn’t?” she asked haltingly, hope tinging her tone.
He scoffed. “Of course not. I stumbled upon the lady mere moments before you arrived: clearly upset and I merely felt bad. It was pity that kept me alone with her, Hazel. Nothing more.”
Althea stared blankly at the pair, unblinking.
Pity.
Of course, that was all it had been.
She’d known very well that gentle touch, and almost kiss she’d imagined had been motivated by nothing more than pity. She was hideous with her curls cut short. But she’d always been hideous. She’d just allowed herself to be entranced by the possibility he spoke truth about them.
“Now, do not think of her again,” Neill said gently. “I promise I haven’t…and won’t.”
Althea stilled, her heart hurting…when it shouldn’t.
After all, it was simply Neill. A man whose family had been friends with her own, and who’d been more of a playmate when the situation allowed, than anything else.
And yet, even telling herself that, did not erase the dull ache in her chest, from those words.
“You won’t?” Neill’s betrothed asked, smoothing her palms over his lapels, with a loving tenderness.
“How could I?” he countered, catching one of those delicate hands, and raising it to his mouth, he dropped a slow, lingering kiss; it was such a tender kiss, an intimate one, one that she had never experienced from her husband. “When I am betrothed to a glorious Athena, who’s bewitched me mind, body, and soul?” And never would.
Then his words registered.
Neill dipped his head, and his perfectly blonde and beautiful, and innocent fiancée slipped her arms about his neck, and with a sigh, she surrendered to that kiss Althea had desperately wished to steal.
And as the young lovers surrendered to the passion of that moment, Althea turned on her heel, slipped from the copse, and returned to the household, to her empty, cold, miserable marriage.
And it was the last she ever spoke to Baron Davenport and his wife
