Chapter 19

A fear and despair unlike anything she’d ever known coursed through Abby’s veins, making it impossible for her to think straight.

She would never say that Robert was capable of hurting her. Even when he’d roared at her, a part of her knew she was in no real danger. Not physically, at least.

Emotionally, he had torn her to shreds.

Her heart was pounding. So, too, was her head.

Abby ran blindly, no direction in mind. She just needed to get away from him. From this house, where it suddenly felt like the walls were closing in on her.

Reaching the dining hall, she looked up and through her tears saw the blurry image of James emerging from the room.

“Abigail,” he called. “What happened?”

But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.

Darting past James, ignoring his calls, she ran straight through the Hall to the conservatory and from there, straight out into the storm.

The rain pelted against the bare skin exposed by her short-sleeved gown and within seconds, the garment was soaked, as were the matching slippers.

But she didn’t care.

Her mind was teeming with hundreds of riotous thoughts, her heart swirling with painful emotion after painful emotion.

She couldn’t breathe past the pain, couldn’t think past the turmoil.

She needed space and freedom and to be as far from Robert as she could get.

So, on she ran. Her only goal being some much-needed distance.

“What the hell happened in here?”

Robert winced as James’s furious question drilled into his pounding head.

He should have expected the other man’s anger.

What he’d done to Abby just now was unforgiveable.

All he wanted was to find her and beg for her forgiveness.

But of course, he wouldn’t do that. For one thing, he loved her too much to allow her to saddle herself with a man like him.

For another, if James’s livid demeanour was anything to go by, he probably wasn’t going to make it out of this room alive.

Robert looked at James, who glared right back.

This man was his oldest and closest friend. He’d been there through the worst time in Robert’s life, along with Simon and Nicholas. And they were all still there, waiting in the wings of his existence, always ready to come back into his life in a real way, should he want them to.

He’d never wanted them to.

He’d never wanted anyone.

Until now.

“Well?” James prompted, and Robert realised he hadn’t answered his friend.

He also couldn’t remember what he’d asked.

Turning from where he’d been studying the fire in the grate, Robert prepared for a long, likely very loud, conversation.

“What?” he bit out.

James’s glower deepened at Robert’s tone but instead of railing against him, which Robert had expected, his friend sighed and silently turned to close the study door before facing Robert once more.

“We need to talk,” he said sombrely, and immediately, Robert’s defences went up.

“Everyone feels like talking this evening,” he drawled sarcastically.

James ignored him.

He walked to the table holding the pitiful remnants of Robert’s brandy and raised a brow.

“I was going to suggest a drink but perhaps not,” he quipped.

Coming back to the chaise in front of the fireplace, James sat down.

He leaned his elbows on his knees and sat forward, looking gravely at the still-standing duke.

“I told Abby it was a bad idea to go anywhere near you today.”

“But she didn’t listen,” Robert guessed wryly, even managing the tiniest of smiles.

Typical Abby.

“No, she didn’t. And she’s ended up in tears, running as though—”

“As though she were being chased by a monster?” Robert finished, bitterness lacing his words with venom.

“I’ve been understanding, Robert. More than anyone else.” James stood, and Robert could feel the tension coming off the marquess in waves. “I’ve indulged your moods for years. Tolerated your depressions, tried to help with your misplaced guilt.”

Misplaced? Had everyone just forgotten what Robert had done?

Before he could argue, however, James continued.

“But I’m not going to stand idly by while Abby becomes collateral damage.”

Robert clenched his jaw but refused to give any other indication that James’s words were affecting him.

God, even the mention of her name hurt.

“I was foolish, I suppose, to allow Abigail to get as close to you as she did. But you seemed almost…happy with her. And I could see how much she was growing to care for you.”

“Well then, you should have stopped that,” Robert cut in defensively. He didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “You should have known better than to let her anywhere near me.”

He wasn’t going to comment on what James had said about his feelings for Abigail, because he was too close to the truth for comfort.

“The fact that you think I could stop Abby from doing anything proves you don’t know her very well,” James said.

He was wrong, but Robert didn’t bother arguing.

“But why shouldn’t I let her near you? You have a good heart, Robert.”

His words were eerily like his cousin’s before him.

“And I thought Abby could succeed where the rest of us failed.”

Robert swallowed hard past the lump in his throat.

He was sobering up by the second, and the thought of how he’d treated Abby was turning his stomach.

He was every bit the monster people claimed he was.

“But clearly, she hasn’t. And now, she’s run off in tears, and I wish to God I’d never brought her here.”

Robert was about to say he wished Abigail hadn’t come here, too. But he stopped himself.

Why lie to his oldest friend?

He didn’t wish Abby hadn’t come. He just wished he was worthy of her.

“I’m going to find her,” he said, suddenly desperate to apologise.

But before he took his first step, James was off the sofa.

“You’re not going anywhere near her,” he said softly.

It was only then that Robert noticed his friend’s clenched jaw and fists.

James was hanging onto his temper by sheer force of will, it would seem.

The two friends hadn’t come to blows since their childhood when it seemed of the four of them, two were always fighting about some event or another.

Yet in that moment, James looked like he could happily beat Robert to a pulp. Or try, at least.

And Robert knew he deserved it. But there would be time enough for that later. Right now, he wanted to get to Abby.

“I’m going to find her, James,” he repeated. “I need to apologise.”

“Damn it, Rob. She doesn’t need your apologies,” James yelled. “She needs you to stay the hell away from her. And that includes London. I don’t want you coming. I don’t want you anywhere near her.”

Robert felt a wave of fury swamp him at James’s words.

Nobody was going to keep him from the woman he loved.

Except you.

The inner thought brought him up short.

Hadn’t that been his motivation for treating Abigail so abominably? To keep her away from him?

To let her go and live her life with someone whose heart wasn’t black and mangled?

Yet hearing it from James, knowing that in a few short weeks she was likely to have found some such person, a possessiveness like he’d never felt before slammed into Robert.

He couldn’t stand by while someone else claimed her heart.

Selfish cad that he was, he couldn’t do it.

“James.” He forced his tone to stay patient, even. “I’m sorry for what I did to Abby.”

James’s eyes widened then narrowed furiously.

“If you put your hands on her, I’ll—”

“What? Of course, I didn’t put my bloody hands on her,” Robert interrupted angrily. “How could you even think that?”

An unwanted imagine of he and Abigail in his bedchamber the other night flashed in Robert’s mind, but he pushed it away.

James thought Robert had touched her in anger, in violence. The idea made him sick. And he didn’t want the memory of the other night sullied with the ugliness of this evening.

When Abigail left, his memories would be the only thing he had left of her.

“How could I not?” James threw back, though he sounded relieved. “She was beside herself leaving here. And in fact, I’ve wasted far too much time in here trying to get anything through your thick skull. I’m going to check on her. Just because you don’t care about her, doesn’t mean I don’t.”

James turned and began to move swiftly from the room.

“James.”

Robert’s voice stopped him.

James turned back and raised a brow, waiting for Robert to speak.

“I care,” Robert said simply, quietly.

James studied him for what seemed an age, and Robert felt inexplicably nervous.

Finally, his friend nodded. “Let’s go and find her then,” he said.