"No respect for the dead." His words came out in silent whispers, his teeth clenched.
A small smile tugged on her lips. "Respect is earned in life, my lord. When a man fails to earn respect in life, it cannot suddenly be bestowed on him simply becau...
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The music was dull, the food could have been better, and the gossip held no appeal for her. Perhaps she was thankful something more scandalous than a widow who was suspected to have killed her husband had stolen the ton's attention. Still, listening to them prey on an innocent woman was as appalling.
"What was she thinking marrying a man nearly fifteen years younger?" One woman hissed, visibly disgusted by the idea.
"I heard he's run through her fortune and left her daughter pregnant. We really can't blame him for setting his interest on a woman several years younger than his sixty-eight-year-old wife, even if that woman turned out to be her daughter," another woman said.
The gossip went on around Beatrice, making it easy for her to fade into the crowd. She was disturbed by the ton's penchant for feasting on people's misery; it was what gatherings like these were for. It was why Beatrice hated these gatherings, why she often needed intoxication of alcohol to get through them.
But she couldn't drink—not tonight, anyway. She couldn't risk drawing attention to herself, nor could she risk humiliating the duke, on whose arms she had walked into the ballroom.
Her gaze swept the room for him. The last time she saw him, he was engaged in conversation with a group of men in a corner. She didn't find them when she looked, and exhausted from the gossip that went on around her, she turned to leave the room. She needed some air, peace and certainly silence.
Stepping onto the veranda, Beatrice closed the door behind her and heaved a loud sigh of relief when the sounds from the room became muffled. Turning from the door, she leaned against the banister, raising her chin as the cool evening breeze tickled her face.
What she wouldn't do to be at peace. She hated the world behind her—the one that comprised a society that loathed her, a society that laughed at misery. Still, she was afraid of the world ahead of her. What future was there for a woman whose husband desired so much to get away from her, he was willing to take his own life—a woman suspected of murder?
Her job with the dowager was temporary. The duke would return to Devonshire at the end of the Season, and she to an empty house...
Unless she saw the Marquess again. She wondered if she would, if he would desire to see her.
She missed him. She hated she did, but she was not in control of her emotions, of the desire to have him here by her side like he had been the evening she fell asleep in his arms.
"There you are!" a voice called from behind, pulling her back to the present. She turned around, finding the duke there before the door. "Are you alright, my lady?"
Realizing then how pale she must appear, Beatrice forced a smile to her lips. She would not let thoughts of the Marquess dampen her mood.
She nodded. "I am, I only wished for a second of privacy."
