'I have been thinking of getting remarried.'

Benedict choked on his soup. Why was a sentence like that delivered so casually? Benedict cast a questioning glance at his mother who had invited him to luncheon at her London residence. They had been, somewhat tenuously, rebuilding their relationship. 'Truly? After all this time? You've been widowed a good six years. And let's not act like you were altogether very fond of your first husband.'

'Really. That American has had the most unfortunate influence on you,' Lady Amelia shifted uncomfortably in her chair. 'A question like that ought to be put forth with more subtlety than a charging bull.'

'Apologies.' Ben resisted a smile, excitement fluttering through him. His wife; his dear, beloved woman was due to arrive in a few hours. By God, he had missed her so much that he had arranged for her to travel from Dover instead of Plymouth so that it would give her an excuse to come stay with him for a few days. It would not have been possible to see her off if she had left from Plymouth. 'Is it a recent development? Has anyone shown any interest?'

'A few here and there, over the years. More recently, the Earl of Ridgely and-'

'He's eighty if he's a day.'

'He is eight-and-sixty.' She said defensively, taking a purposeful sip of her soup.

'Doesn't look it.'

'Horrid boy. This is all your wife's doing.' She cut him a stern look, but Ben could have sworn he had seen a glimmer of affection in it. 'There is also the Marquess of Lindsey, who has attempted to pay calls once or twice, but I have not yet admitted him.'

'Ah, he's the one who got divorced, yes?' Ben's brows furrowed in disapproval. The Marquess had skirted the edge of respectability for years since his divorce. He'd even lost his seat in Parliament because of it. He'd been so removed from English Society for the last twenty years that Ben had forgotten about him altogether.

'Yes.' She grimaced. 'We knew each other in our youth and he has been hinting that he would be open to renewing our acquaintance. I am reluctant, obviously.'

'Well, entirely your choice, Your Grace. I will dower you sufficiently, if that is what you mean to ask.'

'No, I was in fact not asking for that,' her tone implied that she found his behavior to be far too forward once more. 'I just wished for you to know.'

Ben nodded awkwardly at his mother's attempt at bridging the gap between them. They ate in a slightly uncomfortable silence that could only exist when two equally stiff people attempted to change their ways. His mother spoke again.

'I worry for your sister, Rothbury.'

He had been wondering about her absence from luncheon, himself. She was in London as Benedict had implored Needham to rally behind their cause in Parliament.

'What has happened? Is she alright? Is the babe-?!'

'Physically, she is well. Otherwise, I am not so sure. It could just be the pregnancy, but she has been acting so strange of late. She was talking about separation the other day. Separation! Can you imagine it? And that man nigh worships the ground she walks on.'

'What?'

'And now, she has fled back to Bath, without so much as a word. I had to ask her butler,' his mother continued indignantly. 'If rumor is to be believed, it is because Needham has been paying marked attention to a certain opera singer as of late.'

'Really? Needham?'

'She need only put up with it until she gives him an heir, with any luck this child will be a boy. And after that, she is free to live as she pleases. No need for husband and wife to live in each other's pockets. But she has always been sentimental, that one.'

'I do not think it's unreasonable for her to be upset. I shall be having some words with Needham.'

'And what will you say? It was fine for you to take a mistress but not when he does it? That your vows were different from the ones he spoke? It is simply the way of things, Rothbury. Both of you are acting naïve.'

Before he could make a defensive retort a commotion began to stir right outside the doors to the dining room. Muffled shouts, grunts, and yelling floated in despite the thick door separating the room from the rest of the townhouse. Ben muttered an irritated curse and strode to the door and pulled it open. Ben's steps faltered in shock as she saw three footmen grapple with a very infuriated, very ­inebriated, and horridly disheveled man. The man struggled against the men, an open flask in his hand sloshing liquid all over the floor.

'Unhand me, you son of a bitch! I am the Earl of Needham, you useless swine!' The man yelled, roughly pushing aside one of the men wrestling with him for control. The man stumbled and fell with an audible thud. Needham's fist then connected with the other footman's cheek. Impressively, the flask remained in his grip, though it must have lost a significant amount of drink already.

'Calm yourself.' Benedict's command cut through the commotion with the severity of a horsewhip. The fallen footman scrambled off of the floor with the help of another. Needham straightened too, looking him in the eye with such potent fury that Ben felt it like a physical blow. Needham took a swig from his flask. 'This is no way to purport yourself in a gentleman's club, much less in the home of a Duchess.'

Needham looked at him with an almost wild gleam in his eyes. He lifted his flask once more, but instead of taking another sip, he let it fly. Straight for Benedict. He didn't even have time to avert his face as the damned thing connected with his face, the liquid now pouring into his jacket and waistcoat. The unpleasant smell of cheap spirits stung his nostrils and Ben's vision turned red. 'I don't have to listen to a damn thing a cuckold like you has to say!'

A fury matching the one on Needham's face suffused through him.

'What is the meaning of this?' Benedict's question was delivered in a soft, lethal tone. A tone that fell like a blanket of tension over the hall.

'The meaning,' snarled Needham, who was typically rather a docile man seemed to have taken leave of his senses entirely. 'Is that your whore wife has convinced your sister to run away with a damned footman! I refuse to stand here and allow myself to be cuckolded like you!'

Ben rocked back on his heels, the sheer absurdity of the statement shocking him. 'You lie. And this is the last damned time you speak of my wife with -'

'Oh?' The man snapped and produced a crumpled piece of paper and presented it to Ben. 'Then how do explain this? I have challenged men to duels for lesser accusations, Rothbury.'

'What in heaven is happening here?' His mother's stiff query announced her arrival as Ben's eyes read over the note again and again. Horror and disbelief settling over him, he tried to see if there was any other way to interpret the words, but there was not.

I am leaving you for the sake of my own happiness. I realize now that we do not suit and our marriage is not a happy one.

Do not come looking for me, for you will not be able to find me.

I am sorry. The child is not yours.

Wordlessly Ben handed the note over to his mother who let out a sound of horror.

Why had she not come to him? He could have protected her!

'Oh, that stupid girl!' His mother gasped, the page slipping through her dismayed fingers and fluttering to the ground.

Thousands of worries were flittering through Ben's head as his limbs became leaden with horror. She was alone and pregnant. Needham could have her sued for abduction of her offspring, because the child would belong to him in the eyes of law, whether or not it was his by blood. Needham could bloody ruin her for her treachery.

She was alone.  Alone, in the treacherous English countryside abound with highwaymen and thieves and rapists.

What chance did a lone pregnant woman have against that?

His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.

In his mind's eye he saw that damned road that lead to Chatwick hall, the family carriage turned over in a creek; but instead of Charlie's body, this time it was Ophelia's. Her neck bent at an unnatural angle, her eyes lifeless, the ground around her soaked with her blood. Her child's blood.

Ophelia, at the mercy of some rapist. A kidnapper who would use her for ransom.

His little sister at the mercy of all the ugliness of this world.

He should have known there was something wrong. He should have known. They used to tell each other everything.

Ben clutched at his chest as pain sprouted through him.

'We will find her.' His voice left him gravelly and unsure.

'You might want to ask your wife, seeing as how she is the one who instigated Ophelia into this madness! You ought to have kept her in hand.'

Needham handed yet another page to him, and perhaps if Ben had been in his senses he might have questioned why he was only given a ripped section of the letter his wife had written to his sister. He might have wondered at what Needham was hiding by only handing him half the page. But alas, he was so lost in his fear, in his heartbreak that he never even questioned it. He read the damning missive as his heart sank further and further down into a cold abyss of numbness, as if to somehow protect itself from the hurt.

....It does not matter that there will be a scandal, it does not matter what anyone says. If leaving guarantees your happiness then you must seize it with both hands. I will always help you, consequences be damned.

You deserve to be in a marriage where you are loved and happy. If there is ever a time when you are unhappy with Needham, as I suspect you are, you will always have an ally in me. Even if the entire world turns its back on you. I will help you leave him, if need be. I will always keep your best interests at heart.

If society laughs, to the devil with them. If it angers Needham, we shall face him together.

What matters most is your happiness. You mustn't care what anyone says.

Yours Always,

Minerva.

Betrayal speared him, leaving him unable to do anything but stare at her unmistakable hand.

No.

She had known about this?! She had encouraged this folly? She had allowed Ophelia to put herself in danger?

What had she done?

He was going to be ill.

For all he knew his sister could be dead.

His heart lay in pieces at the hands of the very woman he had entrusted it to.

'Rothbury,' his mother's pleading voice cut the haze in his mind, there were tears streaking down her face. 'Find her. Please. My poor girl. She is alone. Please. No matter what the cost, what the scandal. Bring her home, please.'

'I will. I will.' He forced his nausea aside, letting the need for control overtake him. 'Mother, you take Needham to his residence. Interrogate his staff, see if anyone knows anything. I will go home and dispatch riders to take inquiries to all our estates and question people at inns on the way. If all else fails, we will send for the police and deal with the fallout when it comes. We will hire runners, cost is not a concern.'

His mother nodded stiffly and turned to speak to Needham and Ben bounded out of the house and called for his carriage.

When his carriage ambled to a stop outside his townhouse he saw that trunks were being unloaded from another vehicle and carried inside. His already bleak mood darkened even further.

His wife was home.

He walked in on unsteady legs; his shirt, still wet from where the flask had drained into his clothes, was sticking to his skin in a way that irritated him even further. His foyer was lined with vases of her favorite flowers, knowledge that had been exchanged over the last few months that they had been together and it felt like they were mocking him. A perversion of the good intentions he had been harboring. The universe laughing in the face of the hope and love that had been building in his heart for months since they had faced off in their dressing room.

While he had been mooning after his wife, his sister had been making plans to run off with her lover.

'Thank heavens you are finally home!' The voice cut across the foyer as his wife descended in a hurried flurry of her skirts. And his foolish heart still leaped with joy, just basking in the pleasure of seeing her before he remembered why he was here. His heart plummeted once again into the icy depths of numbness, a useless attempt at becoming immune to her.

Suddenly, his rage slammed into him in full force. Each step that brought her closer incensed him even further. Yes, rage was easier than the hurt and heartbreak.

How dare she look so lovely, so unaffected while his world was falling apart at the seams?

She reached for him but he jerked away, unable to weather the tumult of emotions that her touch would bring. Unable to face the fact that even after everything, he craved her.

'In my office.' His voice cracked down with the violence of the whip as her eyes widened at the intensity of it.

'Ben, you must listen-'

'No.' He wrapped his hand around her wrist, leading her into the privacy of the office. He was so weak for her that even in this moment he did not have it in him to keep his grip anything other than gentle. Even in this moment, he had sought out her beloved scent, even though he had only been greeted by the stench of the cheap alcohol soaking his clothes. 'I do not want to hear a word out of your mouth. Get in my office! I shall not allow you to make any more of a spectacle of this family than you already have.'

And perhaps, if Ben had been in his senses he would have clearly seen the signs of fatigue clear on her face, he would have seen that the hem of her gown was still muddied meaning that she hadn't even stopped to change her clothing. He would have seen the dark circles under her eyes that would testify to the fact that she had barely slept these last few days or the gauntness in her cheeks that showed that she had not been eating well.

'Ben-' She protested once more, but it may have fallen on deaf ears for all he had listened.

'I have listened to you for months. It is I who have tried to understand you and your world. It is I who has been learning to be someone you find to be pleasant company. It is I who has been trying to compromise on things that I have grown up on. Whereas you can't even be bothered to care about my world for one moment? You aren't bothered at all by the fact that my pregnant sister is out there, somewhere alone? And that you have just helped her destroy her reputation in front of the only world she has ever known? These kinds of things cannot be kept quiet. She will never be welcomed in a respectable household again after this. She will have no friends after this. She will have no life after this.'

'Where is she?' He shouted at her once he had slammed the door to his study closed, crowding against his desk, using the sheer size of himself to intimidate her. And later, he would nearly drown in the shame of his behavior, but in that moment he let the tempest of his rage and fear sweep him away. Farther and farther from the man he tried to be, from the values he had always prided above all else.

'S-safe.'

And perhaps had he been in his senses, he would have seen immediately that her eyes had turned somewhat glossy, that her stutter came not from her fear, but because she was fighting with her mind to stay in the moment when all it wanted was to fade away until she could no longer smell him.

'Where is she?!'

'N-no. I ca-cannot tell you until you-' Each word was a fight.

He laughed; a dry, humorless, cruel sound. 'But of course. It should have been my responsibility to know something was wrong. She was my responsibility. And I was too busy frolicking in the damn garden,' she had begun to tremble in his arms, her face a little green. 'I was too damn busy going to summer fairs and riding hot air balloons, putting of my duty for a woman who couldn't give a damn about my family! What a fucking mistake.'

'M-mistake?' The devastation on her face cut through the haze of his fury like a sharpened knife. Something in him breaking at the hopelessness in her query.

The moment the words left his worthless mouth, he hated them. Knew them for a lie. Knew them to be a pathetic attempt at lashing out at her because she had hurt him. The regret and disgust were both potent and instantaneous; and so was the realization that his behavior had been appalling. That he had not even given her a chance to speak, so prideful he had been in his righteous indignation.

What a man he was! How honorable and strong! So convinced that he was right, so confident that his narrow understanding was enough to draw conclusions with. Hadn't his presumption almost caused a fight in the gardens after she had been speaking to Stanhope? Hadn't his righteous presumption already cost him six years with her? Six years without knowing the greatest blessing his life had ever given him. A blessing he would sacrifice everything for? A blessing he had just proved himself unworthy of.

Would he never damn learn that nothing good had ever come from his damned pride? That he was as susceptible to bias as anyone?

Of course, she cared about his family. She loved him. She must have had a reason, of course, she must. Either that, or she must have been as taken off guard as he. How could he have for even a moment thought otherwise?

Why hadn't he listened?

He loosened his grip on her immediately. 'Minerva, forgive me. I didn't mean-'

The minute she was let free, she scrambled away from him in such haste that his shame threatened to buckle his knees out from under him. And then, the next few moments felt like they spanned several hours. Her unsteady feet catching on her hem, causing her to lose her already tenuous balance. The cry of sheer horror from him as he saw her lose the battle to stay upright, falling backward. The way his body moved altogether too slowly. The sickening thud that echoed in the room as her face collided with the edge of his desk, followed by the more muffled one as her body hit the ground.

For a horrible second that stretched over eons and millennia and centuries, she did not breathe. Her chest remained stationary.

Head injuries could be both fatal and instantaneous.

No.

Nononono.

Please.

God.

Please, God.

Please. Please. Please. Not her. I will give you anything, you can take everything I have, but do not take her. I beg of you.

'Minerva, God, please. Please wake up my love, please. Wake up and be angry, take me to task. Please. Yell at me. Push me. Hit me, if you wish. Please, wake up.' Agony was searing through him like a jagged sword designed to draw out his pain. He knelt beside her, gently shaking her, cupping her face. His thumb stroked across her cheek in a soundless plea as his blood roared in his ears. The relief was almost dizzying when her eyes fluttered open. They were still so far away as if she was not here at all.

And then she started screaming.

'NO! Please!' She thrashed so violently that she managed to strike him across his chest with her knee, temporality knocking the wind out of him. 'Papa! PAPA HELP ME PLEASE! NO! DON'T TOUCH ME! GO AWAY! PLEASE, PAPA! HE'S HURTING ME! HELP.'

Ben stumbled away from her as loud, horrible sobs wracked her body even though everything in him screamed at him to go hug her. But he could not.

His mind thought back to the flask that Needham had thrown at him and had finally recognized the foul stench in his clothes.

Gin.

He reeked of it.

And his wife was not with him, she was lost in the moment when she had been assaulted by that man when she was a girl. He listened, the only sound in the study was the way her sobs turned to shuddering breaths, and each tear she shed hit him like a lash across his heart. Or as if someone had taken it out of his chest and kept stabbing with a hundred needles all at once.

The shuddering breaths eventually evened out as his wife lost the battle against oblivion and finally surrendered to unconsciousness. On silent feet, he padded to the door and exited the room. He sent for a physician and went to change. He did not want to risk carrying his wife up the stairs while his shirt still smelled of the offensive substance, nor did he wish to expose her vulnerability to the staff. It was his mess and he would fix it.

How could he possibly fix it?

He had just taken a sledgehammer to his marriage and there would be no coming back from the destruction he had wrought.

You could not put together something you had destroyed, not with all the glue in the world.