With his heart in his throat and trepidation sending shivers skittering over his body, Ben raised his fist and knocked solidly on the door to Ophelia's suite at the hotel in Plymouth. The rap of his knuckles on the wood mimicked the pace of his heartbeat. He shared a hesitant look with his mother who stood, wringing her hands in the skirts of her traveling gown.

Thud, thud, thud.

The door opened partially as a maid peeked out from the gap between the frame and the door. The woman's eyes widened in shock as she threw the door open and dropped a quick curtesy, just as the footmen outside the suite had done. He walked into the sitting room in the suite, looking around as various members of the staff bowed and curtsied to him.

They had all been expecting him. They had all been expecting him because unlike him, his wife had had some faith in her spouse. That was how it was meant to be between husband and wife. That was a marriage that worked. This entire time he had thought that he had been the one trying to build a foundation, but when it actually came down to it? When they had actually been tested? She had put her trust in him and he hadn't even stopped to think.

He was beginning to suspect the self-loathing would become a permanent part of his soul.

'Who was at the door, Lilah?' Ophelia called out from the bed chamber.

'I'll fetch Her Ladyship in a trice, Your Grace. The doctor has ordered her to stay in bed as long as she is able. Her wrist was only sprained, thankfully. Nothing broken.' She rushed to reassure him, for the devastation must have been evident on his face. His mother let out a broken noise.

'Lilah, where did you get off to?' Ophelia pulled her door open and froze as Ben's veins turned to ice. Her eye had been blackened, her lip split and her arm was wrapped in a bandage. She stared at him, her eyes wide and frightened like a cornered animal before she finally said, 'No. Please. Please don't take me back to him. Ben, please. He will kill me.'

'Ophelia!' His mother cried out, reaching for her but Ophelia cringed away from her touch. He had never seen his mother wear her emotions so visibly on her face, but everything in her stance screamed heartbreak. She let her arms drop to the side and averted her face as it contorted with ashamed tears.

'He won't. I would never let anything happen to you. How could you doubt that?' He reached her in three large strides, enveloping her in his arms. 'He's dead. You and your child are safe. Even if he wasn't I would never let him touch you.'

'Dead? Truly?' Ophelia gasped, her eyes welling up with her anguished tears. When Ben nodded, she sagged in his arms and began to weep. 'Thank God! Thank God! I am so sorry.'

'You have nothing to be sorry for. I am sorry. I am so sorry that you thought that I would care about our reputation and place in society more than your safety. More than your life.'

'I thought you would be so disappointed in me. I thought you would think that Needham's words were more trustworthy than mine.'

His wife's accusations came back to knock the wind from his lungs.

Needham is wealthy, titled, English. He grew up in your world. Of course, his testimony, his word was worth more than some nobody from America. Of course, he will always have more value to you than someone like me.

Of course, Ophelia had not trusted him. She had been right not to. Look at what he had done with the person he loved above all others. He was not worthy of Ophelia's trust.

He would give anything in the world to go back to the moment Needham had handed him the torn letter.

'The only one who should apologize is me.' Lady Amelia finally spoke. 'I should have listened when you were trying to tell me. I should have protected you. I will never forgive myself for making you feel as if you had no choice.'

'Mother,' Ophelia stepped away from Ben and finally reached for her mother's hands, and while the two did not embrace the way she and Ben had, he saw the affection pass between the two regardless. A whole conversation of apologies and understanding was passed by a simple squeeze of the hands.

'I was so ashamed that my marriage was a failure. I was so unwilling to confront it that I hurt Minerva when she was the very first to see that I needed help. If it wasn't for her, I would never have had the courage to lie to Needham about the child. I would never have had the courage to do what was best for my child.'

'The child is Needham's?'

'Yes.' Ophelia wiped her tears. 'I was never unfaithful to him, despite his convictions that I was. I had only hoped that it might make him less inclined to search for me. I am so sorry.'

Well. That was something that they had in common.

'You have nothing to be ashamed of. You did everything right. You were so brave. I would take on any form of scandal as long as you were happy and safe, and I am so sorry that my actions have not reflected that. I am so sorry that you were never secure in that knowledge. I am so sorry that I gave you away to that man.'

'Ben, I love you. He was a monster and whatever he did was not your fault.' She took a deep shuddering breath. 'He just knew how to mask it well. Is he truly dead? Did you kill him?'

'No, I did,' their mother replied, squaring her shoulders.

'You...? But how? Why?'

'There is nothing on this earth I would not do, would not suffer to keep you safe. I....' Lady Amelia gulped, her face scrunched in concentration as she forced the unfamiliar words out, 'I love you, Ophelia. I would do it a thousand times over.'

And then Ophelia did hug their mother.

They all sat down as Ophelia told the story of how Needham's poor behavior had escalated over the two years of their marriage. How he had become more and more controlling, starting with insisting that they live in Bath, away from most of her friends and family. He would come up with excuses to be offended by whoever Ophelia became too close to and would forbid her from meeting them. Eventually, he had descended into flying into jealous rages if he ever saw her so much as conversing with another man. That she had been the one to blame for his anger. That if she acted like a wife ought, he would not have to discipline her. She told them about how much he had disliked Minerva and how he had her convinced that Minerva only sought to cause rifts between them.

Many more tears were shed that day. Ben barely held back his own; each time he thought of his dear, precious wife all alone, choosing kindness even after Ophelia's cruelty, after his betrayal his heart twisted in protest of his actions.

He would never let her be alone again, if only she gave his pathetic, worthless hide one more chance that he did not deserve. If she gave him that chance, he would never let her down again. He would fight tooth and nail to be the kind of man that she deserved.

Now, how would he convince her?

Ben resisted the urge to fidget on his seat as he saw his Mayfair townhouse draw closer. He shot a nervous glance at the bouquet lying across from him. And then he nervously touched the piece of paper folded in his breast pocket as his heart hammered against it. Would she see that piece of paper for what it was? A desperate man's desperate plea for a fresh start. A desperate man's oath that he would love her until his final breath? Or would she scorn him and ridicule his attempt at romance?

He was thankful that he did not have to make stops to drop Ophelia and his mother, the two had opted to take the trip to France for Ophelia's health. His mother had been insistent that staying in England while the news of Needham's suicide spread like wildfire would be too stressful for Ophelia. They would come back in a few weeks to settle things with Needham's solicitor. Ophelia would also need to be back on English soil for the birth of her child so that any issues regarding the inheritance of the Earldom might be solved. If her child was a boy, he would become the next Earl.

The carriage finally slowed to a halt and Benedict all but threw open the doors and bounded out of the conveyance and up the steps, barreling past his butler who had just extended his hands for Ben's traveling coat. With the flowers clutched in his hand and the paper burning a hole in his pocket, he took the stairs three at a time, bursting open the doors to her chamber without much ceremony. Everything inside him ached with the need to see her.

'Minerva?' He called into the room, dread settling in like a pit in his stomach at the sight of the empty room. And by the looks of it, it had been empty for several days if the empty hearth and stripped bedsheets were any clue.

No.

Please.

He thundered downstairs where the butler was waiting, speaking to a maid about sending up some tea.

'Where is my wife?' He demanded more sharply than necessary, the pit in his stomach growing as the servant turned pale.

'She has left, Your Grace. For Dover.'

The words hit Ben worse than one of Graham's uppercuts.

How had he forgotten? She was meant to leave for America. Sister Agatha was ill. That was why she had come to London in the first place; because he had wanted to see her before she left. She must have been looking forward to seeing him. She must have missed him as much as he had missed her in the days that they had been apart. And then she had saved his sister only to arrive to find him ready to plunge his knife into her back.

'There are still three days until her ship sails. Why did she leave so early?'

The butler gave him a look that was half accusation, half disbelief. It was almost as if he was saying, Is that really a question that bears asking?

'Her Grace was rather distraught. She said that she did not wish to be here.' The man avoided his eye, even as his words gutted Ben.

She had left? With so much hurt and bitterness between them? Without letting him even try to repair the damage that he had wrought?

His heart twisted and his breath shortened. He reached up and squeezed her chest.

He had not offered her the courtesy to listen to her explanation, why should she bother and listen to his apology?

'Very well,' he swallowed past the lump in his throat. 'She shall return with the same ship, so please keep in contact with the company and keep me appraised of their plans.'

The man looked away once more and shot Ben right through the heart, 'Her Grace has asked that her return voyage not be booked.'

It was a miracle that Ben remained standing.

Good God.

She had left him.

'What?' He fought to take the tremor from his voice even as he felt like someone had untethered his soul from his body. 'No. No, that can't be right. Surely you are-'

'I believe she has left a missive for you in your study, Your Grace.'

'I see.'

He felt as if he were a puppet, someone else pulling his strings as he walked to his study with wooden motions. There, on his desk was an envelope, his name scrawled on top with her familiar hand.

To the Duke of Rothbury,

Not Ben, or Benedict. Rothbury. She had chosen to use his title. Written it as if she might strip any intimacy between them layer by layer until it had been purged from her very soul. As if she wanted to put a screen between them, creating emotional distance between them as well the physical.

'Punish me however you wish,' he had told her. And punish him she would, indeed.

She would punish him by taking his soul.

To the Duke of Rothbury,

I told you before that mistrust has no place in a happy marriage, and I wanted to convince myself that it would be enough to just have trust and friendship between us. That perhaps eventually you would come to love me. I thought perhaps that you already did.

'I do. God, Minerva, I do.' He rasped in the quiet room as his legs finally lost the strength to hold him up. He collapsed into his leather chair, his grip on the paper tight enough that it had begun to crinkle. She thought he did not love her when she owned every damn beat of his heart.

Come to find out that I had neither. And I no longer find it acceptable. I have tried to make my life in England and I am just too tired to keep fighting against the fact that I do not and will not ever belong here. That we do not belong with each other. I am too tired of always being alone, always being the stranger, the outsider. I am tired of trying and always falling short of someone's expectations.

When a drop of water splashed onto the piece of paper, Ben realized he had begun to weep the tears he had so carefully held back in front of his sister. Her words killed him. There was no other way to describe the acute agony that was hollowing him from the inside out. He felt as if all that would be left of him would be an empty husk, without a heart.

We were never a good match, I always knew that. You are the very example of everything that this society approves of, whereas I am someone who has never been able to fall in line. We were doomed from the start and we should have known it. To that effect, the fault of my broken heart lies with me. I knew that you would eventually find me lacking in some way. I knew that what we had in Cornwall was untouched by real life. And I let myself love you anyway. Perhaps it is better that we have found this out about ourselves sooner rather than later.

The idea that she regretted that she loved him hurt him so devastatingly that he had to put down the letter and take a large drink of water. He did not want to be her regret, her shame, her hurt. He wanted to be her love, her friend, her knight.

But she had left him.

I will stay in America for the foreseeable future, though I shall return to England eventually. I understand that as a Duchess, I have many responsibilities, especially to the Sanctuary. Not to mention that I do not wish to be separated from the children for too long. When that time comes, I wish for us to return to our old arrangement. I will rarely venture to London from Cornwall, so we will not have to see each other unless there is a need to do so.

I am doing what I should have done six years ago, I am setting us both free.

'I don't want to be free,' he all but begged, as if his words might somehow bring her back. 'I want to be with you. I want to be yours. Nothing has ever felt as right as those months when we were together. It was never pretend. Not for me.'

But she was not here. She had left him.

Good for her.

She always deserved better than him and now she saw it too. His generous, selfless love had wasted her heart on a man who had failed to safeguard it. Why on earth would she stay after that?

Before he knew it, his wooden limbs were carrying him up the stairs to her bedchamber, the new furniture and wallpaper mocking him with her absence. In the quiet of her room, he held a funeral for their love. A funeral for their shared dreams, for that little girl who had existed as a wish; with eyes like her mother but hair like her father. For that little boy who had existed in the moment they had discussed what names they would like for their children. For the joy and happiness he had found he was capable of.

She had left him.

She had been like a comet, brilliant and striking, streaking across his world. A wondrous, magical thing both rare and magnificent. She had lit him up and made him feel. And in return, he had pushed her away.

And now she was gone, his world was plunged back into its customary darkness.

She had left him because he had let his anger cleave them apart. She had put an ocean between them, the one distance that he could never traverse. She had gone, knowing he could never follow. She did not want him to follow. She did not think there was saving this.

She had left thinking that he did not love her.

He had promised to protect her heart and had broken it the first opportunity he had. The memory of her trembling lips twisted like a knife in his gut, her sobs like lashes to his very heart.

He was alone now, just as he deserved to be. He would always be alone, whether or not he shut himself away in his townhouse or if he surrounded himself with friends and well-wishers.

How could he have done this?

How could he have done this to the one person who held his life in her hands even as she gave him her heart? The woman who had given him his freedom from the grief that had weighed him down for years?

She would never laugh at him again. She would never hold him again. There would never again be the joy of laughing with someone over dinner, there would never be a thought exchanged in just a glance. There would never be life again. Merely existence. Perhaps he would feel like a puppet for the rest of his days, just doing what it took to stay alive. Living half-human with half a soul and half a heart. If he had a heart and soul left at all.

So, he lay on her bed, desperately seeking just a small hint of her scent. Needing a connection to her somehow, now that she was lost to him forever. Tears leaked from his eyes, unstoppable as agonized gasps wracked his body.

This time, he was broken beyond repair and he had no one to blame but himself.