Finally, she pushed the stack of bills toward him. "And this is what will ruin us," she said. "The plans for Mrs. Montague's party. The cost of this one week would undo everything I have accomplished."
"We cannot pay these bills, Alaric, not without selling land." Selling land. For a man like Alaric, whose identity was inextricably bound to the earth his family had held for 500 years, it was the ultimate failure, the final, unthinkable disgrace. He looked from the ruinous bills to the meticulous ledgers, and then to his wife's calm, pale face.
The carefully constructed edifice of his pride crumbled into dust. He saw everything with a sudden, terrible clarity. His cynical marriage. His neglect of his duties.
His shallow affair. His blindness. He had organized his life around the wound of a past betrayal, believing it made him a realist, a man who could not be fooled again. But he had been the greatest fool of all.
He had mistaken his wife's quietness for simplicity, her compliance for weakness. He had possessed a treasure and treated it like common stone. "Philippa," he began, his voice rough with an emotion he had not felt in years. He stood and walked to the window, unable to meet her gaze.
The gardens were dark, shrouded in mist. "My father... my mother, she had a lover for years. He pretended to be my father's closest friend. When it was discovered, the scandal nearly destroyed him."
"He became a bitter, diminished man. And I... I swore I would never be him. I would never be a fool for a woman. I built my life on that principle."
He gave a short, harsh laugh. "I thought my arrangement with Adela was honest. No sentiment, no lies. And I thought our marriage... it was a contract."
"I honored the letter of it. I gave you my name, my protection." He turned back to face her. Her eyes were fixed on him, large and dark in the lamplight.
For the first time, he saw not a Duchess, but the woman herself. He was struck by the deep, lonely intelligence in her gaze. "I did not protect you," he said, the words costing him everything. "I exposed you."