Desmond used Leonor’s name as a pathetic attempt to show their familiarity. He was grasping at straws to keep her close, but they felt so far apart.
At once, Leonor was cold and emotionless as she said she could never be in love with him because her heart was filled with someone else. However, her emotions started coming forward and tears fell from her eyes.
"I’m so sorry," Leonor gasped again as she started crying. "You didn’t deserve that."
"Leonor, wait," he said.
The duchess didn’t listen to him as she ran out of the library.
She was so ashamed of how she had just treated him. All he had done was ask her something she had been concealing.
Usually, she could push that visit to the orphanage far from her thoughts. She thought it had been enough time that he possibly hadn’t heard anything about the visit. However, she should have known that the duke would find out eventually.
His staff was loyal to him. They would update him about anything regarding her, especially something as serious as her health.
Considering their closeness and where they were in their marriage, it would be safe for some to assume that any ailment could be due to pregnancy. Except they weren’t intimate. According to the duke, they would never be.
Desmond would never touch her no matter how curious she became about him. Getting to know him more than she already did had crossed her thoughts quite a few times.
Would it be so awful to get to know the man she cared for the most? Perhaps he deserved it for all he had invested into her and them.
Yet she ran away from the library, hugging herself as the coldness of the halls late at night consumed her. She disappeared into her room which was luckily warm.
Rather than calling her maids to help her bathe, she bathed by herself and cried to her heart’s content. She didn’t want to reveal the truth to Desmond in such a way. He would certainly think she was awful after such a sudden confession because she felt combative that he questioned her about something he had been told.
He cared about her so openly and she walked all over him on Valerio’s behalf.
As much as she wished she could forget about the love they shared because she had no way to look for Valerio and seek out the truth, she couldn’t forget about him. She promised him her future and he promised to return for her.
How could she settle for anything less?
Yet the man she left in the library had been nothing but caring to her.
Despite the cold winter, he kept her heart warm.
She could have been so alone in such a vast place but he opened himself up to her enough that she always had someone to lean on. The way he went to great lengths to keep himself from her was endearing on its own. She knew he must have been more comfortable when she wasn’t there because she heard the maids say as much.
He didn’t always wear a hood but started to for her sake.
Desmond did anything to make her have a better life and all she could do in return was tell him she would never love him because she was terrified of her feelings. She betrayed her husband to protect someone else.
She felt guilty that she loved another person, but she also felt guilty because she was starting to care for the duke in a way she couldn’t control.
All thoughts led to the miserable feeling that she didn’t deserve Valerio because she was so comfortable with the duke. Yet she didn’t deserve the duke because of what she had just confessed to him about Valerio.
Even when she settled into her bed, a sob racked her frame. That night she cried for the first time in such a long time. It wasn’t a cry of shock or happiness but genuine remorse of someone who felt like they didn’t deserve love.
On the other hand, Desmond sat in the library for a long time after Leonor left.
He debated going after her but he was supposed to play the part of a man scorned because the woman he married told him she was in love with another.
She grabbed the locket around her neck as she confessed this and he wondered if it had to do with Valerio. The desire to get to the bottom of that mystery was further embedded into his heart. He didn’t give her the necklace. What could she keep inside of it that was so valuable to her?
Desmond sat down heavily on the couch he occupied before and he felt on edge as he stared into the fire that scared him. At that moment, he couldn’t feel or think about much other than Leonor and the situation they found themselves in.
He downed the drink she left behind.
He wanted to be upset with her but because of Armand’s knowledge of Valerio, he knew she was talking about him – or who he had been.
They had been getting closer to each other for months. Considering she never even uttered a word about Valerio to him, he wondered if perhaps her love had died down. It was something he was learning to accept. He couldn’t expect someone to wait for him for over five years. She had been through so much life during that time.
Yet she said she still loved Valerio and his heart felt like it could burst. He was elated because it was him, but he couldn’t give her the Valerio she knew. His mind and body were too different. At that point, even his soul felt scarred from all he endured.
He didn’t know how to rectify the situation.
Considering her emotional reaction, he knew that if she found out he was Valerio from back then, he would be the villain in her story. He would be the antagonist and the liar.
At once he felt he might confess to her, but he resolved to do everything he could to keep the truth buried.
He had ruined Valerio and replaced him with Desmond.
Even if she didn’t love Desmond, at least she was safe from her father and sister. He would continue as he had been. He simply hoped that she was willing to do the same.