Reborn: The Duke's Obsession
Chapter 81 - Eighty One

Chapter 81: Chapter Eighty One

The setting sun cast long shadows across the garden pavilion where Anne sat with her mother. The air was still and warm, but the atmosphere between the two women was cold and brittle.

"What!" Augusta said, the porcelain teacup clattering against its saucer as she dropped it on the table in shock. She stared at her daughter as if she was saying something strange. Anne had just come home from her failed matchmaking meeting, and instead of getting angry at her father for setting her up with someone like Weston, she was now making the most audacious and shocking demand Augusta had ever heard.

"You want to be set up with Duke Philip?" Augusta repeated, her voice a mixture of disbelief and alarm.

Anne took a slow, deliberate sip of her own tea, her expression perfectly calm. "Why not?" she asked, a cool challenge in her eyes.

"Of course you can’t!" Augusta replied, her composure starting to fray. "Anne, Duke Philip is..."

"I know who he is," Anne interrupted, her voice smooth and confident. "He is Duke Eric’s older brother. He is the official successor to the great Carson Textile Establishment. That means he is above Eric in both status and power. Eric has his own little dukedom in Elinburgh, but Philip has all of Kaulder, the ancestral seat of their family." She paused and took another sip of tea, a thoughtful, calculating look on her face. "That is the kind of man I want, Mama."

"And what are you thinking of doing?" Augusta asked, her mind reeling.

Anne dropped her cup, leaned forward, and held her mother’s gaze, her eyes now burning with a new, cold ambition.

"Something much better than what you are thinking, Mama," she said. She smiled, a sharp, knowing expression that made her mother feel a chill despite the warm day. She then relaxed back in her seat.

"Just get me a meeting with him. Let me know when you have a date."

She took another sip of her tea, dismissing her mother with the simple, elegant gesture, leaving Augusta speechless and staring at the determined, ruthless stranger her daughter had suddenly become.

~•••••~

The carriage ride back to Eric’s residence was long and excruciatingly silent. The moon had risen, a pale, lonely orb in the dark sky, its light illuminating the tense space between them. Delia took a quick glance at Eric. He was staring out the window, his jaw tight, his expression hard as stone. She turned and looked out her own side of the window, watching the dark trees fly by, her own heart heavy with a mixture of fear and a strange, protective worry for him.

When they finally arrived, Rye opened the carriage door. Eric got down first, his movements stiff and angry. Rye then helped Delia down. Eric didn’t wait for her. He walked ahead and held the heavy entrance door open for her. As she entered, he followed her in and locked it behind them with a loud, definitive click.

Delia, wanting to escape the suffocating tension, was heading straight for the safety of her room when his voice stopped her.

"Philip," he said, his voice low and cold. "I told you not to meet with him."

Delia turned to face him. He walked towards her in slow, deliberate strides, never breaking eye contact. "That was the one thing I asked of you, Delia. The one thing. And you couldn’t even do that?"

"I wanted to help," she replied, her own voice quiet but firm. "I wanted to understand what was going on. That’s why I went."

"I don’t need your help, Delia," he said, his voice full of a deep, raw hurt that he was trying to mask with anger.

She was just looking at him, at the pain so clearly visible in his eyes, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. "I am fine," he insisted, though it was a clear lie. "I told you before that I am fine."

"You are not fine," Delia spoke, her voice gaining strength as she listed the truths she had observed. "He is the reason you don’t like going home to the Carson mansion. He is why you stay here, cooped up in this big, empty house all alone. He is why you don’t sleep well at night, why you bury yourself in your business until you are exhausted, just to keep you from sleeping. I’ve seen you, Eric. Sometimes you can’t even seem to breathe properly, and you get dizzy." She took a step closer. "How is any of that resolved? You are not fine. You are just avoiding it."

She turned to leave, her words hanging in the air between them. But before she could take a step, Eric’s hand shot out and gripped her wrist, pulling her back to him until she stumbled against his chest.

Eric spoke, his breath warm on her skin, his voice hoarse with a desperate, raw emotion. "Do you want to know that badly?" he asked, his dark eyes boring into hers. "Should I tell you everything? The whole ugly story?"

Delia stared up at him, into the dark orbits of his eyes, and saw the deep, profound pain he kept hidden there.

"Then are you prepared to deal with what comes after?" he whispered. He closed the remaining distance between them, his body caging hers, his grip still firm on her wrist. "We can’t just sit around joking about cookies and talking about business contracts anymore, Delia. Once we get married, it’s going to get deeper. It’s going to get real." He looked down at her, a bitter smile on his lips. "And you were the one telling me not to cross the line. Now you are crossing it. Don’t you know?"

The intensity in his eyes, the raw vulnerability in his voice, it was too much. Delia moved backwards, creating some distance between them, her own defenses rising. "I’m not saying that," she said, her voice now a little breathless. "I just feel... I feel like you will be in danger again if this continues."

"You see?" Eric replied, a look of profound sadness washing over his features. "You are running away again." He realized he was still holding her wrist and he slowly, reluctantly, let her go.

He turned to go to his room, to retreat back into his own solitude. He sighed, a sound of deep, weary resignation. He stopped and turned back to look at her one last time, his expression now serious and incredibly sad.

"Let me tell you one last thing, Delia," he said, his voice quiet but heavy with meaning. "If you know, in your heart, that you will not love me, then don’t care for me. If you can’t handle all of this," he gestured vaguely, indicating his past, his pain, his entire broken self, "then don’t touch me." He looked at her, his eyes pleading. "I’m already holding back enough as it is."

He looked at her lips then her eyes then turned again, and this time he didn’t stop. He walked to his room and closed the door softly behind him, leaving Delia standing alone in the silent, empty hall with the weight of his final, heartbreaking words.