I Walked Away And He Fell Apart Chapter 06
In the wake of that night, Garland’s family became the laughingstock of London.
Gossip spread like wildfire about how fiercely Rayford had defended the woman he loved, and how the duke’s heir had publicly failed to recognize his own daughter.
Once we made it back to the Harington’s mansion, Rayford called for a royal physician to treat the wound on my forehead. He stayed by my bed day and night, even moving his paperwork into the bedroom so he wouldn’t have to leave my side.
Lorna had been terribly frightened, too. She kept startling awake in the middle of the night, so Rayford stayed up for hours, just holding and comforting her.
Watching Lorna and Rayford together, I felt a deep sense of peace I had never known before.
I really thought my toxic history with Garland was dead and buried.
However, I underestimated just how obsessed he still was.
Right after the banquet, Garland dispatched his best spy up north.
Two weeks later, the guy was back in London, dropping a thick dossier on Garland’s desk that mapped out every single second of my life with Rayford.
The reports laid it all bare—how Rayford had saved me from bandits.
How he’d flat-out defied the King, rejecting an arranged marriage to a princess just so he could marry me instead.
They even mentioned the groves of plum trees he’d planted across those freezing northern hills for no other reason than to see me smile.
Reading that, Garland felt a sharp, physical stab in his chest.
“Why?” he muttered to himself. “How did this happen?”
He’d spent years convincing himself that my exile out in the remote provinces was a living hell. He just assumed I’d come crawling back the second he snapped his fingers.
But I wasn’t just surviving out there—I was being worshipped by another man.
Garland refused to accept it. He couldn’t stomach it.
“Maddie is mine,” he told himself. “She’s had a crush on me since we were kids. She loved me for a decade!”
For the next few days, Garland practically camped out in front of the Harington’s mansion.
He waited until I finally took a carriage to the jewelers on the south side to order a custom amulet pendant for Lorna.
As my carriage turned down a quiet alleyway, the sudden clatter of hooves forced my driver to slam on the brakes.
I pulled back the window curtain. Garland was standing right there, blocking the road.
His usual arrogant swagger was completely gone. His hair was a wreck, his eyes were sunken and dark, and he looked bone-tired—aged, even.
The second he saw me, he lunged forward, white-knuckling the frame of the carriage window.
“Maddie! I finally found you,” he pleaded.
“Maddie, I looked into everything. I know how hard these last three years have been for you, and it’s all my fault.
“Maddie, I looked into everything. I know how hard these last three years have been for you, and it’s all my fault.
“I regret it. All of it. I’m not marrying Sabrina anymore. The title, the position of Duchess—it’s yours. Please, just come back with me. I’ll even take Lorna in. I’ll raise her like my own daughter, I swear.
“We can start over. I’ll treat you right this time. Just give me one more chance!”
I sat there in the carriage, looking down at him, and felt absolutely nothing. A complete void.
“Have you lost your mind, Garland?” I asked. “I’m a married woman. My husband is Marshal Harington. Did you seriously come out here expecting me to just pack up and leave with you?
“Do you think the Haringtons are weak, or do you actually believe your dukedom has the money and manpower to take them on?”
Garland shook his head, his grip on the window frame tightening.
“No! Maddie, you don’t love him. You don’t. You’re just doing this to get back at me, right?
“You loved me for ten years. You gave me your entire youth! There’s no way you fell in love with someone else in just three years.
“Maddie, please stop punishing me. Just come home.”