Phantom Of The Manor

"Who said anything about you being present?"

Rhea foundered, her eyes, filled with disbelief, flitting between the shameless couple.

"H-how could you even... I am your wife...."

"Because you refuse to sign the damn papers," hissed Alice, her lips curling in an annoyed snarl.

"Easy darling," Lonan comforted her with a soft press of his lips to her golden hair, the same lips that had once romanced Rhea into marrying him and had made her skin tingle with bliss and all other emotions a Lady did not discuss in polite company.

Her hands clenched at her sides, knuckles turning a pale white. Rhea had never wanted to drive her fist into a person's face as much as she did in that moment, and her anger buried whatever shame she felt that her husband happened to be that person.

"Are you so heartless," Rhea spat, stray hairs flying out of her neat bun, "so disgusted by my presence that you would shove me into some corner like I am your dirty little secret while you parade her around?" She pointed an accusatory finger at Alice who glared at the offending appendage.

"The Duke will be here any minute, now," Alice reminded Lonan, big brown eyes batting up at him. "We don't have time for this."

She spat 'this' like Rhea was nothing but an inanimate thing, she refused to acknowledge.

"Lonnie," Rhea called out softly and pleadingly, hoping whatever part of him that did not hate her and still remembered everything they had been through together would see reason and stop the insanity.

The man frowned, hesitating as his eyes strayed over the grand doors and then back to her with conviction.

"Leave..."

"Lonan."

"NOW!" He thundered, his voice booming in the cavernous entrance hall.

Rhea flinched, frightened by what she knew was the ghost of his rage.

He pursed his lips in guilt he was too proud to admit.

"It will be hard enough explaining things with you around and the last thing the Duke needs after his long trip is the tension of you two in the same room." He gave Alice a gentle squeeze while Rhea, who needed it the most, was left with no comfort.

"I will inform him that we split amicably and you returned to your parents' home some time ago."

Rhea could not believe her ears. It was like her husband, a man of such high intelligence and intuition had been replaced by a lovesick fool who could not tell his left from his right.

"Try to keep out of the way, while he is here."

"Of course," she conceded with a humourless laugh. "I would not want to make you look a bigger fool than you already are."

Lonan made a small angry sound, but she had turned around and began marching away before he could retort, her back straight and head held high.

Rhea felt so stupid as she made her way back to her bedroom, her cheeks red in humiliation.

"A phantom in my own home," she muttered as she stalked down the large hallway. "Tucked into some dark empty chest while that... that homewrecker hangs off his arm and carries his child."

Her bedroom floor loomed ahead and she paused, suddenly overcome with fear at what lay beyond it.

The divorce papers were sitting innocently beside her phone that she should use to inform her family about her lost position but was too ashamed to.

Rhea's marriage to Lonan was a boost to her father's businesses that had placed her family in a position many had claimed they did not deserve.

The Wellman family had been nothing before her marriage and now, they were a testament to hard work and dedication. They had become an excuse for lowborns to place their children in etiquette schools from the second they were able to lift their heads.

Her marriage was a fairytale that made news headlines internationally for months after the ceremony, and now?

She could already picture the stir their divorce would cause. The taunts from every envious person that had swallowed their jealousy and congratulated her with fake smiles.

The coming disaster was one Rhea knew she could not handle so she chose to do something she would have shuddered at the thought of, only two days ago.

She made her way down the kitchen to drink herself stupid, with the staff.

The sun was long gone, the moon barely peeking through the rolling clouds, when Rhea stumbled back to her bedroom, a half-empty bottle of wine clutched in her trembling hand.

The walls seemed to move to the drunk woman, warping and twisting every which way, and it worsened her nausea and the slight ache in her head.

"T-terrible idea," she slurred as she struggled to stay on her feet, one hand holding her up on the classy cream-painted walls that were the only witness to her silliness.

It seemed forever until she got to her bedroom and Rhea froze in front of the wooden barrier as the part of her, untouched by the alcohol, reminded her of why she had gotten drunk in the first place.

If she went in, she would have to sign those cursed papers and give up on everything she had worked for. She would have to call her parents and let them know her place as Countess had been seized by some unfashionable woman who was younger than her, and she would have to deal with their sure-to-be explosive reaction.

Rhea's parents held her to extremely high standards, which they always had in comparison to her other siblings. She shuddered at the thought of what they would say in response to her failure.

"Tomorrow," Rhea muttered with a decisive nod, ignoring the voice in her head that sounded so much like her mother calling her a coward, and continued down the hallway.

The ravenette hummed a tune to the swishing of the wine in the bottle, her crytalline blue eyes half-lidded as she allowed her feet to guide her wherever.

The Manor was large with sprawling fields and large interconnected buildings that Rhea knew like the palm of her hand, so it was no surprise when her feet led her to the garden.

The sweet smell of flowers greeted her as she walked through the arched garden gate and tears sprouted from her eyes.

Lonan had given her the barren pieces of land some weeks after their wedding when boredom had taken hold of her. It had taken months of trial and failure, and enviable patience to plan the layout of the large garden and in the subsequent years she had planted flowers, berries and other fruit trees with her own two hands, Lonan joining in when he had the time.

Where they lacked a child there was the garden, a place that was created from the labour of their love.

Now, it was just a reminder of everything Rhea had lost and she burst into ugly sobs, some of her wine spilling on her white blouse.

The light from the lampposts lining the pathway cast a glow on the dejected woman, its warmth unfit for the misery she was in.

With tear-clouded vision and loud wails, Rhea stumbled through the greenery in search of the gazebo Lonan had constructed at the heart of the garden.

Soon, she had reached the clearing, her sobs having died down, and she hurried over to the white wooden structure that loomed up ahead.

Rhea was ready to burst into a fresh round of sobs at the sight of it but she was stopped by the large figure wearing dark nightclothes standing on it.

'Lonan', her drunken mind supplied and Rhea's heart filled with fragile hope.

Had he come to reminisce about the past? Did he remember everything they had been through together, the love they had shared and realised it wasn't worth giving up on?

In Rhea's mind her Lonan had come back to her, and she was willing to do anything to keep him, including raising his child.... no, their child.

The bottle of wine slipped from her hand and landed on the grass with a soft thud and then she was off, racing towards the gazebo, forgetting that Lonan owned no dark night clothes.

"Lonan," Rhea cried out as she flung her arms around her darling's unusually fit waist and buried her face into his muscular back.

"I love you! I love you! I love you!" She declared with a fresh round of sobs into his soft, linen shirt. "I'll do anything to fix us. I'll be better. I'll raise your child and I'll love them like they were my own. I swear on my life. Please, stop this madness and send that woman out of our home. Please, my lo..."

"Alice?"

"Ye..." Rhea made to respond but paused when the deep baritone voice, far deeper and silkier than Lonan's voice could ever be, reached her ears.

Then everything else suddenly clicked. How much larger and muscular he was. How he smelled of earl grey tea that Lonan usually despised, preferring lemon teas. And how his hair was wavy and black, rather than Lonan's dark blonde straightness often held down by gel.

"Wha...." She stuttered, dumbly as she pulled back, allowing the strange man to turn around and face her.

"Lady Rhea Montgomery, I presume?" He said with a curious tilt of his head, grey eyes studying her tear-soaked, shocked face.

"D-Duke Holloway," Rhea croaked, a horrified shiver going through her body.