Clarissa nodded. “Randolph, you heard her ladyship, go.”
The short journey back to Vance House passed in a fog, and only when they arrived back at the mews did Isobel realize she was still clenching the creased newssheets between her fingers. She let them fall, uncaring of where they ended up, before blindly dismounting the carriage and rushing into the house. She could hear the twins yelling, but the thudding of her heartbeat in her ears was too great.
Dimly, she heard Clarissa saying something about fetching some tea from the kitchens and the twins seeing about a hot bath, but Isobel couldn’t think. All she wanted to do was reach the safety and comfort of her bedchamber before she embarrassed herself further.
Shouting reached her ears as if from afar. It sounded as though people were arguing in the study, where the heavy door stood slightly ajar. Isobel was about to turn and go up the stairs when one voice hit her hard…one she instantly recognized.
Her husband’s.
…
In their father’s study, Winter stared at his brother, his eyes tracing the trickle of blood on the corner of his mouth. Fuck, he should have hit him harder. After all these years, it was more than the blockheaded cad deserved.
“You married her to inherit,” Oliver said, pressing a palm to his bleeding lip. “Don’t pretend otherwise. What’s to say that Vittorina’s account in the newssheets wasn’t real?”
“It’s not. You’ll believe anything terrible about me, won’t you?”
“You earned it.”
Winter ground his jaw. “I can’t control what the newssheets publish, no more than I can change what happened in my past.”
“Like you did with Prudence?”
Blood filled his vision again, and riled beyond belief, he lunged toward his brother, only to be hauled back by the duke himself. Shrugging his father off, Winter’s fingers curled around Oliver’s neck, his rage pounding between his ears like a bellowing beast. “Don’t you dare bring her up, you fucking bastard!”
At his words, Oliver paled, pain flashing across his face before all the fight drained from his body. He went limp with a defeated huff, but Winter’s boiling anger blinded him to his brother’s sudden paralysis.
“Enough!” Kendrick roared, finally about to tear them apart, but managing to catch a flying elbow in the nose at the same time. He stumbled back and crashed into a small table.
“Your Grace,” Simmons exclaimed, rushing in to escort the duke away and guide him into a nearby armchair. He held up a pristine handkerchief to his bleeding nostril.
“I’m fine, Simmons,” he said. “Leave us, please.”
Breathing hard, Winter felt an unexpected pang as he stared at his bloodied father. His eyes slid back to Oliver, who stalked to the bottle of whiskey on the desk and poured himself a liberal draught, dabbing at his lip with a fingertip. They glared at each other until the duke spoke.
“What in damnation is going on here?” he asked.
They stared at him, but Oliver beat Winter to the punch. “More of the same. The fact that he’s always doing stupid things and tarnishing the Vance name, and not caring about anyone else but himself, even his own wife, whom everyone in the ton knows he married for convenience.”
“Isobel is going back to Chelmsford,” Winter said through his teeth. “And you’re right. I don’t care about anyone, not her, not you, and certainly not some Italian chit hunting for a title.”
“Does your dear wife know about your old flame?”
Winter’s fingers curled into fists at his side. “This has nothing to do with Isobel,” he snapped. “I never wanted to marry her in the first place. This whole farce has been the worst mistake of my life, and with what happened to Prue, that’s saying a lot.” His gaze shifted to the silent duke and then back to his brother. Something deep behind his ribs stung—the falsehoods stabbing into the heart of him like lethal needles—but he shoved those useless emotions down deep. His wife had been a means to an end. He had to believe she still was, for both their sakes. “I did it for one reason as you both very well know—because of that bloody codicil. That was your doing, don’t think I don’t know it.”
“It was in there for a reason,” Oliver said. “The duke could not have a wastrel for an heir. You needed to come up to snuff.”
“So you convinced him I needed to marry?”
Oliver huffed. “You were out of control, Winter. You lost sight of your duty and name, and you needed to be reminded of what was important in a way that would get your attention—your pockets.”
“Well played, brother,” Winter shot back. “So I did as I was bid and wed the chit. What does any of this have to do with her? I don’t even know why she’s here in town.”
“I warned you that your past would catch up to you one day. And now, because of you, this woman from your past is smearing our good name.”
Cursing under his breath, Winter walked over to the decanter and poured himself a drink, which he dispatched in one swallow. The brandy burned a path to his stomach, leaving clarity followed by no small amount of guilt in its wake. His brother was right. It was his own fault that he’d dallied with a woman of her vile nature in the first place, but he hadn’t made her any promises and there was never any child.
“I regret many of my actions, and until Prue’s death, I saw no reason to change,” he said with a sigh, raking a hand through his hair and pouring another drink with shaking fingers. “But answer me this, brother—why do you hate me so much?”
Oliver’s eyes flashed with resentment, though they darted over to where the duke sat for an infinitesimal moment. “No matter what I do, I can never measure up. Yet, you, the prodigal son, does as he pleases with no consequence. Hate doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“We are brothers.”
“Not so when you’re born on the other side of the blanket!” Oliver snarled.
Winter blinked, his brother’s odd reaction to being called a bastard suddenly making sense. Holy hell. Was Oliver a by-blow of Kendrick’s?
Their stares converged on the duke, who sat silent and ramrod still, his eyes showing no surprise whatsoever. Fuck, no. Winter felt a rush of resentment gather inside of him. What more indignities had his poor mother suffered at his hands! She’d confided in a young Winter, eyes glazed with laudanum, that the duke had never loved her and sought comfort elsewhere. But to bring his by-blow under the same roof? That was unconscionable.
“How could you do this?” Winter growled aloud. “To Mother?”
Two sets of eyes fastened on him—one full of regret, and the other laced with shame. “I did it for her,” the duke said and then turned to Oliver. “How long have you known?”
Winter frowned. For her?
Oliver clenched his fists. “Since I was a boy. She told me herself that you were not my father. I’ve had to live with that shame in silence for years, while he”—he spared Winter with a fulminating glance—“flaunted his name about like filth. A name I could never truly have.”
Winter’s rage ebbed and flowed in confusion. Stunned, he opened his mouth and shut it. None of this made sense. His father was the adulterer. At least, that was what his mother had always claimed. “You’re lying,” he said.
“About what, brother dear? About your conduct or the fact that I’m a bastard?”
“You’re my son,” Kendrick said. “Just as Winter is.”
Oliver laughed. “None of your blood runs in my veins, Duke.”
“Blood doesn’t always make a family. Loyalty does, choice and sacrifice.” The duke tilted his head back as his nose started to bleed anew, wheezing painfully. “And love, if you can be brave enough to earn it.”
The last hit Winter like a fist to the gut. Love—the thing that had sent his mother to madness and led Prue to her death.
“What would you know anything of love?” he bit out.
“I wasn’t the perfect father, but you were my children. All of you,” he added with a pointed glance at Oliver. “Your mother was jealous, inventing liaisons that did not exist whenever I left Kendrick Abbey for my duties in parliament. I loved her, gave her you, but it was not enough. It was never enough. Oliver was simply her way of punishing me.”
Winter was reeling at the bald admission from a man who always shied away from any squeak of scandal. “Who’s his father?”
“I am,” Kendrick said tiredly. “Who sired him doesn’t matter one whit. It never has.”
The look on Oliver’s face was so fleeting that if Winter hadn’t been looking at him, he would have missed it. But for a heartbeat, the man looked dazed.
“She said you cuckolded her.”
“I meant my vows.”
Winter could not fathom that Oliver wasn’t Kendrick’s biological son. After all this time, he’d never suspected. Oliver had modeled himself after the duke so thoroughly that he physically resembled the man. Though as Winter compared them as they’d stood there, the differences were clear. Despite their identical stances—hands clasped behind their backs, imperious chins tilted just so—Oliver was stockier than the duke, his shoulders broader. Their hair and eyes were similar shades, but while the duke’s mane leaned toward black, Oliver’s had reddish tints.
How had Winter not known?
No wonder Oliver hated him so much. Where had Prue fit in to all of this? Had she known? Hell and damnation, he’d been so caught up in his own life—his own stupid agenda of destroying the Vance name—that he hadn’t paid his little sister any mind. Until it had been much too late…until he’d lost her. Winter blamed himself for that, too.
“Did Prue know?” he muttered.
Kendrick nodded. “Your mother told her.” He scraped a palm over his face. “You have to understand that the laudanum twisted her thoughts. At first, she took it to calm her worries and then more and more. Prudence, God rest her soul, took the same tincture with your mother’s blessing and got her first taste of addiction. I blame myself for allowing that to happen.”
“No,” Winter said, backing away. “You’re wrong. She wouldn’t have done that.”
“I don’t know what she told you, Son, but I have no reason to deceive you.”
Winter’s emotions were an ugly, jumbled mess. The sorrow and sincerity on Kendrick’s face could not be faked. If anything of what the duke had said was true, his mother had manipulated Winter’s feelings so completely that her bitterness and resentment had become his. The duke had become the monster in the story…a poisonous narrative she had controlled.
God, he felt sick.
He didn’t have the time to play back every single time his father had reached out and Winter had rejected him out of hand because of what he thought the duke had done, when the truth was, the duchess had borne a child out of wedlock and had turned his own legitimate son against him.
Christ, his bloody head was spinning.
He needed to think. He needed to leave. But he forced himself to sit. Running in the past had not served him well. “Start from the beginning,” he said to the duke.
Kendrick did, and Winter listened while his father spoke. For the first time in his life, he considered a side of the story he’d never imagined—that his mother had been fabricating things all along, that his own innocent feelings might have been manipulated, that his father might have been the victim in this whole scene. What felt like ages later, Winter hung his head in his hands, his brain spinning with all he’d learned.
It was too much.
The door crashed open and they all stared at a wild-eyed Clarissa standing at the mouth of the study. “Isobel is gone.”
“Gone?” Winter asked dully.
A furious and worried gaze met his. “We can’t find her anywhere. She was already distraught after seeing the newssheets, so we had the maids prepare a bath to calm her down, but she didn’t take it because she overheard you saying that she’s the worst mistake of your life! How could you be so callous, Winter?” She jammed a finger at his chest, eyes brimming with tears. “She’s distraught and not thinking straight. Violet said she barely spoke before fleeing upstairs, mumbling that she never should have come to London,” she choked out. “She wouldn’t ride back to Chelmsford, would she?”
“She didn’t take her groom, Iz?” he asked.
“She is—oh God—” Clarissa cut off, bursting into tears. “She’s gone alone and it’s already dark.”
Grabbing a lamp, Winter bolted to the mews, calling for Randolph. When the old groom came running out from the depths of the stables, his eyes widened. Winter clenched his teeth, worry lashing through him. “Did you see where my wife went?”
“No, my lord. She’d just come back with Miss Clarissa and gone into the house, only to rush out again, calling for her mare. It was a while ago.” He hesitated, and Winter waved his arm for him to continue. “She seemed upset, my lord. Her eyes were red.”
Fuck. He looked around the yard. “Where the hell is my horse!”
“One of the grooms was tending to him, my lord. I’ll get him at once.”
Randolph raced back inside the mews, and Winter paced, raking a hand through his hair in frustration. Where would she have gone? Was Clarissa right in that she would decide to ride to Chelmsford? It was over forty miles—several hours of hard riding—and she loved Hellion too much to run that horse into the ground. How could she be so reckless?
He didn’t realize he’d muttered that last question out loud when Clarissa replied, sniffing. “Because she’s Isobel, and because you hurt her.”
A heavy hand came down to grip his shoulder and he turned to see his father standing there. Amidst murmurs of Your Grace in the courtyard, the duke turned him about. “Isobel is capable, Son. If she is alone, she won’t have left here unarmed.”
Winter frowned. Armed? His wife?
“Don’t look so surprised,” Clarissa said in a scathing tone that he no doubt deserved. “She owns pocket pistols and has better aim than my brothers.”
Kendrick nodded. “I taught her. The girl is a skilled marksman.”
Winter barely had time to process that his straitlaced, uptight duke of a father had taught his young, impulsive wife to shoot before the butler came running down the stairs to the mews.
“Your Grace?” he said to Kendrick. “It’s a message for the marquess.”
Winter snatched the grimy bit of paper that was scrawled with an address, one he recognized in Covent Garden near Seven Dials. But that wasn’t what made his heart drop to his feet—it was the note at the bottom, written in an untidy scrawl.
Come quickly. Lady Roth has taken a terrible fall.
Chapter Twenty
Dearest Friend, if you intend to enjoy the benefits and pleasures of conjugal love, communication is the cornerstone of any relationship.
– Lady Darcy
Isobel swiped her tears angrily away. Though she swore that she wouldn’t shed any more tears for Winter Vance, here she was doing just that. Sobbing as though she was the first girl in history to ever have her heart trampled upon by a cruel, unfeeling man.
God, he was a blackguard. A rotter. The worst kind of scoundrel.
And she was married to him.
“I hate him,” she whispered.
Her sister’s eyes met hers, compassion swimming in them. “I know it feels like you do at the moment, but you don’t. You’re just upset.”
“Don’t patronize me, Astrid.” Isobel sniffed. “I hate him enough to shoot him or strangle him with my bare hands. And that isn’t love, it’s assassination.”
The duchess laughed and patted her rounded abdomen. It was only by chance that she’d accompanied Beswick to London, given her advanced state of pregnancy, and had sent a note of her arrival to Isobel only that afternoon. Apparently, Astrid had insisted she was s
ick of the country, and because the duke was so besotted and couldn’t deny his wife, she was here for the week. Isobel couldn’t have been more grateful for her sister’s presence.
“Trust me, I’ve felt the same with Thane on more than one occasion. But those we love have a certain knack for getting under our skins.”
Isobel blinked. “I don’t love Winter.”
“Don’t you?”
“He’s a rogue without a heart,” she said. “There’s not much there to love, trust me. He doesn’t want me here in London. He doesn’t want me at all. I’ve lost track of how many times he told me to go trotting back to Chelmsford like a good, biddable pet.” She paused for breath. “And let’s not talk about that club of his. Goodness, if you only knew!”
“I know about The Silver Scythe,” her sister said.
Momentarily thwarted from her tirade, Isobel gaped. “What?”
“It’s Beswick’s social club of choice. He frequents it for the gambling.” A secret smile touched her lips as she caressed her baby bump, making Isobel’s jaw drop to the floor. “Though we’ve visited the private side on occasion. Eight months ago to the day, in fact.”
“Astrid!” Isobel’s cheeks flushed red. “Did you know Winter owned it?”
She shook her head. “News to me, and I’m your older sister, Izzy, not a nun.” Her lips curled with a pointed glance to her swollen belly. “Obviously.”
“I don’t need to know the sordid details of your love life!” She sipped her tea and pulled a grimace. “Gracious, don’t you have anything stronger? I suddenly feel the need to wipe these images of you and Beswick conceiving my newest niece or nephew from my brain.”
She was only half joking. Her gaze slid to Astrid’s bump, nearly obscured by the clever design of her dress. One wouldn’t guess she was with child unless one looked, but pregnancy made her sister radiant. Isobel was unprepared for the brutal stroke of envy that slashed through her. She’d always hoped for children of her own, but that dream was now well and truly out of reach.
“Shouldn’t you be entering your confinement?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
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