Page 90 of A Virgin for the Duke of Thorns

Lady Wellington’s eyes flashed fiercely at that utterance. “I will have you keep a civil tongue in my presence, young man.”

“I am sorry, Grandmother. Do carry on.”

He wanted to know just how his parents managed to marry each other with his mother still pining after the man who deliberately used her and broke her heart.

“Eleanor had become somewhat of a pariah by that time, but that did not stop your father. He was madly in love with your mother and was determined to save her as long as she agreed to it.”

Colin was surprised. “She did?”

Lady Wellington nodded. “She did, and your father claimed responsibility for everything that had happened to her. Shortly after the wedding, it was leaked that the man who had been with Eleanor was the Duke of Blackthorn all along. Overnight, your mother was reinstated to her former glory—even more so now that she had become a duchess.”

“But she never forgot this Jacob Grantham, did she?”

“Sadly, no.” His grandmother shook her head. “And to make matters worse, he contacted her just shortly after Evelyn was born.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he had all but squandered the money your grandfather had given him, even though it was enough for him to live on for at least two decades,” she told him simply.

“The sheer audacity!”

“Absolutely!” Lady Wellington agreed. “This intermittent correspondence of theirs caused your father endless worrying. It became the cause of a great rift between them until… well, you already know what happened.”

He sucked in a harsh breath. From his conversation with Daniel, he had a vague idea of the problem that came between his parents. He had not known it was this bad.

Or that he would actually feel some sympathy for the father he once hated.

Still, there was one question he had been meaning to ask his grandmother ever since he found out the truth.

“Was this the reason they fought the day of the fire?” Colin inquired softly.

Lady Wellington sighed. “You have to know that a fight between your parents was not the cause of the fire, Colin. Your mother had been driven mad with grief when she learned of Jacob Grantham’s demise. She set her rooms on fire herself.”

* * *

It had been hours since his grandmother had left him to ruminate on the truth about the past, and Colin still could not sleep. He remained seated before his desk, the letters from Jacob Grantham stacked neatly before him.

His father had not killed his mother after all—he had gone in to die with her.

It was her heartbreak from losing the man she had loved with all her heart that had driven her insane with grief. The same man who knowingly used her for his own selfish means.

His father’s angry outbursts had not been born out of rage and jealousy but the frustration he was forced to endure as the woman he loved more than anything else in the world sacrificed bits and pieces for a man who was too selfish to ever love her back.

Colin did not know if he would have the same patience and compassion his father had displayed throughout the years if he had been in his place.

In the end, he had misunderstood the man who had been the Duke of Blackthorn. If he was ever so fortunate, he would grow to be half the man that his father had been.

Instead, he had spurned the one woman who selflessly gave all of herself to him. If Richard Fitzroy could see him now, he would probably be so disappointed in his choices.

Unlike his father, though, Colin still had the chance to change everything. He could still beg for Alice’s forgiveness and spend the rest of his life making it up to her. If she wanted him on his knees, groveling from this moment until the end of time, he would do it.

But how was he going to start? How was he going to make up for all the heartache he had caused her?

If she turned him away without even seeing him, she would be well within her rights to do so.

And then, he remembered something.

He stood up and strode over to a bookshelf behind his desk. His hands gently caressed the spines of several rare books, the cheapest of which would fetch a price that could feed a small family for a year or two. He stopped at a particular book, bound in dark leather.

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