Page 75 of My Cruel Duke

He had lost the light in his eyes, and a permanent scowl sat on his face.

“Good day, Father,” Penny managed a smile in his direction. Wilson Hislop did not return the smile. Instead, he turned his face away from her.

“What do you need? Where is Patrick? He said he would come to visit.”

Penny pressed her lips together. Of course, Penny knew that Patrick had visited their father a few times since his return, while she had not visited him in a while but he could not even pretend to be happy to see her. Before now, he would at least smile in her direction when she spoke or called him father, but it seemed his frown only tightened when she spoke.

Now, Penny saw his frowns for what they were. He never loved her like a father would love a child. She remembered his words vividly as if he said them to her just the day before;

“I refuse to father a bastard.” Penny still had a hard time understanding that phrase. Her father was suggesting that she was not his daughter. It was part of the truths she came to learn.

Penny cleared her throat and raised her hands, placing them on the rather neat round table that separated them.

“I did not come to talk to you about Patrick, Father.”

Her father released a grunt in response.

“I married a duke, and I am expecting my first child,” she announced. He peeked at her through the sides of his eyes but said nothing.

“Lydia is getting married soon to a marquess. He is a really good man. An associate of my husband.”

He sighed. “You did a good job,” he said dismissively, as though he was not impressed that his daughters had been removed from poverty and ruin.

“But Father, all these good news are not the reason I have come. I came to find out the truth about my accident. I want to know what happened to me all those years ago. How did I end up in the lake?” Wilson stilled visibly and readjusted himself almost too quickly that Penny almost missed it.

“What more do you want to know? I told you everything that happened. Your mother tried to kill you and I saved you. That is all the truth you need to know,” Wilson Hislop spat.

“That is all the truth I needed to know, the truth I believed for years. But that is not the truth, is it?”

Wilson clicked his teeth and chuckled darkly.

“I have regained my memories,” a tear slipped out of her eyes.

Wilson snapped his gaze toward her. “What do you mean by that? The doctors said there was a possibility you would never regain them.”

“You missed out on the possibility that they could be regained. They have, and in my memories, I did not see Mama pushing me into the lake. What truly happened on that day?”

Chapter36

Rhysand could not sit still or seem to know how to stop his legs from bobbing repeatedly on the hard concrete floors.

Penelope had been in there for too long, and he did not trust the conversation was all sunshine and giggles. He needed to be by her side immediately.

“You know he cannot hurt her while they are in there, right?” Patrick said with a raised brow at him.

Always disrespectful as ever. The entire family was, and Rhysand liked to think they must have gotten the wicked trait from their mother. It could not have come from Wilson Hislop. The trait was far too exciting for a man as stiff as him.

“You do not know that,” Rhysand replied, “he tried to kill her once, he might do it again.” It was a sickening fact to process. How could a father do that to his daughter?

“GET OUT OF HERE, PENELOPE!” Wilson Hislop’s voice boomed from behind the closed door Rhysand had been leaning against.

With a speed no one would rival, Rhysand pulled the door open, his eyes finding Penny first. He found her. She was sitting comfortably, staring at her father with a lethal calmness. She was not fazed by the sound of this voice.

“I cannot leave until you tell me the truth,” her voice was firm. Soft and firm.

“Patrick, you are here!” Wilson directed his gaze to the man behind him, and quickly changed his expression.

“What ishedoing here!?” His voice hardened as he met Rhysand’s eyes and he directed back to his son. Patrick said nothing. “Son, take your sister away from here. I need to speak with you. Alone.” Wilson folded his arms.

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