Page 76 of My Cruel Duke

“Penny told me what you tried to do to her.” Patrick frowned, “Why did you do it?”

“So, you believe her, over me? Your father?” Wilson’s voice was stern with no vestige of sympathy in its hardness.

“I have not heard your side of the story, and from my understanding of what is happening right now, you are unwilling to tell it.” Patrick returned to his father the very amount of hardness. Put together in a room like this, they were the exact same. A son cut out from his father’s clothes.

It made Rhysand wonder if he was anything like his father had been. He doubted he was. His father had not been named the Cruel Duke in his time; instead, he had been the most selfless and kindest Duke of Huxton. His eyes fell down to Penelope, who seemed to sense his gaze and look up at him.

If she gave birth to a son, would he be anything like him? Rhysand wished he would not. He would rather his son take every aspect of his mother. Her beautiful smile, her kind heart, her will to fight for what she believes, her strength to look after her loved ones. Her creativity and her smartness. Yes, he would prefer his son be a copy of his mother, and nothing like him, because there he stood, fantasizing about his future family, while his wife’s family were at each other’s throats.

“…it might be your only redemption. Tell us what happened that afternoon, and after,” Patrick demanded.

Wilson sighed. His creased brows straightened.

“Your mother used to be a bright girl. She came from a strict family. As you know, your grandfather was a vicar, and so naturally, your mother grew up in a closed environment. She was smart, she read books, she had a clear plan of what she wanted her life to be. I liked that about her and asked her to marry me. After she gave birth to you,” Wilson’s sad eyes met Patrick’s, “she was the happiest I had ever seen her but then something changed. She changed. She did not smile, dance, and laugh as much as she used to. She claimed my love for her ran cold and I preferred my work to her company. A silly excuse if you ask me…”

Rhysand felt a wave of guilt course through his entire body.

“Eventually, she went into the warm arms of another man and conceived a child. After many years of ignorance, I stumbled on the fact that Penelope was the product of her scandalous affair that she concealed as mine. A bastard.”

“Watch the way you speak about her. She is a duchess,” Rhysand defended, but Wilson scoffed.

“I agreed to let the child live in my house, with my family, bearing my name, but it was not enough. Your mother came to me one evening and declared she did not want to be married to me anymore. She claimed she had fallen in love with her frequent lover, the father of her love child, and wanted to elope with him, taking their child with them to start a new family,” Wilson paused and shook his head, “I could not believe my ears. I had suffered the humiliation of finding out that a child I once held as mine was not mine, and keeping that child in my house regardless, and suddenly, she wanted to leave? I refused to let my image be tarnished by such a promiscuous whore, and so I did what I had to do.” Penny winced at her father’s choice of words in describing the woman he once loved. Her mother.

She never would have guessed that her mother would do such a thing. No wonder her mother paid extra attention and care to her, because she knew Penny could sense the difference in the way she was being treated. Penny would never have guessed that Wilson Hislop was not her father. Heavy beads of tears dropped on the back of her hands.

“So, what are you saying? You killed mother?” Patrick asked the obvious.

“If I killed the love child and her mother, my reputation would stay intact. It would be a tragedy; I would earn people’s sympathy as a widower.”

Penny gasped at her father’s words. Perhaps she should stop referring to him as Father.

“Things did not work out as planned. Huxton had to show up at that very moment, with his son,” Rhysand’s brow rose a fraction. He could vaguely recall the moment, now that Wilson Hislop spoke about it. He had been out with his father to the park where he heard the desperate screams of the little girl. He quickly called his father’s attention to the matter and it was resolved.

The man claimed he saved the girl from drowning, but he had seen it when the man threw the little girl into the water. So that man had been Wilson Hislop.

“Your mother was long gone by the time we returned, and the fake suicide letter I had written was found on her desk. That woman did not deserve to leave me after what she did to me so I poisoned her.”

“All this while I loathed Mother because you told me she tried to kill Penny, and she died because she was not faithful to you. How could you murder your own wife instead of letting her go?” The pain in Patrick’s voice could not be rivaled by another, Penny could tell. Patrick loved their mother dearly, and she had taken her last breath in his arms. He held that memory dear to his heart despite how heart-wrenching it was.

“I never want to see you again,” Patrick spat.

“Patrick!” Wilson called but Patrick walked out of the door.

“This is all your fault!” Wilson lunged at Penny, but Rhysand was quick to stop him, pinning his hands down.

“If you ever try to lay your hands on my wife again, I will kill you with my bare hands,” Rhysand whispered in the older man’s ears and pulled away.

He thought it was bad enough that the man had killed his family, but Wilson Hislop killed his wife and showed no remorse whatsoever in his attempt at drowning his daughter.

“Perhaps you should spend the rest of your life behind bars for all the innocent lives you have taken. You need to pay for your crimes!” Rhysand spat.

“The only crime I committed was getting married to that whor—”

“You killed my family!” Rhysand almost yelled. Penny, whose left shoulders had accommodated Rhysand’s arms could attest to the anger that coursed through his body when he squeezed her shoulders as he spoke. Wilson shook his head.

“Have you lost your mind, boy? Your family’s death has nothing to do with me. I did not kill your family.”

How dare this man lie to his face? Did he not know that he had been there that afternoon?

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