Page 77 of A Virgin for the Rakish Marquess

James had never seen him like this. Not when his mother died. Not when he left. Not ever. And now, he didn’t know what to do. He should feel relieved, satisfied, vindicated. He didn’t. Because, for all his father’s failures, for all the years of neglect, he had never once imagined this—this broken man before him.

“I am so sorry, son,” Solomon said between sobs. “I failed you. I abandoned the only good thing I had left.”

James had to sit. His legs could no longer support him. He never imagined how much he longed to hear those words.

He exhaled as if he was exhaling for the first time in years. Solomon looked up at him, and James’s jaw dropped at the sheer grief he saw on his father’s usually stony face.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, James. I have no right to even ask that. I just had to make sure…”

“Sure of what?” James whispered.

“That you wouldn’t be alone. I know you hate me, and Mother… Mother is old. I couldn’t bear the thought that you’d waste away alone.”

James sat back in surprise as Solomon chuckled bitterly.

“And I dragged that brilliant girl into it.”

Diana.

“I thought that perhaps she could be… And you like spending time with her. So, I figured I would get to know the man you are now, how you’ve grown from the boy I knew so well.”

James felt his eyes sting and balled his fists.

“I was right here,” he muttered.

“You were.” Solomon shook his head. “But I was a coward. Fearing that you’d tell me all the things you just told me. Fearing that’d hear the person I love most in the world lay out all my failures.”

Love.

James’s jaw tensed, and he shook his head to keep his body in check. This was not… He didn’t know what he expected would happen when he came in determined to confront his father, but this was not it.

“I don’t know, James.” Solomon let his body sag on the chair. “I don’t know how to fix it.”

Then, he looked straight at him, his eyes bloodshot from crying. His look was soft, caring. The look James hadn’t seen since he was a boy.

“But I will die trying, my boy.”

James got up and went straight to the sideboard. He filled two glasses of brandy and handed one to his father. The two men looked at each other and then downed their drinks.

James looked at his empty glass as if it held the mysteries of the world. Then, he looked at his father.

“I don’t know if it can’t be fixed,” he admitted. “But we can try.”

Solomon sat up.

“On my terms,” James added.

Solomon didn’t care. He nodded with a strained smile on his lips. His body leaned toward James, but he held back. His lips were trembling.

“Thank you, my boy.”

“I never said?—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Solomon had never looked more alive. “Even this is more than I deserve.”

James poured more brandy for both of them, and they drank while watching the crackling fire.

“Sheis something extraordinary, though.”

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