Page 24 of Ravished By the Beastly Duke

“I am well, Your Grace.” He smiled. “I assume you aren’t here to only enjoy the flowers today.”

She saw him glance at the list in her hand and nodded.

“I would like to make some changes in the gardens,” she told him, before explaining some of them.

He nodded, smiling excitedly. “I am sure His Grace will be very pleased with your ideas, Your Grace.”

“Indeed?” she asked.

She wanted to erect a pavilion right in the middle of the gardens, where she could have tea on days when the weather was favorable as well as include some of her favorite flowers.

“Indeed. The garden is one of his favorite places in the castle.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, wondering what else he might know about her husband. She wanted to ask, but itseemed improper to coax information out of a member of his staff.

“Is anything the matter, Your Grace?” Wilson asked. “Have I said the wrong thing?”

“Not at all,” she was quick to assure him. “You just seem to know the Duke well.”

“Oh, I know many things about His Grace.” Wilson smiled. “He was a rather simple lad, finding joy in the littlest things. I taught him all he knew about flowers, since he spent a lot of time in the garden.”

“Why did he like the garden so much?” Eveline inquired with a smile, trying to picture the dark-haired and blue-eyed lad her husband had been.

She would have thought he had taken to play and exercise, as young boys were wont to do.

“The garden was the one place he found refuge from his father,” Wilson answered, dropping the shears he had been holding as his face took on a solemn look.

Eveline frowned at the sadness in his words.

Why would the Duke have needed refuge from his father?

Nothing short of abuse would cause a boy who should be learning at his father’s side to flee.

“Did… Did the Duke’s father…” She tried to ask the question, but the words felt too heavy, too forbidden to escape her mouth. “Was he an unkind man?”

Wilson nodded. “Every time His Grace disappointed his father, a lashing was sure to follow.” A lone tear ran down his sun-weathered cheek. “It was a sad thing to see, as His Grace was so small and sickly when he was a wee lad.”

Eveline felt a pang of sadness in her chest as she pictured a younger version of her husband weeping because of his father’s anger.

“Why did his father treat him so?” she asked angrily. “Where was his mother? Why couldn’t she stop the injustice done to him?”

Why would any woman allow her son to be treated so terribly?

Wilson’s face darkened further, and he lowered his head.

“The Duchess died birthing him,” he answered grimly. “That was why his father hated him so. His mother designed this garden right after she married his father, and after she died, he never stepped foot in it again. That was why His Grace came here whenever he was sad. It was the only place he could find solace from his father’s anger.”

Eveline clapped a hand over her mouth and lowered her head. Guilt hit her hard for misjudging the woman who had birthed the Duke, and she felt sad as she empathized with what her husband had experienced in his childhood. The pain she felt for him was so strong that it winded her.

To be blamed and treated by his father in such a terrible way for the loss of his mother was a more terrible fate than the snobbery she and her sisters had endured from their father. She had thought her pain immense, but now she knew that her husband had suffered more than she had.

How could she ever look at him again without letting it slip that she knew?

She looked at the castle again, seeing the grey walls with new eyes as she pictured the Duke as a little boy cowering in the gardens.

It was a blessing that his mother had created this haven even if it wasn’t used as intended.

“I am happy to see that you have kept the gardens so well, Wilson,” Eveline offered. “I shall rethink my decision to make any changes beyond what is appropriate. I do not want to take too much away from the design. The Duke needs this connection to his mother.”

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