Page 5 of A Duke for Hire

“I am not waiting here for you, not after the scene you just caused. “Go, be quick. I shall be in the carriage.”

Seraphina nodded as Mary turned away from her, and as she made her way through the sea of stares, she kept her eyes locked on the affectionate looks from her friends.

“Seraphina, are you all right?” Theo whispered, holding her bag out to her.

“What an awful man,” Amelia offered, laying a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “He had no right to make such a scene!”

Seraphina forced a smile as a well of tears suddenly threatened to spring forth from her eyes. It was almost as if her friends’ kindness was too much, though she appreciated it greatly.

“I shall be fine,” she rasped, feeling her throat grow tight. “But Theodosia?”

“Yes, darling?” Theo answered immediately.

“I changed my mind. Call on your actor friend. I fear the measures my mother may force me to take if I do not get at least one dance soon.”

Hugo, Hugo stop! You shall kill him!

He deserves nothing less for what he has done to you! What he tried to do to me!

You are not Father! Dear, brother please, Stop!

Hugo felt blood on his hands, the splatters of it over his face. He roared, feeling a new type of wetness in his eyes as he pushed himself away.

You are not Father. You are not Father. You are not Father.

Hugo?

Hugo?

“Hugo?”

Tristan’s voice, not Leah’s, broke through Hugo’s memories. He blinked, and the past faded away. In its place came a view of the darkened, foggy London streets. The street lamps. The expanse of the Mayfair Fenwick house.

He turned to the man sitting opposite him in the carriage. Tristan Briarwood, his friend. The man that had made it possible for him to return to London.

“We’re here,” Tristan said.

Hugo nodded, and turned back to the view of the house.

“This is a good thing, Hugo,” Tristan urged. “Returning to London, I mean. Your father died six years ago. You are free. You have spent enough time in seclusion. It is time to move forward.”

Yes. It was true. The Monster of Merrivale had died in a true monstrous fashion. His heart, so full of alcohol and rage, had practically exploded in his chest, according to the autopsy. At the moment Hugo had been freed from his father’s abuse…and yet in a way, he still felt the monster’s blows railing against him from the inside at any given moment.

“So you and Leah keep telling me,” Hugo replied, a frown etched in his face.

Tristan raised a brow.

“You think we are wrong?”

No. He knew they weren’t wrong. He was thirty now, too old to be hiding from the world. It was time, as his friend said, to move forward. Begin a new journey…and find a wife. If for no other reason than to produce an heir. The Fenwick line had to continue. He just hoped that he wouldn’t make a beast of a father as his own had been. That, he knew, was what he was most afraid of.

“No,” Hugo sighed, forcing himself out of his somber attitude.

He reached forward and clapped his hand on Tristan’s knee— brief touch that still sent needles of discomfort rising from beneath his skin.

“You are right. I just…slipped. For a moment. Come, let us get out of this box and stretch our legs. I want to see what you’ve done with the house.”

Tristan gave him a smile of approval, and threw open the carriage door before waving his friend to go first. Hugo stepped out, stretching his confined muscles, and peered up at the looming London house. It looked exactly the same from the outside, but Hugo knew Tristan had been hard at work.

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