Page 72 of The Duke's Cursed Bride
He nodded. “I hate to admit it, but his death shook me.”
“That’s not something you should be afraid to admit,” she said. “Of course it would have an impact on you.”
“I’d like to be able to say that he didn’t matter to me at all,” Thomas said. “I hoped that after he died, I would simply be able to forget about him. To write him out of my life as if he had never been a part of it.”
“Is that because of the gambling?”
“It isn’t only the gambling.” He hesitated. “Do you remember the night we met?”
“At the ball.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” He sipped his tea, and she had the impression he was trying to decide what he wanted to say. “I’m talking about…thefirsttime we met.”
“Oh.”
Of course she remembered. She would never forget it as long as she lived.
Sally had been running ahead of her on one of their night walks, and suddenly she had started barking frantically. Worried, Madeleine had hurried after her, wondering if the dog had gotten into an altercation with an animal or something, but it hadn’t been that at all.
She’d found Sally sitting beside a man—Thomas, though of course she hadn’t known that at the time—and panting anxiously. Thomas had been bone-white in the moonlight, barely conscious, and after a moment, she’d realized that he was soaked in blood.
She would never forget those fearful moments kneeling beside his prone body and trying to stop the flow of blood, feeling it spilling hot over her fingers and wondering if the man in front of her was taking his last breaths.
“I remember,” she said. “Of course I remember.”
“I was attacked that night because of my father,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“He owed so many debts. Back in those days, before all the work I did after he died to settle his debts, our family used to live in fear all the time. I was constantly worried that someone would come knocking at the door, demanding money, and threatening us. It happened from time to time. And when my carriage was ambushed that night, I knew at once what the reason was. Someone had discovered who was inside and knew that attacking me was a good way to get to my father.”
“You could have been killed. You nearly were.”
“I know. And I thought that one day Father and I would talk about that. I thought he would apologize to me for putting me in that situation. I thought he would admit that it was his fault and make a change. If something I’d done had nearly caused the death of one of my family members, I would have been shocked into changing everything.”
Madeleine nodded. “I can understand that feeling very well,” she said. “When I thought I was responsible for my family’s deaths, everything changed.”
“You tried to seal yourself off from the world. And there was no need, in your case, because youweren’tresponsible for what happened to them! Not at all! No one with any common sense could have thought you were responsible for that. But anyone could see my father was responsible for what happened to me.”
“I’m guessing he never acknowledged that?”
“To tell you the truth, he never had the chance,” Thomas said. “He died just days after the attack. I don’t know what he would have said if he’d had time to say it, but as it is, we never got to talk about what happened…and now he’s gone, and we never will.”
“I’m so sorry,” Madeleine said quietly. “That must be so hard to live with. I never realized it was like that for you. I knew you’d had a difficult relationship with your father, but to have him die with such vital things still unsaid…I can only imagine how that must weigh on you.”
“It does,” he said. “I wish I could know what he thought about it all. Either way. If I knew for sure that he didn’t think he was to blame for the fact that I was almost killed, if I knew he didn’t regret anything he’d done that led to it, at least I could hate him in peace. But I don’t know. I don’t know what he would have said to me or if he would have said anything at all. How can I be angry with him when there’s a chance he might have been looking for a way to beg my forgiveness?” He sighed. “But how can I forgive him when I don’t know if he ever would have asked me to?”
“I don’t know how you live with that,” Madeleine admitted. “It sounds very painful.” She couldn’t help feeling lucky, and that wasn’t a feeling she had often when she thought about the things she had lost. But at least her final words with the members of her family had been pleasant and full of love. She would never have to doubt their feelings for her. She knew, and always would, that her parents had cared for her, and nothing could take that away from her now that they were gone.
“I think it’s always painful to lose someone,” Thomas murmured. “It’s true that losing my father was very hard on me because of the bad feeling between us. But I’m sure that what you went through with your family was just as difficult for its own reasons.”
She drew a breath, surprised to find herself near tears.
“You could talk to me about them,” he said softly. “If you wanted to. I’d like to know about your family, Madeleine. They’re a part of you.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“Anything you’d like to tell me,” he assured her.
