Page 5 of Taken By the Broken Duke
“But, Father…!”
“This will not be undone. I will not allow you to drag the good name of this family into the mire you have created for yourself. Now, take it before I change my mind on that too.”
Horatio shook his head silently, feeling something inside tearing free. A gulf was opening inside him, as though he stood on an ice floe that had become separated from a larger berg and nowfloated on the open ocean. He saw the life he had lived drifting away from him. Saw the future he had expected even further over the horizon.
Including Jane.
“No. I will not,” he refused quietly.
Part of him ached to flee from the room, to saddle Thunder, his stallion since boyhood, and race to Jane’s home at Uffingdon Grange. But he could not bring himself to race towards the end that he knew faced him there. The end of his love affair. The end of the sunlit days of his youth. The end of a future in which he had seen himself as her husband... As father to her children…
Steeling himself, Horatio met his father’s glare—fear coiled in his stomach, but his resolve remained unbroken. He would bear the guilt of Marlingford’s death forever—a weight he deserved. But the malicious lies of Lady Meredith and Miss Juliet Semphill? Those, he refused to carry.
Drawing himself to his full height, he stepped back from the desk and clasped his hands firmly behind his back.
A flicker of a smile grazed across William’s face and he leaned backward, still holding out the promissory note. Then, he tore it across and let the pieces fall.
“Hmph. One last vestige of honor,” the old man muttered. “I did not think to see it. You have some strength in you boy.Some.”
“Disinherit me if you wish. Disown me. I will go into the world and make my own fortune however I may. I am not innocent. I could have chosen to refuse the duel, accepted the dishonor of cowardice. I chose to take up the gauntlet. I chose to fire. I will not deny my guilt. But, that is all that I am guilty of. Perhaps it is for the best. I do not think I wish to be the heir of a man who would believe others over his own blood.”
With that, he turned and strode from the room.
CHAPTER THREE
8 YEARS LATER, WETHERBY
Juliet smiled as she watched a swallow flit through the air ahead of her, exuberant and joyous. She brushed aside bronze hair made darker by sweat. The air was warm, made even warmer by the close-packed woods through which she walked. To either side, large ferns encroached on the path, bestowing feathery kisses as they brushed her cheek. Her dress left her shoulders bare and she relished the touch of the sunshine and the light breeze on her pale skin.
She could have followed the path blindfolded, having explored these woods many times since coming to live with her aunt and uncle as a youth. In fact, she wondered if she might just have spent more time out of doors since moving to Wetherby House than she had indoors. She lifted her face to the sun, where it shone through the trees, closing her eyes for a moment to test herself.
In a handful of steps, her bare foot caught a root and she tumbled into a cluster of ferns. Rolling onto her back, shegiggled at her own foolishness, gazing up at the blue sky framed by gorgeous green trees.
Burdop Wood lay just beyond the south boundary of her uncle Gilbert’s lands, as Baron of Swindon. The grounds of Wetherby House, seat of Lord Gilbert and his wife, Lady Margaret, had been sculpted and shaped to within an inch of their life by gardeners. Lawns were kept short by an army of men with scythes and flower beds were arranged in neat patterns, pruned, and carefully controlled. It looked colorful and, Juliet was sure, very pretty to the eyes of the Godwins.
But to her, there was no beauty like the natural world. Its riot of colors, shapes, and scents, in all its apparent chaos, was her idea of heaven.
“Juliet? Juliet! Drat you, where are you?” came a shrill, petulant voice.
It shattered the peaceful woodland, destroying the aura of relaxation that Juliet had felt. A tension grew within her, one that was always present whenever she was in company with her aunt, uncle, or Cousin Frances. It came from the need to hide who she truly was, to disguise the things she loved and was passionate about. The need to fit in with them.
Juliet stood, brushing at her skirts to remove any stray pieces of grass. Glancing around, she saw flashes of color in between the trees. A white dress and a blue one. Two women following the same path that Juliet had. No time to put her stockings on,she simply stepped into her shoes and concealed the stockings among the ferns. Then she trod out onto the path and waited.
Presently, a round-faced woman with dark hair and a pretty button nose appeared. Her looks were spoiled by the petulant pout of her lips and the way she narrowed her eyes upon the sight of Juliet.Frances Godwin, daughter of Gilbert and Margaret, cousin to Juliet, stood an inch taller than she. Frances was also heavy in the hip and bosom, while Juliet was willowy and graceful.
Behind her was a woman in a sky-blue dress carrying a small book in one hand. She shared Juliet’s fiery coloring, a characteristic both shared with Margaret Godwin who was sister to Juliet’s mother. She had the Godwin’s round features and button nose, of a height with her sister and sharing the womanly hips. While Frances looked like she was chewing on a sour crabapple, Edith smiled at the sight of Juliet. A little of Juliet’s tension eased at the sight of her younger cousin.
“I am here, Fran,” Juliet began, walking towards the two women.
“Frances,” Frances corrected testily.
“Were you looking for me?”
“We were. Mama sent us to fetch you,” Frances replied, bitterly.
She looked around the woods, carefully holding her skirts out of contact with anything living.
“There were no servants free to come and find you,” Edith put in from behind her sister.
