Page 72 of Her Ruse with the Rakish Duke
“I do?—”
It was a risk saying it out loud. He couldn’t take it back once uttered. It would become all too real. “Mother, I really do not want to talk about this anymore.” He made to leave but his mother snapped at him.
“If you keep living this life of isolation you will end up just like him.” She steadied her weight on his desk. Her eyes softened and she shakily settled into the chair. “I do not mean to be so harsh, but I cannot watch my son become a living corpse.”
Her words stung. It was a direct jab, ripping open wounds he had barely managed to keep closed.
He wasn’t willingly living the way he did, but every time he tried to escape his father, it felt as though he was always there. His claws pressed into his back. His back still burned on some days, each cicatrix held a memory. A gut-wrenching reminder of what his father had done.
The wounds would eventually heal. One day, he would forget what pain was. But without the burning to give him purpose, he knew exactly what he would become.Whohe would become.
No matter how he tried to deny it, he was his father’s son.
“You’re nothing like your father. You aremyson.” She read the conflict on his face. She had the skill. After years of avoiding speaking, she learned to read every one of his expressions. She understood his posture, every quirk of his lips meant something and she accurately predicted his feelings. She had said his eyes always betrayed what he was thinking but in all honesty, she had been resigned to his silence for so long that she had to grasp at any measure to understand her son.
“He has made you bleed all the Anderson blood in you. Now, you possess only my blood.” She was determined and indignation laced her words.
“I care too much about her to risk it. I will hurt her.” He was sure.
“And you think what you’re doing is shielding her from any pain?”
He flinched.
The way Daphne had looked at him the evening she left his room… He could tell he had hurt her. Tears were brimming in her eyes. But it was necessary. A necessary pain to avoid disaster. Yet it felt gut-wrenchingly awful.
He had wanted to take her into his arms and promise to never hurt her. He wanted to make her stay in that room with him forever. They would do nothing but embrace one another. They could have had peace there. Nothing could have angered him, nothing could have hurt her.
It was too whimsical to dream.
“It’s more bearable than what my father inflicted upon you.” His tone was harsh and he saw how his words invited the ghost of the late duke to wrap around her.
The dowager was strong, she shrugged it off and it hissed. “You will not lay your hands on her. I am certain of it.”
“That’s not the only thing he did to you.”
His father’s cheating was a respite from the torture. It gave them a break from him. They welcomed it, but it was also a trait that could have been passed down to him. What if he started looking at other women after he’d married Daphne? He had never wanted any other woman since meeting her, but the specter of his father hung right above him. In his solitude, he wouldn’t have to fight the urges. There would be no one to protect. No one to harm.
He was tired. Tired of being him. Tired of being his father’s son. His fears were a weight on his shoulders. A rope around his neck, endlessly choking him.
“It’s the only way I can protect her,” he said this more to himself than to his mother.
His resolve was waning. He wanted her, wanted to deserve her. He wanted the assurance that one day he would. The scars on his back were the biggest sign that he would never deserve her.
“I intend to rid myself entirely from her life.”
“But what about your happiness?” she asked.
She was a mother. She believed he came first, and was deserving. If she wasn’t his mother, she would have thought otherwise. Her judgment was clouded by love.
“I will survive. I always have.”
Cold and resigned. He was used to those feelings. Everyone was safe when he wasn’t feeling. Daphne would be safe far away from him.
“Why can’t you let yourself be loved?” He turned away; she read his eyes too well.
The Dowager still didn’t understand after everything she’d been through. It wasn’t fair to gamble with someone’s life, someone’s happiness. She had been a result of that gamble.
“When I am dead, I want you to swear over my grave that you’ll find a wife.”
