Page 75 of The Rakehell of Roth
“Well played, brother,” Winter shot back. “So I did as I was bid and wed the chit. What does any of this have to do with her? I don’t even know why she’s here in town.”
“I warned you that your past would catch up to you one day. And now, because of you, this woman from your past is smearing our good name.”
Cursing under his breath, Winter walked over to the decanter and poured himself a drink, which he dispatched in one swallow. The brandy burned a path to his stomach, leaving clarity followed by no small amount of guilt in its wake. His brother was right. Itwashis own fault that he’d dallied with a woman of her vile nature in the first place, but he hadn’t made her any promises and there was never any child.
“I regret many of my actions, and until Prue’s death, I saw no reason to change,” he said with a sigh, raking a hand through his hair and pouring another drink with shaking fingers. “But answer me this, brother—why do you hate me so much?”
Oliver’s eyes flashed with resentment, though they darted over to where the duke sat for an infinitesimal moment. “No matter what I do, I can never measure up. Yet, you, the prodigal son, does as he pleases with no consequence. Hate doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“We are brothers.”
“Not so when you’re born on the other side of the blanket!” Oliver snarled.
Winter blinked, his brother’s odd reaction to being called a bastard suddenly making sense. Holy hell. Was Oliver a by-blow of Kendrick’s?
Their stares converged on the duke, who sat silent and ramrod still, his eyes showing no surprise whatsoever.Fuck, no.Winter felt a rush of resentment gather inside of him. What more indignities had his poor mother suffered at his hands! She’d confided in a young Winter, eyes glazed with laudanum, that the duke had never loved her and sought comfort elsewhere. But to bring his by-blow under the same roof? That was unconscionable.
“How could you do this?” Winter growled aloud. “To Mother?”
Two sets of eyes fastened on him—one full of regret, and the other laced with shame. “I did itforher,” the duke said and then turned to Oliver. “How long have you known?”
Winter frowned.For her?
Oliver clenched his fists. “Since I was a boy. She told me herself that you were not my father. I’ve had to live with that shame in silence for years, while he”—he spared Winter with a fulminating glance—“flaunted his name about like filth. A name I could never truly have.”
Winter’s rage ebbed and flowed in confusion. Stunned, he opened his mouth and shut it. None of this made sense. Hisfatherwas the adulterer. At least, that was what his mother had always claimed. “You’re lying,” he said.
“About what, brother dear? About your conduct or the fact that I’m a bastard?”
“You’re my son,” Kendrick said. “Just as Winter is.”
Oliver laughed. “None of your blood runs in my veins, Duke.”
“Blood doesn’t always make a family. Loyalty does, choice and sacrifice.” The duke tilted his head back as his nose started to bleed anew, wheezing painfully. “And love, if you can be brave enough to earn it.”
The last hit Winter like a fist to the gut. Love—the thing that had sent his mother to madness and led Prue to her death.
“What would you know anything of love?” he bit out.
“I wasn’t the perfect father, but you were my children.Allof you,” he added with a pointed glance at Oliver. “Your mother was jealous, inventing liaisons that did not exist whenever I left Kendrick Abbey for my duties in parliament. I loved her, gave her you, but it was not enough. It was never enough. Oliver was simply her way of punishing me.”
Winter was reeling at the bald admission from a man who always shied away from any squeak of scandal. “Who’s his father?”
“I am,” Kendrick said tiredly. “Who sired him doesn’t matter one whit. It never has.”
The look on Oliver’s face was so fleeting that if Winter hadn’t been looking at him, he would have missed it. But for a heartbeat, the man looked dazed.
“She said you cuckolded her.”
“I meant my vows.”
Winter could not fathom that Oliver wasn’t Kendrick’s biological son. After all this time, he’d never suspected. Oliver had modeled himself after the duke so thoroughly that he physically resembled the man. Though as Winter compared them as they’d stood there, the differences were clear. Despite their identical stances—hands clasped behind their backs, imperious chins tilted just so—Oliver was stockier than the duke, his shoulders broader. Their hair and eyes were similar shades, but while the duke’s mane leaned toward black, Oliver’s had reddish tints.
How had Winter notknown?
No wonder Oliver hated him so much. Where had Prue fit in to all of this? Hadsheknown? Hell and damnation, he’d been so caught up in his own life—his own stupid agenda of destroying the Vance name—that he hadn’t paid his little sister any mind. Until it had been much too late…until he’d lost her. Winter blamed himself for that, too.
“Did Prue know?” he muttered.
