Page 6 of The Hidden Duchess

“The duke is old,” he let out an exasperated breath, grasping at straws. “It isn’t as if it will be forever.”

“No,” she let out a breath of disgust. “It could be a year or twenty, but even a day would be too much.”

“Darling,” he reached to brush a hand over her cheek but she backed away.

“Don’t touch me,” she spat. “Don’t you dare pretend that you care after all these years. What did he give you? What am I worth?” Disgust laced her words, and she looked directly into her father’s eyes before landing the final blow. “Or, are you simply so appalled by my presence that you’ve taken the first opportunity to send me away?”

The hurt in her father’s eyes was evident. It was as if he was seeing her clearly for the first time since her mother’s passing, seeing the hurt that he had caused her when he had only been thinking about his own pain.

“We have been brought to the point non plus,” he repeated.

“You say ‘we’ as if this has anything to do with you. It doesn’t. I am the one who will have to live with him. You can forget all about me. Forget that you even have a daughter. You would like it better that way.”

“Never!” he said vehemently.

She glared at her father, tears in her eyes. Glared at him with every ounce of anger that was roiling through her body. Anger and fear she realized but clamped down on the later before it could smother her. “You won’t be the one shipped off to become a tenant for life. You are selling me off like a slave. Mother would have protected me.

Her father’s face crumpled as if her words had struck true, and she was glad of it. “I am sorry I look so much like her,” she added as he drew himself up, took a deep breath and began to speak.

“You are aware that my first marriage was the result of an indiscretion, blasted calf-love, but there is more to that story than even the whispers could have told you.”

He sank into his chair defeated, and for a moment she remembered that she loved her father, but she would not give in. She could not.

“You think I do not know the plight of women,” he muttered. He cleared his throat and grimaced, as if saying these words aloud made him sick to his stomach. “She was my friend,” he said distractedly. “Once the duke and I were friends too,” he said sadly. “She said that another man, a lieutenant, had taken her… against her will. She begged me, to offer for her. Pleaded with me to defend her honor.”

“Who?” Caroline demanded.

“Anastasia. Anne, my first wife. She was the duke’s sister.”

Of course, Caroline remembered now, but she could not understand what this had to do with her. There was an indiscretion. They married and now she was dead.

“I did offer for her,” her father continued. “But I could not allow such injustice to stand. I sent a formal summons.” Father looked across the room as if he could see into history.

“Dueling papers?” Caroline had asked with disbelief.

He shrugged. “I was a fair shot. Besides, I thought the lieutenant would back down, or we would both fire in the air and honor would be served.”

She stared at her father. She couldn’t imagine him in a duel. He certainly had never mentioned it. Not this quiet, broken man. Still, in the defense of a lady’s honor…

“I sent the terms,” Father continued. “She would have been twice ruined and this time irrevocably. He was a base-born bastard, and she was so determined that her father never find out.” He released a sardonic huff.

“What happened?” Caroline asked with bated breath.

“He died.” Her father’s voice was a bare whisper. “One shot, and he died. I was aiming over his shoulder but the bullet grazed his neck.” Her father was silent, lost in the memory. His words, when he spoke again, were disjointed. “There was so much blood. He was dead in moments.”

Caroline put her hand upon her father’s arm to try to draw him away from the memories that had glazed his eyes. “You avenged her,” she murmured. “There is no shame to be had in that.”

“No,” he groaned covering his face with his hands.

“The lieutenantchoseto meet you,” Caroline said softly, trying to exonerate her father from his guilt. She knelt in front of him, her hands on his knees.

“I killed an innocent man.” Her father’s voice was tortured. She had never seen him so beside himself.

Caroline felt her blood run cold, but she could say nothing, only waited for her father to continue.

“He hadn’t taken her against her will,” he revealed. “It was she who seduced him.”

“Oh, Father,” she said softly.

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