Page 54 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
The resentment was new. It had arrived the day he walked into Valeria’s entrance hall and realized that the life those men took for granted, the meals and the laughter and the warmth of a woman’s hand, was the life he had given up without ever knowing what it cost.
“Do ye remember the man in Bruges?” he asked quietly. “The one George wanted me to have imprisoned?”
Peter’s face tightened. He remembered.
“I went to his house. I was going to take him. George said he was dangerous. A threat to the Crown. I had the warrant. I had the authority. But then I looked through the window and saw him.” Edward paused. His voice was steady, but his hands were not. “He was sitting on the floor with his two boys, building something with wooden blocks. The youngest kept knocking down the tower, and the man would laugh and build it again. Every time. Patient. Happy. And I knew. I knew George had lied to me. The man was not a threat. George was having an affair with his wife, and they had convinced me that he was dangerous so I would remove him.”
Peter went very still.
“I let him be,” Edward continued. “Went to the orphanage instead. The next morning, I asked the Queen to let me come home.” He looked down at his hands. “That is why I am here, Peter. Not for the title. Not for the money. But because I looked through a window and saw a man being a father, and I realized I had been a weapon long enough.”
George stared at him. For a moment, the mask slipped. Not much. A crack. Underneath it, Edward saw something he had not expected. Not anger. Not calculation. But loss. George was losing him, and he knew it. The knowledge sat on his face like a bruise before he covered it again with the smooth, polished mask he showed the world.
“Ye are welcome to the wedding,” Edward added, his voice a touch less hard. “Both of ye. But yer identities would not be safe, with all of the ton there. Ye can come to my bride’s masquerade ball instead.”
“A masquerade ball.” Peter brightened. “I do enjoy a good mask.”
“You enjoy anything that involves free food and music,” George scoffed.
“I also enjoy not being stabbed, which is why I left the Crown’s service.” Peter looked at Edward. “Are you sure you’re ready to give all of this up? To settle down?”
“I’ve already done so, friend.”
“And children?” Peter probed. “Are you ready to have children and become as civilized as possible?”
Edward fell quiet for a moment. The fire popped. Somewhere below, a door opened and closed.
He thought about William, Thomas, Samuel, and Ruth with her borrowed books. He thought about the boy he had been, sleeping under bridges. He thought about the men he had killed, the rooms he had left, and the years he could not take back.
“No,” he uttered. “After what we’ve seen, I don’t care to be a father.”
“Then why stay here?” George asked, his voice stripped down now. No performance. No polish. “This was your whole life, Edward. Everything you are.”
“And I’m grateful I had a life after my parents died. But I don’t know if it’s the life I’d have chosen for myself.” Edward looked at his scarred knuckles. A lifetime of scar tissue. “I’ve seen enough. I’d like to be oblivious for once.”
“You can’t say that,” George protested. “It was your whole life.”
“And I’m grateful for it. But it’s over.”
Silence.
George drained his brandy.
Peter watched them both with the careful attention of a man who could feel the ground shifting between two people he cared about and could not stop it.
“Well,” George said, setting his glass down. His smile was back. The crack sealed over. “I suppose congratulations are in order. To the Duke and his Duchess. May they bore each other senseless.”
“George,” Peter warned.
“It’s a jest. Nothing more.” George stood up and buttoned his coat. “I will attend your masquerade, Edward. I would not miss it for the world.”
He said it lightly, but Edward heard the edge underneath. The promise of something that was not quite a threat. He had heard that tone before, in rooms where polite men did impolite things.
George left first. The door closed, and the room felt lighter, the way a room did when a storm passed.
Peter waited until his footsteps faded.
“He’s not taking this well,” he said.
