Page 60 of The Duke's Only Desire

Heaving out a harsh breath, he rolled onto his back and laid his forearm over his eyes. “You won’t like what I have to tell you.”

“I need to know.” She called upon all her restraint to keep from closing the distance between them, knowing she would only cause him to move further away. “It’s not about only you anymore. You’ve brought me into it, and I need to know what role I played that night.”

His arm fell away, and she was certain this time it wasn’t a breath that passed his lips but a muted curse.

She sat up and pulled the covers around her to stop her shivering, even though she knew it wasn’t from the cool air. “You’d stopped to visit me in London, that fortnight before,” she prompted, and every whispered word felt like a bomb ready to go off. “On your way home to Ravenscroft for the wedding.”

“Ravenscroft wasn’t my home,” he corrected, and she could sense the anger lingering beneath his surface, still smoldering even after all these years. “It hadn’t been for a very long time. But I was expected to be here and couldn’t beg off. I’d been charged by our father with making certain John didn’t cause any trouble before the wedding, and as his best man, I was the one who was supposed to have made certain he arrived at the church on time.” His jaw tightened so hard the vein in his neck throbbed. “Instead, I killed him.”

Sophie’s heart lurched into her throat, but somehow, she kept her face stoic.

“I did it because he had you,” he admitted, “and not because I wanted the dukedom, not even because I hated him, although Icertainly did.” He turned his head on the pillow to boldly fix his gaze on hers. “He’d gone missing the night before your wedding. I went looking for him and found him tupping a barmaid in the barn.”

Her body turned numb.

“He didn’t care that I’d caught him with another woman the night before he was supposed to have married you, or that he was foxed to the gills and would be a sopping mess for the ceremony. A disgrace of a newlywed husband.” His hand fisted against the mattress. “Worse—the things he said about you…”

She somehow managed to find her voice enough to ask, “What did he say?”

He shook his head and looked up at the dark bed canopy overhead, and with that determined gesture, she knew he wouldnevertell her.

“He was going to be cruel to you,” he said instead, “and there wouldn’t have been anything you could have done to stop him. No matter how awful he was, you could never leave him because your family didn’t have twenty thousand pounds to forfeit. You would have had to ruin your family to escape him, and you never would have done that. John knew it and was prepared to wield it against you, just because he hated the idea of marrying you.”

Sophie swallowed. Hard. She hadn’t known any of this.

“He was right about one thing—Iwasjealous of him. You were going to be his, and I would never have your love.”

“But you did have it,” she whispered, barely louder than a breath.And always would.

If he’d heard her, he ignored it. “He threw a punch at me, and I hit the bastard.” His voice came cold and distant. “He was so drunk that he could barely remain on his feet, but he kept on. So did I. Finally, I knocked him down hard enough that he didn’t get back up. That was when I knew I had to leave, or I would kill him right then. That’s how much I hated him.” He blew outa harsh breath. “I was halfway to the house before I turned back and saw the flames. We’d knocked over a lantern in the fight, and the barn was on fire.”

“But you rushed inside to try to save him.” She rested her hand on his chest, right over his heart. “You didn’t murder him.”

“I wanted him dead, and he died, as surely as if I’d killed him with my bare hands.”

She curled her fingers into his chest. “When you left him, he was still alive, and you—”

“No difference. In my heart, I wanted him dead so I could have you for myself, and he died that night from the punches I threw and the fire I helped start.”

A burning tightened her chest so painfully that she winced. “That’s why you think you earned those scars.”

“I know so. They say that when God wants to punish you, he answers your prayers.” He turned onto his side, fully facing her in the dark shadows. “I’ve wondered every moment since if that fire wasn’t my punishment for all the deeds I’d done in the wars…for all the men I’d killed, all the women and children whose homes I’d helped destroy.” He paused, and in that brief silence, Sophie felt the weight of the anguish and desolation he still carried. “For coveting what my brother had.”

“It wasn’t murder,” she assured him. “It was an accident.”

“My father didn’t think so. Neither did Malcolm. They both blamed me for John’s death, although for different reasons.” When she held her breath, fearing they had blamed her, he brought her hand to his lips and placed a kiss to her palm, as if reading her mind. “Malvern blamed me because I’d failed to deliver John safely into matrimony. The old man had somehow been convinced that John would be the savior of the dukedom, sire dozens of heirs, and keep his marriage together the way he had failed with his own wife.”

Which was why the late duke had taken such pains with the betrothal contract. He didn’t want John to be abandoned and humiliated by a fleeing wife the same way he had.

“Father had always been blind when it came to John’s character and thought I was the misguided son. But our mother knew better.” He lowered his gaze away from hers. “One of the last memories I have of Mother before she left was a comment she’d made about John that she didn’t think I’d overheard…that fate had made a cruel joke in letting her bear the better son second.”

Sophie could not disagree. “And why did Malcolm blame you?”

“He thought I did it to inherit the dukedom, most likely because that exact same thought had occurred to him several times when he’d been the heir apparent.”

Sophie bit her lip. Having met his uncle, she didn’t doubt it.

“I always suspected that Malcolm had something to do with my mother’s leaving, too,” he continued, “but I could never prove it.”