Page 92 of Duke with a Desire

“I don’t believe you,” Aphrodite said softly.

He shrugged. “Believe what you will.”

Then he returned his attention to his breakfast, which tasted like ash on his tongue. He didn’t bother to finish it before he excused himself and stalked from the breakfast room as if the hounds of Hades were on his heels.

Because they may as well have been.

“You called for me, Mama?” Reggie asked, his countenance somber as he appeared in her sitting room.

“Yes, dear boy.” Ophelia gave him an encouraging smile and rose from the chaise where she had been halfheartedly working on embroidery. “Do come in and close the door behind you that we might have some privacy to talk.”

She was stitching a rose onto a handkerchief because it reminded her of Apollo drawing an invisible blossom on her back. The unfinished piece went into her needlework basket.

Reggie had been quiet and withdrawn since her return and not at all his usual, boisterous self. It was past time to get to the root of what was troubling him.

“Let’s have a seat together,” she invited, nodding toward the deep window seat that was always his favorite place to sit when he visited her here.

“Yes, Mama.” He dutifully crossed the room to his customary perch, not running but walking at a sedate pace that was most unlike him.

Ordinarily, she had to remind him to walk and not run at least half a dozen times each day. Or at least, she had until she had left for Wingfield Hall. It seemed to her that everything had changed since then. She waited as he folded his small frame into the cushioned seat she’d had made just for him and then sat next to him. The small, terraced gardens beyond were wet with rain, and the sky overhead was gray.

He turned his face toward her, his little mouth set at a sad angle. “What is it, Mama? Is something bad going to happen again?”

Her poor, sweet boy. He had known much loss in his young life already. She drew him into an embrace. “Reggie, my love. I have no bad news to impart. But I wanted to speak with you because you haven’t been yourself since I’ve returned from my trip.”

He suddenly wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tightly, sniffling.

“My darling boy.” She gently caressed his hair. “What is the matter? Will you tell me now?”

She had been trying to pry what was wrong from him for the last week without success. Now that the two of them were alone in her sitting room, without Catherine’s inquisitive mind about, she hoped she could finally discover the truth.

For a few moments, he said nothing, and she sensed he needed her comfort, so she held her tongue, simply allowing him to feel her arms wrapped around him. Although Corbett had not been a particularly demonstrative father, Reggie had still taken the loss of his papa to heart. He was resilient, as all children were, but he often spoke of his father with melancholy. She knew he missed Corbett.

But this change in her son was different, unlike his grief.

Reggie took a deep, shuddering breath. “Mama, would Uncle try to hurt me?”

Instant alarm made her chest feel as if a great band had been wrapped around it and each breath she took cranked the band tighter.

She drew back slightly, looking down at his troubled, upturned face. “What do you mean by that, Reggie?”

His lower lip quivered, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “When Uncle took me to the horse auction, we were crossing the street, and I th-think he pushed me. I fell. A cart was coming fast, but I rolled out of the way.”

The dirt she had noticed on his clothing that day suddenly made sense.

She went numb. “He pushed you?”

Reggie nodded. “I felt a hand on my back, and then I felt a shove. It knocked me over into the path of the cart.”

She pressed a hand over her racing heart. “Are you certain you felt someone push you?”

“I didn’t trip, Mama,” he said, his expression earnest and worried. “Uncle said I was clumsy, that I must have tripped over my own feet.”

Misgiving blossomed. “You are certain you felt a hand on you, pushing you?”

Reggie nodded. “Yes, Mama.”

“And no one else was near enough to have done so other than your uncle?” she persisted.