Dr. Brodure only hesitated a moment before taking hold of the small rock.
“I couldn’t manage that large one.” He gave Malcolm a sheepishly apologetic look.
He turned to face everyone else.
“Though I am very proud of all that my daughter has accomplished, I am also worried for her future.”
“Papa.” Viola held out a loving hand, her face anguished.
“No, let me finish, daughter. I do not have concerns for the man you will likely marry.” Here he spared a glance for Malcolm Penn-Leith.
Malcolm felt his chest lift at the admission. That Dr. Brodure, at least, would approve of his match with Viola.
“I have been doing much soul searching since our conversation yesterday.” Dr. Brodure smiled wanly at his daughter. “Though you have been remiss in keeping secrets, it also pains me that you feel you must choose between my future and your own.” He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead. Viola bit her trembling lip. “Believe me when I say, I would never put my own ambition above my child’s happiness.” He turned to Kendall. “Do what you must, Your Grace.”
Dr. Brodure faced the field and, winding his arm much the same as Viola, tossed the stone.
The older man’s throw was not much better than his daughter’s.
He looked back to her with a shrug.
“Truthfully, this has gone on long enough.” Kendall strode forward, finally shucking his coat and tossing it atop those of the other gentlemen. He cuffed his shirt sleeves and motioned for Ethan to hand him the chain.
Malcolm exchanged a dubious look with his brother. Ethan seemed just as surprised as himself that Kendall was enlisting for a throw. But then, Malcolm supposed that the duke simply couldn’t sit by and watch other men flex their muscles without feeling compelled to assert his dominance.
Dukes were an incredibly competitive lot.
Wrapping his fingers around the chain, Kendall faced them all, but his gaze drilled that of his half-brother.
Sir Rafe lifted an eyebrow in response.
“I recognize that my story is well-known to you all,” the duke said, bitterness in his voice. “The gossip rags have ensured that. Before my birth, Sir Rafe—or Lord Rafe, as he was known then—broadcasted my father’s personal affairs to the world. This resulted in Lord Rafe and his older brother being declared bastards and disinherited. Shortly after, the king stripped my father of his governmental positions. That is the reality into which I was born. The world that formed me. One where the Dukes of Kendall were an impotent, powerless laughingstock.” He looked down at the chain-wrapped stone. Without his coat, the duke appeared a gangling youth to Malcolm’s eyes—an untried colt of a man. “So here is my truth. I will regain everything that Sir Rafe destroyed. I will become prime minister and avenge my father’s legacy. I will not allow a few bleeding hearts—” Here he spared a scathing look for Dr. Brodure. “—to dissuade me.”
With that, he turned and spun quickly on his feet, sending the chained stone sailing with an audible grunt.
Though Malcolm held no love for the duke, the man did have a credible throwing arm. The stone fell just a few feet short of Malcolm and Ethan’s marks.
Malcolm retrieved the rock, marking the duke’s toss with another stick in the ground.
Sir Rafe was waiting in shirtsleeves when he returned.
Malcolm handed him the chain.
Stretching his neck from side to side, Sir Rafe faced Kendall. Unlike his younger brother, Sir Rafe’s arms and shoulders rippled with thick muscle—the physique of an older, physically-active man.
“I hadn’t intended tae wade into this today,” he said, “but as the person who was central tae the events that transpired a quarter-century past, I feel the need to say some hard truths of my own.”
Kendall rolled his eyes in contempt and folded his arms.
“One,” Sir Rafe continued, looking straight at Kendall, “our father’s selfish, arrogant actions are what brought about his downfall. Do not attack the messenger—in this case, myself—for allowing truths tae come to light.”
“You should have been loyal,” Kendall retorted, “to our father, to our family.”
“Any family loyalty I may have felt towardthatman was beaten out of me at an early age.” Sir Rafe’s eyes hardened into agate, looking every bit as imperious and unmoving as Malcolm imagined his sire had. “Our father was a right bastard, as ye must certainly know, having been raised by him. The old man enjoyed crushing the will of every soul in his sphere as callously as one might snuff out a gnat. But perhaps ye, too, find perverse joy in such behavior.”
Kendall flinched. The tiniest of twitches.
If Malcolm hadn’t been staring right at the duke, he would have missed it.
