Victor’s jaw clenched. “Of course not.”
“Then you did not behave as your father,” Roderick said lightly. “You behaved as a man given an opportunity to remove his fist from his pocket, for once, and place it where it belonged.”
Victor’s temper flared. “You make a jest of everything.”
“I make a jest of what you twist into weapons against yourself,” Roderick shot back. “You are not your father, Victor. You never were. Your greatest fear is becoming him, yet you spend so muchtime staring at the shadow that you forget you are not walking in his boots.”
Victor pushed a hand through his hair. “I lost my temper, Roddy.”
“Yes, Vic,” Roderick acknowledged. “You did. After weeks of restraint, after watching that man tear strips from a girl who has already suffered enough, after learning that he means to sell her to the highest bidder, you finally allowed yourself a moment of human anger.”
Victor closed his eyes briefly, only for Gwen’s face to flash behind his lids. The bruise on her cheek. The way she had flinched when Howard raised his hand. The brave tilt of her chin when she insisted she would obey.
“I have fallen in love with her,” he confessed.
The words settled in the room like ash.
Roderick was silent for a moment. Then he nodded once. “I know.”
“Of course you know,” Victor muttered. “You always know.”
“You have been intolerable for weeks,” Roderick drawled. “That is usually the first sign.”
Victor’s mouth twisted. “I do not know myself any longer. I thought I had arranged my life. Seven nights. No entanglements. No promises. No hearts. Then she walked in with her nonsense about blackmail, and I have been sinking ever since.”
Roderick smiled faintly. “You have not been sinking. You have beenfeeling. It is a very different thing.”
“For me, it is the same,” Victor replied. “Feeling loosens control. Control prevents harm. When control slips, I become him.”
Roderick sat forward. “Listen to me. Your father used his strength to dominate. To terrify. To bend every person around him into a shape that pleased him. You used yours tonight to prevent a blow from landing on a woman who had already been struck.”
Victor stared at the rug. “I still struck a man in anger.”
“Yes,” Roderick agreed. “And if you had not, that man would have struck Gwen. In public. Before your door. In front of you. Would you prefer that outcome instead? Would that make you more virtuous?”
Victor did not answer.
They sat in thick, difficult silence. The fire crackled. Somewhere beyond the closed door, the house settled into its nighttime stillness.
Suddenly, a knock sounded at the door.
Roderick sighed. “At this hour, that can only be your mother. I shall brace myself for frost.”
“Enter,” Victor called.
Dorothea stepped in, regal as ever in deep blue silk, her expression composed. Her gaze flicked over Roderick, then to Victor.
“Wycliffe,” she greeted. “Might I borrow my son for a few moments?”
Roderick rose, smooth as always. “I can take a hint, Duchess.”
Victor exhaled. “I am not in the mood for lectures.”
Dorothea regarded him coolly. “I am not in the mood to give them. However, some things must be said. Wycliffe, if you please?”
Roderick gave Victor a brief, sympathetic look. “I will be in the smaller sitting room if you wish to resume the self-loathing later,” he said, then slipped out, closing the door behind him.
Victor looked at his mother. “I do not wish to talk.”
