His Grace’s voice was halting. Labored. As if it took great pain and thought to say each word.
“No.” Cheverley’s gaze flicked to the door to the sitting room and back. “I believe I’ve been summoned to bring you back.”
“I sent you away.”
Chev inhaled sharply. “You did.”
His gaze took in Chev’s face, his form. “You’ve suffered.”
“I have.” He was not going to lie.
He’d staggered so close to death, he was often surprised to wake from sleep.
He’d danced with oblivion, gazed—shamefully longing—into the emptiness.
He knew humiliation. Desperation.
When banished, he’d resolved to return a hero...
He blinked.
What, exactly, was a hero?
Did strength make a hero? Skill? Cleverness?
At the height of His Grace’s power, the duke had embodied all three, and yet there’d been little in him to admire.
His father moaned. He rested his wounded arm against his father’s chest and covered the old man’s forehead with his other hand. “Cheverley.”
“I am here,” he said. “Penelope is here.”
The duke opened his eyes—fearful again. “She is kind.”
Chev lifted a brow. Undeserved kindness had a peculiar burn, did it not?
“She?” Chev queried. The duke had sworn he would never, ever acknowledge Penelope by her title. “Who do you mean byshe?”
The duke grunted. “Lady Cheverley. She was not my choice—”
Cheverley snorted. “You made that quite clear.”
The duke pinned him with his gaze. “But she was a good choice.”
“The best choice I made.” Chev swallowed with difficulty. He shook his head no. “If I could—” He stopped before his voice quivered. “If I could go back, I would not have left her, no matter what you threatened. If I could go back, I would make a different choice.”
The duke closed his eyes and laid back into the pillow. “As would I.”
Had his father just acknowledged his wrong?
Violence rose up within him—urgency that lashed every sinew to readiness. Pain, with the metallic taste of blood, flooded his being.
His breath, deep, even, and heavy, coasted over his father’s deadly rattle.
Then, cool pressure settled against his brow—as if his wife were present as an angel, with her hand placed against his head.
Anger had stolen much more from them than his family’s greed.
Cheverley lowered his forehead on the duke’s right shoulder. He laid his wounded arm across the duke’s chest.
