“Well, have you nothing to say for yourself?” A frigid hatred laced his father’s question.
“Bella wrote you?” A pathetic pride surged through Benedict at the steady note in his words and gave him the courage to meet his father’s icy gaze. The man matched his house: cold, grey, barren but unbent, unbroken, still standing. Benedict rather thought the spite fueling his father would carry him for several decades more—much like the grange.
“Obviously.”
“Then there is little else to say.”
“Little to say. You return here after such a betrayal with nothing to say?”
Benedict could have argued that the greater betrayal would have been to his heart if he had followed through with the plan to hurt his Eliza. Or that Ambrose’s betrayal of his duty as a man and a father when he charged his son in service of his hateful scheme was much worse. Neither sentiment would calm the arctic fury of the man before him.
“So it would seem,” Benedict muttered.
A ruddy flush rose over his father’s cheeks—a violent reddish-purple shade. “You disgust me. It is a humiliation to have such a failure for a son. Thatyouare to inherit everything, my lands and title, after you’ve failed so spectacularly… and in the only request I’ve ever made of you. So simple a task… I would rather burn Blackwood to the ground and leave you to inherit the ashes rather than continue to call youson. No son of mine would come before me as you have—and without the slightest hint of remorse.”
Benedictwasdisgusting. He was a failure—in the way he abandoned Eliza, certainly. But not in this. The failure his fatherspoke of was rather the opposite of humiliation. He would take solace in that knowledge alone.
Irascible retorts flitted through Benedict’s mind. “I wish you could not claim me as your son at all.” Or “I’m certain you’ve dozens of natural sons crawling about the nunnery, claim one of them.” And “I suspect smoking ashes would be an improvement on Blackwood’s present condition.”
Instead, Benedict replied, “As you say.” It was less than he wished but more than he’d ever dared before.
“My whip. Fetch it!” It was a bold strategy, one his father hadn’t employed since it became evident that Benedict could physically overpower him if the occasion called for it. No, that was when threats against Bella became far more effective.
Ironically, his father had chosen the singular moment when the furious kiss of leather on flesh was nearly appealing to Benedict. The poignant, burning lacerations would prove a furious diversion from the tight, throbbing anguish that had claimed his chest the moment his hack pulled away from Eliza. That promised relief was a temptation he hadn’t dared to consider.
Even so, the tattered shreds of Benedict’s pride that remained after the whippings of his youth wouldn’t allow him to be forced back to his knees.
Instead of obliging his father, Benedict raised a challenging brow.
The older man wavered, his gaze darting to the wall behind Benedict—the tack where he kept the hide-and-bone lash. Benedict couldn’t recall such a moment of hesitation before.
“Never mind!” his father spat. “It would be a waste of my time. You cannot beat a sense of duty and honor into a boy, nor courage where there is none to be found. Get out of my sight!”
Benedict spun on his heels and strode from the room, soon followed by a growing sense of unease. That could not be the endof the matter. Ambrose Sinclair could not possibly be so easily defeated. Because if he was… What did it mean that Benedict had never managed it before? Never tried?
“Failure”echoed through his mind in his father’s bitter tenor.
“Humiliation. Shameful. Failure.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eliza cried great,wrenching sobs that ripped her chest open and left her head pounding. And the worst part was that Benedict’s were the only arms she wanted to comfort her. But she would never know his tender touch, nor his spice and cedar scent again.
Her gaze refused to abandon the drooping bouquet of violets—the last she would ever receive from Benedict.
At some point, Sophie snuck into her room and crawled behind Eliza on the bed. Her sister’s arms were surprisingly strong when they wrapped around her. But they provided little comfort. Too thin and too cool compared to the ones she longed for.
Despite her exhaustion, it took hours for Eliza to fall into a restless, uneasy sleep.
When she woke, the sun was low in the sky, streaming through her window, and she was still in Sophie’s arms. Her sister hadn’t moved at all—no truer test of her affections could be found. Sophie had stifled her restless nature to allow Eliza rest.
“Thank you,” Eliza croaked. Her throat was raw, and her head still hammered with every anguished heartbeat.
“What happened?” Sophie asked.
“Mama did not tell you?”
“No, I just heard you crying. Did someone— No one...” It took Eliza’s addled mind a few moments to parse her meaning.
