He felt empty. Hollowed out and emotionless.
His uncle had told him Lord Montgomery does not weep. That he needed to be the man his father had expected him to become. He’d then talked at him every day for hours about his responsibilities and actions. His uncle had said Theo’s parents failed in their job to prepare him to be the lord he would one day become. Theo had not stood for that. Something in his eyes must have warned his uncle to never go there again because he hadn’t.
At thirteen, Theo was now a man, according to his uncle.
“Are you ready, my lord?” his butler said.
“I am, thank you, Stephens,” he said to the man who was standing in his doorway. His father’s butler, a man who Theo felt was almost a grandfather.
“Come along then. Your uncle awaits you in the carriage.” A hand settled on his shoulder, and it took every ounce of his strength not to turn into that body and let Stephens hold him. Let him tell him his life would one day again make sense. That he would laugh and find happiness and know what it was to be loved again.
Stephens kept his hand on Theo’s shoulder as they walked through the house. The staff were lined before the door waiting for him. Some were weeping.
He shook all their hands, because his father always said he needed to be kind and humble with them. His mother had insisted he know their first names.
They said things like “God be with you” and “your parents loved you.”
Theo nodded, dry-eyed, and then walked out the front door with Stephens. His uncle sat inside the carriage.
The butler opened the door.
“Hurry it along, Theodore. We have many miles to cover,” his uncle snapped.
“Goodbye, Stephens.” He shook his butler’s hand and then climbed inside.
“You don’t touch staff,” his uncle snapped at him.
Theo was mostly quiet and respectful, except when someone challenged what his parents had taught him. “As they are my staff, I can do as I wish.”
His uncle’s mouth tightened into a thin line at the reminder. He then fell silent as the carriage rolled away from his family’s home. Theo did not look back. Pain lay behind him.
He was looking out the window as they reached the village a thirty-minute walk from his home. Theo knew this, as he’d walked it many times with his parents and Iris.
He saw her as he reached Prism’s Bakers. Iris stood outside, watching his carriage.
How had she known he would pass at this time?
She moved closer, so close he thought the carriage could hit her, but it simply passed her by. It was close enough for him to see the tears tracking down her cheeks, though. He pressed a hand to the window, and she raised hers, and then she, too, was gone from his life. The three people he loved were no more.
Theo had a feeling as the carriage headed toward Eton and a new life, that, in fact, she would never be part of his life again. No one would because he never ever wanted to love someone as much as he had his parents and her, then lose them.
Theo decided as he looked across the carriage at his uncle, who was reading the newspaper, that he would become a coldhearted bastard just like him.
CHAPTERTWO
Sixteen years later.
Lord Theodore Montgomeryrode through the streets with his hood pulled forward far enough to cover his face. It was likely no one from his world would recognize him even if they saw him, as he appeared vastly different from the man who walked in society.
It wasn’t excessively late, and darkness was only just lowering its cloak over London. Lamps were being lit, and soon the city would be cast in a yellowish glow.
Halting, as a large, lumbering coach pulled out into the road in front of him, he heard the roll of wheels as a carriage stopped at his side. Looking at the window, he saw a lady. She was staring out at the street. Something about that face jolted his memory.
Did he know her?
Her eyes caught his, and they stared at each other for long seconds, and then she was rolling away from him.
Monty pressed a hand to his chest. Why was there a burning sensation there? He felt like he knew her, but then he knew many women in society, and some out of it. However, something about that one stirred a memory inside him.
