“I do not believe that for one second. I called your name three times before you turned to face me, Peter.” She elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “Come now. Tell me what is on your mind.”
“No,” Peter replied bluntly. “You will think less of me if I reveal what I was thinking of just now.”
Madeline laughed heartily. “Impossible! I can hardly think less of you, Brother. As you know, my opinion of you is already somewhat… unfavorable.”
The corners of his lips turned downward, then settled into a frown. He would never tell Madeline how much it hurt that she had not only expressed such thoughts but seemed to nurture them.
Although who can blame her? I have not been the brother she needs.
Unbidden, thoughts that were more than a decade old rose to the forefront of his mind.
He had been eighteen when his father passed, but the scars from his childhood had already run deep by then. His father, William Linfield, had been a towering presence, with an iron will and an unforgiving nature. No matter how hard Peter tried to please him, it was never enough. His father would lash out—sometimes with words, sometimes with his fists—and Peter had learned early on to harden himself against the pain. But what he hadn’t been able to shield himself from was the destruction his father had wrought on their family.
His mother had once been vibrant, full of laughter and warmth. But over the years, she had withered, her spirit crushed under the weight of his father’s cruelty. She became a shell of the woman she had once been, retreating into herself and finding solace only when she was away from her husband’s oppressive presence.
Peter could still remember how she used to cling to him and Madeline. His mother would hold them close and whisper words of solace, aiming to temper the harsh threats that had spewed from their father during one of his tirades.
Peter’s eyes flicked toward Madeline. When he had not bothered to continue their conversation, she had dropped to her knees and began picking posies. She’d taken off a set of short white gloves, placed them on the grass, and reached for a fistful of daisies. He listened as she hummed merrily to herself.
Madeline had been the one constant in his life. Despite everything, his younger sister had managed to retain her innocence. Peter had always been protective of her, determined to shield her from their father’s worst. But the truth was, he had never been able to save either of them—not from the man who had loomed over their lives like a dark cloud.
When their father finally died, Peter should have felt relief, but all he felt was numbness. William’s death hadn’t erased the years of fear, anger, and bitterness. Instead, it left Peter with the crushing responsibility of the dukedom and the ghosts of his past that he still couldn’t shake.
The decision to send his mother and Madeline away had been both easy and agonizing. He loved them. He wanted to protect them, to give them the peace they had never known under his father’s rule. But he also knew he was too much like his father in appearance. Every time his mother looked at him, he could see the pain in her eyes, the reminder of the man who had made her life hell. How could he expect her to heal if she had to live with that reminder every day?
Peter closed his eyes and tried to picture the garden that was nestled behind their cottage in Arlington.
Were there daisies in those flowerbeds? Is this something Madeline does when she is at home? When she is at peace?
Not a full two weeks had passed following William’s death when Peter purchased the cottage in the countryside, far from the harsh memories that clung to Pemberton. He visited when hecould, but as Madeline reminded him just the day before, he did not come to Arlington often enough.
The distance had seemed necessary, though. He had sworn to do everything in his power to make them happy, to give them the peace they deserved, but part of him believed they were better off without him. He was his father’s son, after all.
Peter turned away from the garden and the sight of Madeline kneeling with a bouquet of daisies in her lap, his thoughts a swirl of bitterness and guilt. He hadn’t realized in those early days after inheriting the dukedom how the isolation would begin to eat away at him.
Alone at Pemberton, he had thrown himself into his duties, trying to drown out the voices in his head—the doubts, the guilt, the anger that had nowhere to go. He had become a man of routine, his days filled with managing the estate, overseeing tenants, and attending to the countless responsibilities that came with his title. But the more he buried himself in work, the more the loneliness gnawed at him.
It wasn’t long before he found other distractions.
The first time had been an accident, really. A visit to London for business had led to an evening out with old acquaintances, a night of drinks and laughter that had felt foreign after so many months of isolation. He hadn’t meant to end up in the arms of a woman he barely knew, the actress who had performed on stage that very night, but it had happened, and for the briefest moment, he had felt something—escape, relief, release. It wasfleeting, but it had been enough to pull him back into a world of pleasures he had long denied himself.
Soon, it became a habit. Evenings in London led to nights spent in the arms of Miss Bedford, the renowned actress. For a few hours, he could forget—forget the weight of his title, forget his father’s cruelty, forget the fact that he had sent his family away. But then his mistress left him, and he readily accepted another woman into his bed.
The gossip began to spread, of course. People whispered about the Duke of Pemberton, the heartless rake who chased pleasure with no regard for propriety. They spoke of how he had thrown his mother and sister out of his estate, how he was more like his father than anyone had realized.
Peter didn’t care. Or at least, he told himself he didn’t. He had spent so many years building up walls around himself, shutting out the world, that it was easier to let people believe the rumors than to explain the truth. Besides, the truth was messy. It was easier to play the part of the rake, the man who lived for nothing but pleasure, than to confront his past.
But in the quiet moments, when the house was empty and the nights were long, the facade would crack. He would think of his mother, of Madeline, and wonder if he had made a mistake.
He missed them. He missed the warmth of family, the laughter that used to fill the halls before everything had fallen apart. But he didn’t know how to go back—how to be the man they needed him to be. He feared that he couldn’t.
“Madeline,” he asked suddenly, “why are you awake so early this morning?”
She shrugged casually. “I always wake up early.”
“Really?” He was curious.
“If you must know, I find it difficult to sleep in any bed that is not my own.” She picked up a handful of daisies and lifted them to her nose. She took a deep breath and sneezed. The sound was followed by a laugh. “Do not misunderstand me, Brother. I am quite comfortable here at Crawford Hall, but when I am away, I tend to long for the pleasures of home.”
