Page 72 of The Madame Catches Her Duke

There were many questions left unanswered, for both of them.

Diving into the abyss surrounding his father’s love affair with Sasha Davenport—with his mother’s blessing—was something Rowan was not ready to do at this point. Perhaps he would never be ready, and his need to continue nurturing his fury was something he’d simply need accept. It was his fate…to hold a candle of resentment for his father. Even if he discovered that wasn’t true, he would need time to change, time to accept everything his mother had confessed. He wanted to believe that he was capable of more than simple fury and resentment, that the old wound could be healed with the correct amount of time and the right person by his side.

He glanced at the sideboard and then back at the open door. Marce was just out of sight, but he could hear her heavy breathing, could nearly feel the beat of her heart racing as she hesitated. He knew she probably wondered if she should enter the room and face Rowan or continue on to her chambers. Perhaps she pondered departing Hadlow altogether.

She’d done it once, and Rowan suspected she was likely to do so again.

He’d treated her horribly and thought the worst of her on many occasions.

Everything he’d lived his life believing for the last fifteen years was false. Not just untrue, but blatantly wrong.

His animosity toward his father. His protectiveness of his mother. His horrid transgressions against Marce.

Everything he’d based his life around was a lie.

He’d deceived because he thought he’d been deceived.

He treated others with careless regard for their feelings because he thought they had done the same to him.

Possibly his worst transgression was allowing himself to think one way without question. He’d never figured himself for a sheep, easily misguided in his beliefs. Yet, here he was, discovering only now how so many things in his life were not as they appeared. Why had it taken his mother being on her deathbed—and a passion-filled night in Marce’s arms—to realize he lived with a blindfold blocking his sight?

His breath hitched in his throat at the thought of everything he’d missed. He’d set his mind against a proper marriage and family because he feared following the same path as his treacherous father.

Now, he knew that Julian Delconti hadn’t been a deceitful lord at all.

His father had given Rowan’s mother everything and only found his own happiness at Leona’s urging. His head swam with thoughts of the unfathomable, sordid details of his family’s scandalous past.

Marce stepped into the room, her face pale and her steps hesitant. She kept her gaze on the ground before her, her hands clasped in front of her at the waist.

Did she struggle with Leona’s revelations as he did?

Had she been as shocked as he to learn of the love between his father and Madame Sasha? Certainly, he could not have been the only one to see the shame in their affair. She’d accepted his proposition only to save her family. Not because she too found shame in the affair that had ripped apart Rowan’s childhood.

None of that mattered, except the deplorable way Rowan had treated Marce.

“I suppose I owe you an explanation,” Marce whispered, her voice sounding defeated and remorseful. “I never told you about Craven House and, as such, allowed you to continue thinking something that wasn’t true.”

Rowan stumbled back, regretting his decision to forgo a drink.

“You owe me an explanation?” he scoffed, his anger at himself igniting. To think, he was responsible for Marce thinking herself to blame, even partly, for their sordid past. “It is I who owe you, Marce, for all these years you’ve spent dedicated to my mother.”

“And you…”

He must have heard her incorrectly, for never should she have dedicated even a single thought to him after he’d taken so many days, months, and years away from her.

“You cannot mean that.”

“But I do,” she replied, moving several steps closer to him until she stood directly in front of him, affording him a view of her golden curls atop her head as she continued to stare at his feet.

“I have treated you worse than I believed my father did my mother. The words I spoke, no matter how angry I was or if they were actually truth…they were deplorable and unnecessary. Speaking to you in any manner below utter reverence and admiration is unforgivable. I cannot begin to express how sorry I am for everything…for all these years.”

She exhaled, and he brought his finger to her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his, silently pleading for her to speak and not leave a single detail out.

“Tell me of Craven House,” he demanded softly. “What is it that many know that I do not?”

He’d lived his adult life in control of everything, for fear of his inability to control anything in his youth.

“It is true, Craven House once lived up to its reputation as a brothel, a sinful place where men were free to slake their lustful desires to their hearts’ content.” She said the words as if it were printed on a pamphlet and distributed across the lands far and wide. Come one, come all, see the wonders to be had within the walls of Craven House. When she continued, it wasn’t only bravado lacking from her tone, it was the utter sureness that had always been undeniably Marce. “After my mother’s death, I knew that things needed to change. It took time—and a lot of money—but it was worth it. I locked the doors before our evening meal. I blew out every candle in the house. I set Mr. Curtis out front to send away any man who appeared. It was done quietly and with great care not to bring any undue attention to us. My siblings, the four of them, would be finding their way in society before too many years passed, and I knew I needed to keep scandal of any sort from our door.”