Page 81 of Duke of the Sun

“So she returned?”

He nodded. “Perhaps many people might have assumed her mind would have been changed the moment she gave birth,” Michael said. “Perhaps she even believed that herself, though it never truly came. My mother could hardly look at me, not without scowling and turning away angrily.”

Cordelia reached, taking one of his hands within both of hers.

“She tried to be the mother everyone expected to be,” Michael said. “Though she was never truly affectionate. And when the old Duke decided it was time to begin his… violence against me, to shape me into the man I was meant to be, my mother tried to stop it. She tried, and earned the whip herself.”

Cordelia gasped, one hand covering her mouth. “He hit her?”

“More than I probably know,” he replied. “In the end, her resentment no longer only rested within her husband, but was rather shared between him and I, as though we were both the causes of her entrapment in Solshire. Which,” Michael paused, the guilt already grabbing a hold of his neck, “I can hardly blame her for.”

“Being born is not your fault.” Cordelia’s gaze grew hardened. “You understand that, don’t you? The blame is meant for the old Duke.”

“There is only one of us alive, Cordelia, and I doubt one feels regret in the afterlife.”

Cordelia’s lips parted. Instead of saying anything else, she lifted Michael’s hands to her lips, pressing a gentle kiss against his knuckles, another along his creeping scars. She did it till he felt the courage to speak again.

“I was ten years old when it happened.”

Cordelia looked up. “When what happened, Michael?”

Michael could not recall the last time he even dared to speak the words aloud. They haunted his mind, without fail, always lingering within him even when he refused to think about it. Even his father refused to mention it, due to the distaste that surrounded it. Not a soul within London knew the truth behind her death, believing it to have been a dreadful accident that ended with a young life being stolen from a growing family. He could remember the funeral as if it happened yesterday: the opened mausoleum, the socialites from London flooding in and out of Solshire. He remembered their whispers and murmurs, the gossip already beginning, even before her body grew cold.

Michael trembled.

“Do not be afraid,” Cordelia whispered. “I will protect you from the pain that haunts you.”

And when he looked upon his wife, seeing the determination within her eyes, Michael knew that she believed every word she said. “My spitfire,” he murmured.

“I mean it.”

Michael gave her a small smile. “I know.” He drew in a long sigh, readying the words that felt like a curse to speak aloud. “My mother took her life. I found her. In the lake.”

Her eyes were the widest he had ever seen them. Cordelia gripped onto him tighter, her mouth opening and closing as she searched for the right words to say. Michael felt as though a cavity within him was being filled, the words said aloud finally pulling the despair out from within him. The only other person who knew the truth of his mother’s passing was Rhys, and he knew from how many years they spent alongside each other. To speak the words aloud to Cordelia felt like their marriage was becoming solidified, the bond between them finally snapping into something resilient, something strong. It would take far more than a simple few days apart to drive them away from each other.

When Michael looked back at his wife, tears streamed down her face.

“Cordelia,” he murmured, reaching to swipe the sadness away. “Do not weep.”

She fell into his chest, pressing her face against his clothes, despite how damp they still were from his ride. She burrowed herself within him, as if she wished to be united with his beating heart.

“No one deserves such a story to start their lives,” Cordelia finally whispered. “To be plagued with a burden that was never theirs to carry. What rested upon your mother’s shoulders was not meant for you, and yet, you still embraced it as your own. You never deserved such a thing. And neither did she.”

Michael gently pulled her off his chest to look into her eyes, one hand tucked beneath her chin. “Which is why I left you, Cordelia,” he whispered.

“What?”

“My father knew I would be plagued with my past, incapable of taking a wife after seeing what my mother was forced to do, how it brought her such an unbearable sadness.” Michael shook his head. “And so, he wrote it into his will, that I would be forced to marry in order to take a hold of everything that belonged to me.” Michael buried his shame deep within his chest, desperate to expel everything he wished to say. “On the night of our marriage, I saw you within your window, and I believed…I believed you intended to take your life. All because you married me.”

“Michael,” Cordelia whispered, her shoulders falling.

“And when I left days ago,” he continued, “I only wished to grant you freedom from a marriage that could plague you for the rest of your life. It was all I could give to you.”

“Michael.” She grabbed a hold of his face, her warm hands pressing into his cheeks. “I wish for nothing more than to be beside you for the rest of my days.”

He pressed his lips together. “You should think about it before -”

“I have thought for days,” she whispered. “I have imagined my life pressing forward on two different paths, and each time, Ialwayschose the one that is by your side. You said before that you would give me anything I wished.”

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