Page 75 of His Scottish Duchess

She pushed herself to the edge of the bed, her bare feet touching the cold floor. She wouldn’t let him put this distance between them. Not now.

She stood up after a moment, her gaze unwavering as she moved towards him, reaching out her hand to stop his restless pacing. “Sampson, please. Look at me. Tell me what is wrong.”

He finally stopped, his gaze locking onto hers. The raw pain in his eyes was a stark contrast to the passion that had burned there moments before.

“You would not understand,” he muttered, his voice low and strained, the words practically torn from him.

“Then help me understand,” she pleaded, her voice softening, her concern for him overriding her confusion and hurt. “Tell me.”

“I can’t, Catherine. I just need you to understand that I cannot have a child,” he told her, exasperated and tense.

Catherine couldn’t comprehend his vehement refusal, the almost panicked look in his eyes. Did he really not want a family? But he got along so well with hers. She had watched him comfort Graham and guide him in a fatherly way. She had seen how gentle he was with Isobel. How attentive he was to her needs.

He would make a wonderful father, or at least a decent one with enough commitment to the role. Hadn’t their shared moments hinted at a deeper connection, a future they could build together?

“Why don’t you want one?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Is it me? Do you not—do you not want a child with me?”

The vulnerability in her voice was a sharp arrow to his already wounded soul.

He flinched again as if she had struck him across the face. “No, Catherine. It is not you. Never you.”

The words were filled with a desperate sincerity, and he was relieved he could convey as much.

“Then what is it?” she pressed, her frustration mounting. “What could possibly make you say youcannot?”

The dam within Sampson finally broke. The years of suppressed guilt, the haunting memories, and the self-loathing he had carried like a shroud rushed to the surface in a torrent of raw emotion.

“Because I killed my brother,” he choked out, the words a ragged whisper that seemed to hang heavy in the silent room.

Catherine froze, her breath catching in her throat. The air between them crackled with a sudden, chilling silence.

“You… What?” she whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief and horror.

Sampson looked away once more, his face growing paler as the minutes ticked by. The words began to pour out of him as the floodgates opened.

“You know I had a brother. I… never meant to hide it. But I do not like to talk about him. We were never close. As the first son and heir, our parents were intent on simply sharpening meto perfection. All I knew as a child were constant lessons and formal training that would ensure I grew up to become a strong and reliable duke.

“They were cruel to me, but apparently, what I went through could never compare to what Thomas endured. As the spare, they barely paid any attention to him. He was dismissed, punished cruelly for the smallest mistakes, and sometimes isolated and starved. Whenever we crossed paths in our home, his eyes always held some animosity towards me, but I merely thought that he was lonely.

“He had tried to kill me once when we were little boys. He put a pillow over my face and tried to suffocate me. But I fought too hard, and he ran away. Afterward, because no one was in my room, I thought that perhaps it was nothing but a bad dream. For years I’ve had nightmares about it.”

It had been a terrifying ordeal for him as a boy, scared out of his wits and fully convinced that he had lost his mind. His parents had shown no sympathy, nor had he expected any. But if he had looked closely at his brother, he would’ve seen the hateful stares that followed him for what they were.

Sampson tried to clear his throat as his voice grew thick with emotion, just as he was about to recount the second and final, fatal encounter between them.

“Years later, when Thomas was nineteen years old, he had orchestrated another attack. He had asked to meet with me at the docks so he could make a business proposal. But not beforehe hired thugs to assault me. I managed to fend them off, but I was still battered and bruised.

“Still, I rushed to the docks to warn him because I believed it was a setup to harm us both, only to be met with violence, again. He started to hit me, confessing that he loathed me—he had all our lives. He blamed me for our parents’ mistreatment of him as he tried to throw me into the water…”

His voice broke, his hands clenching into fists as he relived the moment, recalling too clearly the sight of his brother’s bleeding, mangled body on the sharp rocks jutting out like jagged teeth.

“I… I only meant to push him away,” he choked out, his voice wrought with anguish. “He was coming at me, and I just… I pushed him back. He… he fell. Onto the rocks.”

His breath hitched, a sob escaping his lips.

“It was an accident, Catherine. I swear to you, it was an accident. We… we never got along. There was always this… this distance between us, for reasons I didn’t understand back then. But I’d never… I’d never have hurt him intentionally. I never wanted him to die.”

His voice was thick with unshed tears, his raw grief resurfacing with brutal clarity.

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