Page 76 of The Untamed Duke
His face turned hard as granite, the emerald eyes shuttering all emotions. Grace couldn't read him. It frightened her.
“You must tell Sebastian you did not betray the friendship you share. He should know it was your own father and he betrayed you both.”
Chapter 30
Iam easily wrecked
Shattered on her shores
Sails tattered
By the hurricane in her eyes
~Nicholas August Harris March
Ninth Duke of Richeforte
“How do you know that?”Nicholas growled.
He sat up, pulling Grace so she faced him, the position placing her on her knees. She was so pale. And thin. Shadows darkened the delicate skin beneath her eyes, eyes still red and slightly swollen from days of weeping. During her grief, she’d taken care of him. To the detriment of her own health.
She shivered at the harshness of his tone. Christ, he was scaring her, but the emotions rolling through him were dangerous. And heartless.
“You lived through that duel and everything associated with it. Several times, Nicholas.” Grace slid her hand along his jaw. “The details were filled in, piece by piece. I know the old duke was Lady Marilee’s lover and the father of her baby. He ordered that you marry her because you once said you would die before taking a wife and ensuring the March bloodline with a legitimate heir. You told your father you would see the dukedom pass into oblivion rather than do what he wanted. Marilee was furious when you refused her and your father’s plan. She intentionally told Sebastian her lies as a way of hurting you. And Sebastian, because he had rejected her as too.”
Bile rose in his throat. Grace watched him with the most tender of expressions until Nicholas feared he might throw up.
“What else?” he managed to croak.
Her golden eyes dropped. “Your father was terrifying and cruel. He hurt your mother many times and the scars on your back are from his hand. He abused you physically. Mentally. Damaged your soul. You hated him so much, you often goaded him into violence, hoping his own anger would cause his demise. What I don’t know is the reason for your silence since the duel with Sebastian. Why, Nicholas? It was your father’s shame, not yours. Your friends would have understood, surely they would have.”
“Would they?” Nicholas snarled, lip curling. “Myfriends, the ones I’ve known from childhood, knew the type of man my father was. And those two same friends quickly decided I was more than capable of betrayal.”
“If you would have explained—” Grace cried out.
“Explain that my bastard of a father seduced my best friend’s fiancée? Then demanded I pass the child off as my own? No, Grace. It wasn’t just Richeforte’s shame. It was mine, too. And when Sebastian and Alan branded me a dissolute monster, it only proved they were never my friends after all.”
“You were all so young. And hotheaded. Had you told them, they would have stood beside you. Protected you.”
“Hotheaded, indeed,” Nicholas hissed. The wickedness of his father’s actions made him sick. And he was just as wicked. Just as monstrous, even if Grace refused to acknowledge it. “This wasn’t a simple misunderstanding we could discuss rationally over a few brandies at Whites. Sebastian nearly killed me. I’m fortunate his aim was not true as usual that morning.”
“He missed on purpose,” Grace whispered. “Ivy told me. Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to kill you. He has no desire to see you dead. Just three days ago, he entered a burning building and pulled you to safety. Oh, Nicholas...you must tell him...you must. I’ll help you.”
“I don’t want or need your help, pet.”
Nicholas’s tone was a chill winter breeze. How dare she learn his secrets?! How dare she try repairing the damage facilitated by his own silence all these years. Hatred for his father burned him from the inside out. And damned if the lashes on his back weren't suddenly aflame as well, as if newly administered by the old duke’s hand. All the hurt, the rage and hatred swelled inside him; his father the root of it. Nicholas directed that toxicity at Sebastian. At himself.
And at Grace.
“Oh, Nicholas…” Grace choked on a sob, her fingers tentatively touching Nicholas’s thigh where a bullet had gouged out the flesh. The old scar lay hidden beneath his sleeping pants and the covers, but he felt her touch as though she caressed his skin with a blazing hot poker. “Please, after all this, let me help you put things right. You need this...you just do not realize how much.”
“The only thing I need right now is for you to remove your gown. Climb atop me. Now.”
Grace froze at the frigid, brutal command. “Nicholas, don’t…”
“Don’t what, honeybee?” His cruel smile taunted her. “Demand one of my nights with you?”
“Dawn approaches. You’ve only one night left.”
