Page 90 of Wedded to the Beastly Duke
Nicholas’s eyes fluttered shut. “No, please. My wife—she’s with child. If you tell anyone, she’ll be ruined. We all will be, but she—she doesn’t know any of this.”
“And you thought it was fair to marry her under those conditions?” Emmeline demanded from Adam’s side. Her fingers closed around Adam’s wrist, urging him back, and he did as she commanded, relinquishing his hold. “All she has ever wanted was to find favor with you, but you have never given her the chance. Have you considered what it must be like for her, to never have the option of winning her husband’s love? You barely treat her with respect.”
Adam wiped his hands on his coat as though touching Nicholas had sullied him. He felt unclean, somehow. “You will tell us,” he said gruffly. “We deserve to know the truth. Every detail.”
Nicholas slumped down the wall, his head in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was muffled, as though he was truly pained by what he had to recall.
“It started as any other night. I came here to see him, just as I would come to see you, although we would sneak into each other’s rooms once the night began. No one, not even the servants, knew of the bond we shared. It was too dangerous to let anyone in on our secret, and we knew the damage it would cause. But that particular night—” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I came bearing the news that I had chosen a wife and would be marrying her. We both knew it would come to this, although he was more resistant to the idea than I was. The reality is simple—two men cannot sire heirs, and to continue the line, we must have heirs. I was prepared to marry for the sake of having heirs and continue my relationship with William, but he was… displeased at the news.”
Adam thought of the letters, now reviewing them with the air of desperation William must have felt. He knew that what they shared was coming to an end, and he was fighting against it tooth and nail.
“We fought,” Nicholas continued in a flat voice. “We had argued before, of course, but this was different. A far more powerful argument than any we’d shared before. I had never realized the true extent of William’s feelings and how little he wanted me to marry, even though I would have understood if he had also chosen a wife.”
“What a terrible choice lay before you both,” Emmeline said, her voice thick with sympathy. Adam glanced at her, but she was looking at Nicholas, her lips twisted, her eyebrows drawn together. “To never be openly together.”
“William wanted to believe in a world where we could, but that would never be a reality, and I knew it. All I wanted was a way in which I could be with him in any capacity, even if I could never know.” Nicholas lifted his tear-stained face and looked at Adam. “I think he would have told you if you had been here. But by the time we understood the nature of our feelings for one another, you were out of the country, and I suppose it felt altogether too great a confession for a mere letter.”
“What happened?” Adam demanded in a growl.
“William offered to pay me back the money I had lent him.” Nicholas’s voice was once again monotone, but another tear rolled down his cheek. “Then he said if I was so ashamed of what we were, then perhaps the worldshouldknow. He threatened to tell everyone we knew about our relationship, and I think his intention was to leave for the Continent. But—I was on the cusp of marriage. I had my mother to think about, the continuation of my line. I couldn’t afford for anyone else to know. We—we fought.” His shoulders shook as he sobbed, and Adam watched impassively, an ache burning a hole through his chest.
Grief had a sharp blade. Emmeline’s hand was over her mouth, and silent tears streamed down her face.
“He fell. I don’t go a day without thinking about that moment and replaying it over and over in my mind. The way he looked at me. God, will I ever stop thinking about the way he looked at me. And the way he landed. If I could go back and change the way it happened, I would. I loved him so much.” Nicholas looked at Adam pleadingly, as though anyone could absolve him of his guilt. “I pray every day I could have gone back in time and done things differently.”
Hearing it was so, so much worse than imagining what had happened. The starkness of it, the images that plagued Adam’s mind of William’s body falling to the floor.
“And yet you came back,” Adam said, hardly recognizing his own voice. “For the money, I assume?”
Nicholas nodded, his face the picture of misery. “He told me he had it hidden somewhere in the castle, but we argued before he could tell me where—if he was ever planning on saying. Sometimes I wonder if he only told me as a way of getting under my skin.”
“Odd,” Adam said, still icily angry, “that the money had you coming back so many times when you claim to have loved my brother.”
“I did!”
“And in your search for his money, you endangered my wife.”
Nicholas turned to Emmeline at once, contrite. “You know I would never have harmed you,” he said. “You know it was nothing more than an accident.”
One look at Emmeline’s face told Adam that she knew nothing of the sort. No doubt she had been hurt, emotionally as well as physically, by the action.
“Enough,” he snapped, and Nicholas’s head turned back to his alarmingly quickly. “You were responsible for my brother’s death, and for that, you will pay.”
ChapterTwenty-Six
Despite the late hour, Adam sent for the local magistrate immediately and was informed that the man would come as soon as possible. He and Emmeline stayed in the study with Nicholas, the silence stifling between them. She longed to reach out to her husband and soothe him, but she felt his tension, and he knew he wouldn’t allow it.
In front of them, sagging in the chair, Nicholas looked as though he had lost everything. In a way, she felt a little sorry for him. Regardless of what happened, he clearly regretted it. Adam might have his doubts, but she knew love when she saw it. Even if Nicholas’s present situation might require the money that William had said was hidden here somewhere, he had still loved William—at least enough that he was genuinely grieving now that he was gone.
Adam, she knew, didn’t feel that way, and that was understandable, too. He didn’t care whether Nicholas truly did love his brother. The fact remained that he was the reason behind William’s demise. There were no extenuating circumstances that could make it more palatable.
The hours ticked by, and the light from sunrise trickled through the windows by the time the magistrate finally arrived at the house. He had two servants with him, his black coat was creased, and he looked almost as tired as Emmeline felt.
“Unorthodox,” he said as Adam explained the situation. At Adam’s irritation, he covered for the comment by adding, “That such a thing would have happened.”
Nicholas glanced at them both, his eyes bloodshot in the dawn light. “I regret hurting you both,” he said. “Whatever else you may believe, I hope you believe that.”
Adam grunted. Emmeline didn’t smile, but she at least believed that.
