Page 45 of Trapped with the Forbidden Duke
“What aboutyourshame, Lucien? You embrace and kiss my sister in such a manner under my roof?—”
“Your roof is one storm away from collapsing on your heads because of your addiction,” Lucien countered. “That is why, is it not? That is why you have fallen into such a state. That is why you let your house fall into disrepair. That is why your sister did not have a new dress in Heaven knows how long. That is why your furniture is old. Because your fortune has been spent on laudanum.”
“Do not throw accusations at me when you turned your back on me! Do you think this is the way to treat me after all these years? By seducing my sister and charming my aunt?”
“I did not turn my back on you,” Lucien spat. “And I did not seduce Lady Edwina. It-It was nothing, what you saw. You closed every door in my face, Nicholas. I tried and tried to keep in touch with you. I wrote letters. I knocked countless times. I tried to speak with you at those infernal social events. You turned me away at every chance, so do not claim that I abandoned you.”
His eyes slid to Lady Edwina. “I told you that I had attempted to remain in your brother’s life, but he turned his back on everyone, even you. Do you still defend him? Do you still claim that I left him when he needed me most? I tried to be there for him.”
“Stop,” Nicholas murmured, and Lucien’s gaze snapped back to him. “Stop… arguing… I cannot… cannot…”
His face was as white as bone, and his thin frame was swaying like a leaf on the breeze.
“Nicholas!” Lady Edwina cried right as her brother collapsed to the floor.
Lucien’s anger evaporated at the sight. “Do you still insist on not involving anybody?” he growled at her. “He needs to see a physician. His addiction could have done a great deal of damage, with it going unchecked. Not to mention the places he visited and the state they may have left him in.”
“What was I supposed to do?” Lady Edwina asked, her breath hitching.
She knelt at her brother’s side, brushing his hair back from his forehead, which was damp with sweat.
After a moment, she nodded. “Send for a physician.”
Edwina did not know how the situation had unraveled so fast. Her brother’s anger, the Duke’s betrayal, her distress. She clutched her brother’s hand as he lay in bed. The Duke had carried him to his rooms with the help of a footman.
The physician had just finished his assessment and sighed.
“I have seen this in many unfortunate cases,” he said, packing up his medical bag. “However, the Earl will be quite fine with rest, water, and some food. It was the lack of food that caused his fainting episode. All I recommend is that he is kept under watch.”
“And I trust we can rely on your utmost discretion with this personal matter,” Edwina said, not entirely recognizing her voice.
It was steely with worry, with the need to keep her brother’s secret. She had done so ever since he returned from the war, and she would not stop now.
“Of course, My Lady,” the physician promised. “Good night. Ensure that His Lordship gets the rest he needs.”
He stepped out of the room and was seen out by Mr. Calloway.
Edwina was alone for only a handful of moments before the Duke entered. He had given them some privacy, yet she did not doubt that he had heard every word of the diagnosis.
“Food,” she scoffed. “My brother must run an earldom, yet he cannot even remember to feed himself.”
“Addiction tends to do that,” the Duke answered. “He is too focused on laudanum to think of food. He is too busy passing out or chasing another bottle of opium to care.”
Edwina’s eyes flitted over her brother’s thinner frame. “He came back from the war very broad. I recall that the most, for I teased him endlessly about how the ladies would fawn over the muscular soldier. And now look at him. He is so, so pale.”
“You worry about him.” The Duke approached the bed, his eyes dark with emotion. “But you have never needed to do it alone.”
“I have done everything alone, Your Grace. Forgive me if I did not see how that needed to stop, or that I could hope otherwise.”
Her voice was flat, and she felt hollowed out by all the commotion, drained by her constantly racing thoughts.
“Except you could hope otherwise when I showed up,” he told her, sitting at Nicholas’s other side. “You were no longer handling everything alone.”
“That is not an easy thing to accept when you have grown up in the environment I have. My brother’s addiction… I had to keep it to myself for fear of it ruining us. I did not see it as my secret to tell. I had to do what I could to protect my family, especially considering your fall-out with my brother.”
“He has been funding his addiction with your family’s fortune, has he not?”
Ashamed, Edwina nodded.
