Page 78 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
“That’s not a discussion for today.”
She seemed to know better than to push him, because she merely settled against him again.
“I hope we prove to be happier than your parents were together,” she said. “Even if we don’t fall in love, we should always try to be good to one another.”
Considering he would never be like his father—he wouldnever—he thought that would be an easy promise to fulfill, but he made it, anyway.
“Very well,” he told her. “Regardless of the circumstances, I think we will always have a happier life together than my parents shared, and I will do my best to always be a good husband to you.”
“And I a good wife.” She released a long breath, relaxing in his arms, and he felt the moment she went to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Iam honored you invited me here,” the dowager duchess said as Isobel poured her a cup. “I confess, it’s strange coming back here as a visitor.”
The matter of Adrian’s father would not leave Isobel, even when she knew that with the man long dead, it was none of her business. But whenever he thought about his father, he retreated a little further into himself, shutting a door on whatever memories remained.
Thus, she did precisely as he recommended and invited his mother round for tea.
“Ye must come back as often as ye can,” Isobel urged. “I know Adrian would like it.”
“No, I should stay away and let you both get used to your new lives together. Build something new on what came before. I think that’s a beautiful thing.”
Isobel tapped her silver spoon against the rim of the teacup with a definitiveclink.
“I agree,” she said. “And actually, I had hoped that we could speak a little.”
“Oh?” The dowager raised a brow. “About what? Has my son done something?”
“No, no, not at all. It’s more about…” Isobel hesitated. “The former duke. Your husband.”
The dowager sighed, placing her teacup back on its saucer. “Ah, I see.”
“Do ye?”
“Has Adrian spoken to you much about his father?”
“A little about his methods of discipline.”
“I see. Yes. Well, that says about all I think anyone needs to on the subject.” She released a breath, and it looked as though her smile was forced. “He was not a kind man, and he took out the bulk of his cruelty on Adrian, thinking that it would shape him to be a better man.”
“Adrian showed me his…” Isobel couldn’t quite sayhis scars. “I can’t believe his father would do such a thing.”
“Well, he believed that the harsher he was when disciplining his son, the stronger Adrian would be for it.”
“How did he…”
“Die?” the dowager asked, and when Isobel flinched at the word, she sighed. “It’s not a nice story, but I can’t imagine Adrian wanting to tell you.”
“He doesn’t.”
“I thought so. It happened many years ago now, when Adrian was barely more than a boy. Just twenty years of age.”
Her hands folded into fists, and Isobel looked at them, noting the older lady’s tension, the coldness that filtered into her voice.
Such a warm woman, one who had been so welcoming when Isobel had first come to London, and yet when it came to her former husband, there was no softness to her.
For the first time, Isobel got an inkling of what she must have done—and what she must have been like—to survive.
