Page 103 of A Duke Changes Everything
“I beg to differ, sir. Your father did not bend from his hatred, but I do not regret the hope I held fast to. It anchored me. It always has. Hope does a soul good.”
Nick stood and glanced around Mina’s office one last time, trailed his finger along the edge of her notebook. “At least until you wake up to harsh reality and all hope is crushed.”
“You care for the young lady a great deal?”
“I do.”
“And you’ve told her as much?”
“I’ve offered her everything I have, Wilder. All that’s left is playing on her sympathies or manipulating her into wedlock. I’d prefer not to get a bride that way.” Hell, before he arrived at Enderley, he didn’t want a wife at all.
“Of course not, Your Grace.”
“I need some air.” Nick started out of the room. Mina’s scent was too tantalizing and her absence was unbearable.
“If I may, sir. The one truth I know about Miss Thorne is that she is forgiving, but her kind heart leads her to put others’ cares above her own. She is rather unerringly pointed toward what’s good for those around her, while often forgetting what’s best for herself.”
“Would I be good for her, Wilder?” Nick asked the question with a sarcastic bite, his mouth twisted in a smirk. But inside, he wanted Wilder to dispel his doubts.
“I believe you would care for her, sir. She’s never had that. Even with her father. He was a good man, but the estate always came first.”
The bloody estate.
Its walls seemed to be closing in on him. Nick patted Wilder on the shoulder and strode from the room. His stride lengthened the closer he got to the front door. He needed to breathe. Needed to be free of this damned castle where his father had nearly killed him. The place that might just come between him and the only woman he’d ever wanted as his bride.
He headed toward the rear of the house and found himself aiming for the stables.
Tobias lifted his head from his work when Nick approached.
“Is her horse still here? Hades.”
“She didn’t ride this morning, Your Grace.” Tobias pointed toward one of the stalls. “She took the pony cart when she left. The stallion is still inside.”
Nick’s hands were shaking, much like he was quaking inside. He stalked away from the stable master and approached the horse’s stable. The creature leaned his enormous head out and Nick patted his warm ebony snout.
“She’ll come back for you, and I suspect you’d follow her anywhere.” He glanced at the stallion’s haunch, where a faint line could still be detected on his coat. “Put you back together, did she? You and I have that in common.”
This place had brought them together, and now Nick sensed it tearing them apart.
He glanced over his shoulder, casting his gaze past the house to the outlines of that hideous jagged tower pointing into the sky.
That hellish pile of stones had nearly done him in. Now it felt like the black heart of all he stood to lose. If he was to consider residing at the estate, the tower had to go. Maybe then he could see Enderley differently. As Mina saw it.
Everything in him wanted to tear the tower down and never allow its outline to blight the estate again.
Scanning the stables, he searched for a maul or a pickax or anything that might help him chip away at its stones. He saw nothing but rakes and brooms. And high on a shelf, tucked safely out of the way, a tinderbox.
He snatched the box and marched toward the tower. The place pushed back at him, its evil repelling him the closer he got. Nausea clawed at his insides. A trickle of fear chased up his spine. But he was a grown man now. Not a fool child, too trusting to know that his father wished him dead.
He kept on until he reached the bottom step. The entire tower was naught but a shell, its interior structure built entirely of wood. A fitting metaphor for his father.
A shell with rotting, useless bits inside.
He started up the stairs, not caring that they groaned and threatened to give way. The smell gagged him. A familiar mustiness, mixed now with the scent of moss and rot.
He bit down hard when he reached his prison cell. Bent low to take a single step into the room.
It was too much. He couldn’t go any farther. He stepped back, retreating down the stairs. At the bottom, he braced a hand against the stones and fought the gorge rising in his throat. Fumbling with the tinderbox, he struck flint against steel, causing a flame to burst to life.
