Page 21 of A Duke Changes Everything
Thankfully, there were no portraits staring out at Nick from the guest chamber’s walls, just bland landscapes of pallid men hunting outnumbered foxes.
Still, his father’s specter hovered over the house, eyes burning from that damned portrait. The one Nick couldn’t stomach seeing next to his mother’s.
When they’d escaped together in the dark of night from Enderley, from one who’d become more monster than man, neither of them had ever dreamed of returning. His mother wouldn’t have wanted her portrait hanging next to his father’s.
Giving up on any possibility of sleep, Nick donned a shirt and trousers and set off toward the study like he was striding into a brawl—chin up, chest out, hands flexing into fists. But deep inside, in places he stomped down, a part of him was still that damned skittish boy he’d once been.
Nick’s hand shook as he pushed open the door. Memories rushed back in a torrent of images.
Even at nine years old, he shivered so fiercely his teeth rattled whenever his father summoned him.
The old man glared from the moment Nick stepped into the room. Eyes pinched under the weight of his glower, nostrils flaring, he flicked his hand, urging Nick closer.
“Come, creature, and look at me when I speak to you.” He snatched a tumbler from his desk, tipped the glass back, and drained every last drop before scowling at Nick again. “Bastard child. Why didn’t you perish in your cradle? Would’ve saved me the trouble of feeding and clothing you.”
He grimaced as if Nick’s existence turned his stomach. Then he reeled back and swung, the back of his hand cracking against Nick’s cheek.
The thud in his ears made him dizzy. He’d learned to keep himself still. A flinch, a cry, any sign of weakness stoked his father’s rage.
“Don’t look at me, boy! Turn those devil eyes away.”
Nick flicked his gaze down and focused on the carpet, the carved wood of his father’s desk, anything but the man himself. The duke’s commands never made sense. Look. Don’t look. Speak. Don’t speak. Kneel. Stand. Nick obeyed, hoping to end their encounters quickly. But they never ended after one blow or lash. Teeth clenched, body shaking, he waited for the next.
“What do you have to say for yourself, evil imp?”
“Nothing, sir.” Nick tried swallowing, but his mouth had gone dust-dry.
“Andwhatare you?”
“Nothing, sir.” Nick rasped the words his father made him repeat every time.
The duke shifted. Nick winced, anticipating the next strike. Fire came instead, lancing across his cheek, gouging into his skin. Pain spread until his whole face burned. Hot blood trickled onto his chin. Nick lifted a trembling hand to his face. His fingers came away sticky and red. Daring a glance at his father, he found the man smiling as he flipped a penknife in his hand.
“Your mother won’t remark on our resemblance anymore, will she? Now you look like the monster you are.”
Nick shoved the memory back, gripped the cold metal knob of the study door, and sucked in deep breaths until he was here, now, not shivering like the pathetic child he’d once been. Inside the room, a shaft of moonlight slanted through the draperies. Its glow found his father’s portrait, lighting the devil’s glare with a silvery gleam.
Those pale blue eyes, so like his own, jabbed at Nick. Poking at old wounds that should have healed years before. Two glowing shards, perfect windows onto his father’s glacial soul. Not even a paid portraitist had managed to hide the viciousness in the old man’s gaze.
“You’re dead,” he told the creature on the wall, but no satisfaction came. Nick imagined his father, in his own twisted way, enjoying Nick’s misery at being back at the estate. Shackled to all its responsibilities. Imprisoned in the place his father had once turned into Nick’s prison.
No.That was one memory he would never revisit. The tower. The lock. The months of fear and hopelessness. He wasn’t imprisoned here anymore. A fortnight and he’d never see this damned house again.
Nick approached the man’s hulking desk and lifted the penknife that had once dripped with his own blood. The scar on his cheek twinged in recognition.
What a weakling he’d been.Sensitive and fragile. His father had loathed him for that weakness as much as his deluded certainty that Nick was not his true born son.
The shock of his father’s loathing had been the worst part. He’d been so innocent. Eager for Papa’s approval. Desperate to please. Never dreaming just how far the man would go to make him suffer.
“There’s no victory for you here,” he told the man who’d never get a chance to strike at him again. “Now that this pile is mine, I’ll tear it all down. Everything you’ve built. Every Tremayne family heirloom will be sold, and I’ll rent this hellish place to the highest bidder. A stranger will sleep in your bed and eat at your table.”
Nick flipped the knife in his hand, raised his arm, and launched the blade straight between his father’s eyes. For one delicious moment, the tip impaled its mark. Then the hilt’s weight pulled the penknife down.
Failure. Again. He’d known it every time he faced his father.
He strode to the window, wrenched up the glass, and stuck out his head to drag in long, chilling breaths. A smoky haze filled the air. The smoldering scent of burning leaves. A whisper of memory came. Huge piles of leaves gathered by the groundskeeper. Jumping in with all the glee of a seven-year-old. Being whipped afterward.
At his back, he still felt the man’s empty eyes on him.
