Page 34 of A Duke Changes Everything
“My father was a liar.” The duke’s chest rose and fell quickly, and his eyes lit with anger. Anger and pain.
“But why did you go to France? And when?” Mina thought back to the day she’d seen him depart as a child. The duchess’s illness came on months later, along with her removal to the seaside. Or at least, that’s what they’d all been led to believe.
“That history is long past. Nearly two decades ago.” He looked away from her, crossed his arms, then took a breath to say more. “She died when I was sixteen, just two years after our arrival. She was ill, but he never sent her to a sanitarium. The man was deluded, but it sounds as though he spun lies to hide a truth he could not stomach. Or perhaps he just wished to protect the precious Tremayne dukedom.”
Mina’s throat ached for the pain she heard in his voice. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
The duke didn’t look at her or acknowledge her words, but he drew in a deep breath and fell momentarily silent.
“I returned to London soon after her death and built a new life for myself. My father’s name gained me nothing. Everything I earned, I worked for. Fought for.” He glanced out of the long library window before swinging his gaze back to hers. “Being a duke’s son is only a benefit when your father doesn’t resent your very existence.”
“He was cruel to you.” Even as a child, Mina had sensed the old man’s menace and she’d never forget how his shouts had reverberated through the house’s walls.
He scoffed. “He was vicious to everyone, wasn’t he?”
Mina noticed the muscles in his neck jump as he swallowed hard.
“My memories of this place are mostly nightmares, Miss Thorne.”
Mina bit her tongue, stifling all the questions whirling in her mind. She suspected he wouldn’t answer any of them and wasn’t certain she could bring herself to ask. The answers, the memories, only seemed to make him miserable.
She didn’t know all that had passed between him and his father, but she was beginning to understand why he hated returning to Enderley. Her memories of the house were colored by her father’s presence, his sensible nature and wise guidance. She struggled with his expectations, but he’d never been cruel.
When Mina got lost in her thoughts, the duke turned away and moved toward a bookcase near the windows. He ran his finger along the shelves, diligently searching for a book.
“Are you searching for your favorite?”
“No,” he mumbled. “Ah, here we are.” He pulled the old, well-worn copy of Grimm’s tales from the shelf. “Is this the one?”
“That’s the one.” She watched as he shuffled through the pages, letting them cascade against the pad of his thumb. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for ribbons.” He shot her one mischievous glance before replacing the book on its shelf. “I thought I might find notes you scribbled at the edges that would help me decipher your contradictory nature.”
She was contradictory? Was the man unaware of the dramatic sea changes in his own behavior?
“You needn’t scrunch your face like that, Miss Thorne.” He stepped closer, dipped his head, and gazed at her through needlessly thick lashes. “I meant no offense. I rather like that you’re a contradiction.”
“I am not.”
“Youseemdutiful.” He leaned forward. “Loyal enough to remain in this hopeless place when it must bore you to the bone.” He inhaled sharply, tilted his head. “But deep down, you want more, don’t you? To have adventures like the characters in this book. To leave Enderley and see the world. To choose your own future.”
“You don’t know me or what I want, Your Grace.” Pain shot across her jaw when Mina bit down to keep from saying more. Words she’d regret.
“No.” His tone dipped low. “But I find that I’d very much like to.”
Mina didn’t know if the hoarse pitch of his voice was a figment of her own wayward imagination. She only knew that his words caused an odd tremor to ripple across her skin.
She felt everything more sharply—the blood rushing in her ears, the fluttering pulse in her neck. He was too close. The mad thought came that she should reach out and touch him.
To shock him. To prove she was as adventurous as she yearned to be.
His words struck deep because they were true. With ruthless accuracy, he’d somehow seen what she tried so hard to hide. Longings. Kernels of wanderlust. A desire to do more, see more, than her commitments at Enderley would ever allow.
In childhood, she’d fed her daydreams with fairy tales and fables. Now she simply kept busy and told herself that solving the estate’s problems and doing her duty as her father would have wished equaled contentment.
And then the new duke had arrived.
She couldn’t bear the smug tilt of his mouth, the way his height made her feel small, the way his too-perceptive gaze flitted from her eyes to her mouth and back again.
