Addicted to the Duke (Imperfect Lords #1)(85)

As she left the room you could hear a pin drop, neither of the men confirming her request for dinner.

—

As the door closed, the earl moved to pour them both a brandy. “God damn it, Alex. You gave me your word. Your word. You promised me you would leave her alone. I want to run you through, or at least challenge you to a duel, and if I were twenty years younger I would.”

Pembroke’s words made the brandy he swallowed taste like pig’s swill. He had given his word. But that was four long years ago. He was a different man today.

“Nothing to say? You are not going to tell me you’ve changed? That opium no longer dictates your life, or that the nightmares chasing you have disappeared?”

The earl knew what the two years in captivity had cost Alex. He understood well what Murad had done to him, and Alex suspected this was the reason Pembroke objected so strenuously to a marriage with Hestia. The opium usage was just an excuse.

“Hestia will become my duchess. She makes my life better. She chases away the nightmares.”

The earl thumped his hand on the table. “I won’t allow it. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know what Murad did to you. The perversities…”

Alex swallowed the rest of his brandy and put the glass down on the table that stood between them. “She might not have known before we left London, but I’m pretty sure she has a good idea now.”

“You told her?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then how could she know?” At Alex’s silence, the earl’s eyes widened. “When he held you both captive?”

Alex nodded.

“And she still wants to marry you?”

If the earl wanted to make Alex feel like a bit of dirt under his boot, that question was the best way to do so. Murad had stripped him of any pride years ago; the earl should have known that better than anyone. Having to have this conversation was exactly what made the opium such sweet release.

“This has never been about my opium habit, has it? This is about your disgust about what Murad did to me—with me. For Christ’s sake, I was his captive. What did you expect me to do? Would you have preferred me to have given up and died?”

The look on the earl’s face said that was exactly what he would have expected Alex to do. “I don’t know how you can live with what he did to you. It’s an abomination. Unless, of course…you enjoyed it.”

Alex had to clench his fists at his sides to stop him smashing one of them, or both of them, into the earl’s face. “It is only because you are her father that I don’t call you out—elderly or not.”

If the earl wanted to drive a wedge between him and Hestia, then he would be in for a fight. He should have had this discussion with her father years ago, but he’d thought like the earl that no woman could love him when she learned the perversions he’d been subjected to. He’d underestimated Hestia back then; he would not do so again.

“Why do you think I took the opium? You have no idea how, every day, I battled to find a reason to live—to survive. The biggest reason of all, the one that saw me endure more than any man should have to, was that one day I would see Murad dead.”

“Some indignities should not be survived. Any man of honor would never have let himself be used like that.”

Alex briefly closed his eyes and fought to rein in his temper. This bigoted man was to become his father-in-law. He took a deep breath and blew out through his nose.

“Your daughter is an amazing woman. She has a heart big enough to encompass the world. Do you know what she sees when she looks at me? She sees a man, a flawed man, but a man who has endured and overcome evil. A man who has seen and experienced such horrors she cannot comprehend how anyone could treat a person so. She’s proud that I lived to escape. She doesn’t care how I managed that, only that I did. Because she loves me. And do you want to know something else? I’d go through it all again, I’d endure the perversities again, and fight to survive, if it meant she was waiting for me, to heal me with her touch, her kiss, her love.”

Pembroke had the grace to look embarrassed.

“I let you push me away four years ago because I knew. I knew even then it was not the opium you objected to, and I also thought myself unworthy. I thought I could not be cleansed until I killed Murad. I was wrong. Killing doesn’t cleanse, loving does.”

He walked to the door. “I’m going to marry your daughter, if she’ll have me, and nothing you say or do will stop me. You can either be a part of our lives or not. Given you’ve not seemed to care a jot about your daughter’s life the past four years, I wonder why you object so much.”

“What if the truth comes out? What if people learn what happened to you? The disgrace…Hestia will be…”

Alex gave him a wry smile. “You think people talking about what Murad may have or may not have done to me is worse than actually having it done? You are pathetic. I’ve endured far worse than gossip, and so has your daughter.” He opened the door. “You have until dinner to decide if you will be a part of our lives or not.” Then he walked out with his head held high and his pride firmly in place.

—

Dinner was strained but polite, but Hestia’s stomach kept churning. She wanted her father’s blessing for her marriage to Alex, but she would marry without it if it came to that.