The Rogue Not Taken (Scandal & Scoundrel #1)(92)

“One would think that you would eschew formal attire this far from London in both distance and time,” King said.

The duke leveled him with a long, thorough, disdainful gaze. “One would think you would remember your manners in spite of the distance, and not turn up drunk in the middle of the day.”

King did not wait to be told to sit, instead sprawling into a chair nearby, enjoying the way one of his father’s grey brows rose in irritation. “I find that alcohol helps with my great distaste for this place.”

“You didn’t hate it when you were a child.”

“I didn’t see its truth.”

“And what is that?”

King drank. “That it turns us into monsters.”

The duke approached and sat in the chair opposite him. King considered his father, still tall and trim, the kind of man women would find handsome even as he aged. And he had aged in the last decade, the silver that had once been the purview of his temples now spread throughout all his hair, lines at his mouth and eyes that King had once heard referred to as signs of good humor.

It was humorous indeed to think of his father as the kind of man who was known for such a thing.

“You look well,” the duke said. “Older.”

King drank. “Why am I here?”

“It is time we speak.”

“You sent word you were dying.”

Lyne waved a hand. “We are all dying, are we not?”

King cut him a look. “Some of us not quickly enough.”

The duke sat back in his chair. “I suppose you think I deserve that.”

“I know you deserve more,” King said. There was a pause, and he said, “I won’t ask again, Your Grace. You either tell me why I’ve been summoned here or I leave, and the next time I see this place, I shall bear its name.”

“I could follow you to London.”

“I have avoided you for fifteen years, your grace. London is a very big city.”

“It will be difficult for you to do so if I resume my role as duke.”

“To do that, you’d have to take your seat in Parliament. I’m sure the rest of the House of Lords would be thrilled you were at last treating your title with respect.” He considered his father. “In fact, for a man who so thoroughly respected the title that he went to such lengths to protect it from being damaged by bad blood, it is a shock that you have eschewed such an important duty. You’ve been in London, what, a half-dozen times in fifteen years?”

“I had my reasons for staying away.”

“I’m sure they were excellent,” King scoffed.

“Some better than others.” The duke inhaled. “I should never have left you alone for so long.”

King raised a brow. “Left me?”

The duke fisted his hands on his knees. “You were young and insolent and you knew nothing of the world. Every time I returned, you refused to see me. A single, petulant message. The line ends with me. I should never have allowed it.”

“I enjoy the way you think you have allowed me to do anything I’ve done since the night you exiled me.”

Lyne leveled him with a cool green gaze that King had used on countless others. He did not like being in its path. “I have allowed you everything. I filled your coffers with funds, I gave you horses, the Mayfair town house, the curricle you drove hell-for-leather for a year before you crashed it, the coach you never used.”

King sat forward, loathing the way his father seemed to claim his successes for himself. “That money is now worth twelve times its original value. The house sits empty, right there on Park Lane, entailed to you. The horses are dead. And yes, the carriage is crashed. Just as the coach here was.” He narrowed his gaze on his father. “I lived by your hand until I could live by my own. And I have never asked you for another shilling. One would think you would not have kept such a ledger. One would have thought you would count those funds as penance for killing a girl so far beneath you that you thought her expendable.”

“And so we get to it.”

“So we do.”

The duke sat back in his chair. “I was not the instrument of her death.”

It was a strange phrasing, one that King imagined his father used to eschew his responsibility. “No, I was, and thank you very much for clarifying the situation as though I wasn’t there.”

“You weren’t, either.”

King held up a hand. “I carried the reins, Your Grace. I heard her scream. I was there when she fell silent. I held her in my arms.”

“And that will be your cross to bear. All men have them.”

King ran a hand through his hair, barely able to contain his fury and frustration. “Why am I here?”

“I offered her money,” the duke said. “The milkmaid.”

“To leave me.” Lorna had never said so, but it was not an enormous surprise.

“I am not proud of it, but I had no other way of ensuring that she wasn’t after your title. Your money. That she wasn’t trying to climb.”

King laughed at that. “I am supposed to believe that you were, what . . . making certain she loved me?”

The duke’s gaze flickered over King’s shoulder. “Believe it or not, it’s the truth.”

“It’s bollocks and you know it. You’ve done nothing for your entire life but espouse the importance of blue blood and good name and strong breeding. If you offered her money, you did it to ensure she would leave me. I assume you offered her father the same.”