Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(85)

Then from the corner of her eye, Lionel’s grinning visage stared back at her and she stopped suddenly. Drawn to the portrait of her brother forever frozen as the lighthearted, loving, young man he’d been, Daisy wandered over. The painting, once hung on the walls among the marquesses of Roxbury, was to have been the last one of Lionel until he ascended to the title. Instead, it had been his last sitting ever.

“Auric petitioned the current Marquess of Roxbury for it.”

Daisy spun about. “Wh—?”

“The day of your wedding,” her mother murmured.

Emotion clogged her throat, making speech difficult. This was the man Auric was. As long as she’d known him, he’d been one to always consider the happiness, well-being, and feelings of others. That was the man she’d fallen in love with, and he was the only man she would ever love. Reluctantly, Daisy drew her gaze away from the image of Lionel and forced her legs into motion.

“Daisy?” her mother called out, staying her movement.

She turned around.

“I love you, too,” her mother whispered.

Daisy gave her a smile. “I know, Mama.” With that, she took her leave. It was time to find her husband.





Chapter 22

Auric sat in the library, head buried in his hands. The half empty bottle of brandy he’d lost himself in for the better part of the day lay forgotten at his feet alongside the open journal that had both saved him these years and had now destroyed him before the woman he loved.

Daisy’s accusations and words echoed around the chambers of his mind, just as they’d done since she’d taken her leave of him yesterday afternoon, with loathing teeming from her once loving brown eyes.

He dragged his hands through his hair and swiped for his glass of brandy. He downed the remaining contents in a long, slow swallow, grimacing as it burned a fiery path down his throat. Had he expected a different reaction from her? And more, was he deserving of an altogether different reaction?

And the worst part of it all was there had been a hideous truth to those charges she’d leveled at him. All these years, he’d thought there was something honorable in his dedicating himself to Lionel’s family. In actuality, those things hadn’t been for Daisy, or the Marquess and Marchioness of Roxbury—they had been for him.

He swept the book up and stared at those words that had forever killed the love Daisy had carried in her heart.

I killed her brother…

Auric crushed the leather book in his hand. Daisy had the right of it, however. There was no absolution. There was no forgiveness. But now there was truth between them. Yet, he’d not been freed by those truths as all those great tales told. Instead, it had shackled him into a loveless marriage, with the sin all the blacker for his role in Lionel’s death and in his deception.

He wished the lies remained between them. For then, at least those untruths would continue to eat away at him, but Daisy would remain untouched by the vileness of that night. Now she knew things no young lady had a right to know, and saw him for the self-centered bastard he was, and always had been. Auric fanned the pages of his journal, his finger stopping randomly upon a page.

Lionel,

Daisy requires a husband…I shall see she wed an honorable, respectable, resolute gentleman as she desires and deserves…

Just one more lie. For knowing Astor or another would have made her a better match, giving her freedom from the pain of her past, Auric had gone and wed her anyway. Their marriage would forever remind Daisy of what she’d lost and what he’d cost her. He slammed the pages closed. Thwack. The echo of that gave him little satisfaction. Auric surged to his feet with the damning pages in his hands and stalked across the room to the hearth. A soft fire cracked and snapped in the metal grate, casting off warmth from the low, orange flames. Odd, he could be so warm on the outside and yet frozen cold from within.

He fixed upon one flame that reached above the others. All these years he’d fought for some semblance of peace and normalcy in his life. From the moment of that great mistake, he’d devoted his life to being a man who might be respected for the moral and proper life he led. Every part of his life after Lionel had been a carefully orchestrated fa?ade, meant to deceive—polite Society, Daisy, her family, himself. He’d always known as much and the guilt of even that deception ate at him. Auric turned the journal over in his hands and studied the warm, familiar pages of a book that had been more friend and confidante to him. When his life had been crafted of lies, these pages had known truths. When the nightmares had threatened to consume and destroy him, this book had kept him from falling over the precipice of madness.

Odd, the book that had brought him comfort and solace these years had inevitably destroyed him. He caught his visage in the reflection of the gold mirror. A hard, bitter smile twisted his lips. This journal hadn’t destroyed him. He’d destroyed himself, because that is what he always did. Lionel’s life, his own, Daisy’s, her parents’.

Auric held the edge of the book to the fire. The crimson flame licked at the corner, smoldering the edge black. He fixed on that rapidly growing charred mark, expanding, until it sparked orange. With a curse he tossed it to the floor and stomped the small flame out with the heel of his boot. He stared blankly down at his journal. Burning the book would never manage to undo everything that had been done.

A knock sounded at the door and his head shot up, his heart suspended in hope. Then, his butler stepped through the door and the organ fell.