Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(87)

Those words gave Auric pause.

“You’ve based the man you became on a night that you can’t piece together. And do you know the truth?” He didn’t wait for Auric to respond. “The truth is, Auric, you’ll not let yourself remember,” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “Just as you’ll not discuss what happened, as I’d tried to do in those earlier days.”

A swell of emotion lodged in his throat. In the early days after Lionel’s passing, Marcus had come to him, trying to speak of that night and matters of the living. In the end, Auric had not made himself available. How many times had he silenced the other man, shifting the topic away to something, anything, that wasn’t that night? Until eventually, the topic of Lionel and that night never again came up. Who had Marcus turned to after Auric betrayed their friendship? “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse with remorse.

Only, Wessex continued. “I lost him, too. You didn’t love him more, even though you’ve convinced yourself in your mind. I’m your friend, too…and I not only wanted to help you see the truths of that night…not just for you, but for me, as well.” The guilt redoubled in Auric’s breast and he took each lash. “You’d not speak to me.” He jerked his chin to the burnt, black leather book on Auric’s desk. “You would, however, confide on the pages of your journal there, content to live here alone, in your closed-off world, erecting this protective fortress about you, constructed of guilt. In your arrogance you’d take all this on, when in truth,” he stopped and leaned across the desk, looking Auric squarely in the eye. “We were all guilty. You. Me. And Lionel.”

No.

“Yes,” Wessex said, that one word utterance, quiet, and yet so powerful as to carry through the room. He straightened and smoothed his hands over the front of his jacket. “Perhaps if we’d spoken of this before…” Daisy. “This moment, then there would not be the tumult there is. For any of us. Surely, you know the blame does not lie solely with you.”

Auric slid his glance away, for the truth was, he did not know it. All he knew were the memories that flitted through his mind, disjointed and senseless, but when pieced together only pointed at his culpability.

“My God,” Wessex said quietly. The air left him on a slow exhale, calling Auric’s attention back. “You don’t remember all the details of that night, do you?”

“I remember enough,” he bit out.

“Lionel wanted to go to that club.” At my insistence. His friend shook his head back and forth slowly. “No, Auric.” He sat once more. “At his insistence.”

Auric cocked his head. “We argued about—”

“You did argue,” Wessex interrupted. He reached for his brandy. “But you’re misremembering what you argued about.”

The wheels of Auric’s mind churned slowly as he tried to pluck remnants of his broken memories. They were there, within his grasp as they always were, but any time he danced close to the truth, the black curtain would descend. He struggled through the thick, black, filmy shadow and with a growl of annoyance leaped to his feet. They had argued, the teasing jocundity of two young men vying for control and position…. jockeying back and forth. For what? For what? Auric began to pace rapidly behind his desk. What had there been to argue over when he’d relented and…He drew to an abrupt stop and stared unblinking at the floor-length windows.

“It was Lionel’s idea to visit that hell.”

Did those words belong to Wessex? Or were they his own. He spun to face the other man. “It was Lionel’s decision to go there.”

Wessex stared into the contents of his glass, swirling the amber drops in a slow circle. “You wanted no part of the filthy underbelly of London.”

Auric dragged trembling fingers through his hair and closed his eyes once again, as he tried to pull together the rest of the pieces of that night. He’d wanted to visit one of the upscale brothels…Then he let his hand fall back to his side. “The woman.”

His friend’s silence stood as confirmation of the niggling memory.

The lithe creature with midnight black curls falling about her shoulders, and a promise in her eyes. They’d both wanted a place in the lady’s bed that evening. Ultimately, Lionel had ceded the opportunity, going with another, and ultimately meeting his death.

It would have been me. Oh, God. The room dipped and swayed, and he shot a hand out, grasping for the wall to keep his legs from crumpling under him. Nausea churned in his belly as at last the curtain lifted and the past was revealed. “It should have been me,” his voice emerged in a hoarse croak.

Wessex cursed. The floorboards creaked, indicating the other man moved. “You would still take on the guilt of that night? Even knowing—”

“If I’d gone to her rooms instead—”

“Then you’d be dead,” his friend said bluntly.

And Lionel would be alive.

He thought of Daisy, his wife, and the secrets he’d withheld from her. In truth, there was no greater crime than this. Emotion cloyed at his insides, clutched at his mind and drove back logic and reason. If he did not leave, he’d descend into madness. He stalked across the floor.

“Where are you going?” Wessex called out.

Auric ignored him, needing to be free of the memories that now surged through him with a staggering clarity, more horrific and nauseating for the realness of them. He yanked the door open and collided with Daisy.