The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1)(73)

“Over the years, I’ve thought of you often,” he said. “Worried over you. Prayed.”

“I’m not certain I can believe that. If you found me this easily now, why not years ago? If you worried, why did you never send a letter, never ask whether I had enough to eat or coal to keep warm at night? You didn’t care. You probably thought it my due penance.”

A chill went through her, and she started to shiver. She hugged herself, willing it to stop. She would not allow him to rule her that way.

“That’s not the case,” he said. “I swear it.”

“What is it you want from me now? Money? Influence? Some sort of favor? You must have heard I’ve married.”

“No, not at all. It’s as I told you. I came only to make amends.”

“Well, it seems very convenient timing.”

“I . . .” He fidgeted with the brim of his hat. “To be truthful, it was God. God spoke to me.”

God spoke to him? Emma couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“That is to say, it wasn’t precisely God who spoke to me.” A queasy look came over his pale face. “I . . . I was visited by a fearsome messenger in the night. A demon.”

“Oh, truly,” she said, dispassionate. Clearly in his advancing age he was going mad.

“It was terrible, Emma. He appeared to me in my bedchamber, in the middle of the night. A demon from the very mouth of Hell. He told me that my days are numbered on this earth, and that I must make my peace with you or else face eternal hellfire.”

“So you’re not here to make amends to me for my sake. You’re here for your own interests.” She shook her head. “You truly haven’t changed.”

“Can it not be for the good of us both? I know—I have always known, long before this unholy visitation—that I treated you ill. The sin has weighed on me like a millstone all these years. I cannot rest easy until I know I have your forgiveness.”

She laughed bitterly. “You cannot rest easy. Perhaps you should try sleeping in the cold, as you forced me to do.”

“You can’t mean to say you are withholding your forgiveness?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t feel any haste to grant it.”

“You cannot deny me this.” He grew indignant. She knew that chastening tone so very well. “You are my daughter. Did I not clothe and feed you, raise you in the principles of charity for sixteen years?”

“And did I not love you for every one of those years?” Her voice shook. “Every Sunday, I sat in that chapel, and I might have prayed to God, but it was your blessing I sought. It made no difference, did it? One mistake outweighed it all. It wasn’t the lack of clothing or shelter or food that hurt me, Father. It wasn’t even the rejection of my sweetheart. What tore me in two was seeing you for who you are. Knowing you were never the man I’d believed you to be. Not by half.”

“Emma, please. Do not judge so harshly. You must understand I was taken by surprise that night. Stunned. I scarcely knew what I was feeling, let alone doing.”

“You knew exactly what you were doing. And I know exactly how you felt. You were ashamed. Ashamed of me, and ashamed of what people would say if they knew. It was cowardice, pure and simple, that was your motive then. It is cowardice that brought you here tonight.” She went to the door. “I would like you to leave.”

“No! No, you cannot do this to me.” He fell to his knees before her. “You didn’t see him, Emma. The demon. Oh, he was horrible. Fearsome to behold. His face . . . it was all twisted and burned, and he had—”

“Wait.” Emma’s heartbeat stuttered. “You say his face was burned?”

“Yes. Most wretchedly. From the brimstone, no doubt. But it wasn’t only his face that was evil. He . . . he threatened me with hellfire and bureaucracy. He insulted my curtains. He called me the vilest of names.”

“Names such as what?”

“Oh, I don’t like to say.”

“Names such as what?”

“I don’t know, I . . . Something like m-mammering canker-blossom?”

“Thank you, Father. I think you’ve given me a very clear image of this ‘demon’ you encountered.”

And that image looked a great deal like her husband.

Mammering canker-blossom. Now that one was new. He must have been saving it.

Her father rose to his feet. “I beg you. If you deny me forgiveness, you do not know how I will suffer. For the rest of my life, I will never be easy. Never at peace. Always fearing that each day will be my last.”

“I lived with that feeling for six years. Now it’s your turn.” She opened the door. “If it’s forgiveness you want, you may come back and ask me again in another six years. Right now, you will leave. At once.”

“But—”

She gave him a push between the shoulders and he stumbled through the open door. “Begone, you beetle-headed gudgeon.”

Oh, the look on his face. For as long as she lived, she would laugh whenever she recalled it.

“Beetle-headed . . . ?” He huffed with offense, and his face turned purple with rage. “You will not speak to me that way, Emma Grace Gladstone.”

“Emma Grace Gladstone,” she echoed. “No, Emma Grace Gladstone would not have dared to speak to you that way. But I’m Emma Grace Pembrooke now. The Duchess of Ashbury. And if you ever speak to me again, you will address me as Your Grace.”