The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(91)

At last alone, Helena let the tears fall freely, unchecked. Ryker had long proclaimed tears were a hint of weakness, and yet she didn’t give a bloody damn about Ryker and his blasted rules. Or his curt, cold pronouncements about the nobility.

Nothing but a stinging, biting rage at him consumed her, so much healthier and safer than the despair tearing her apart.

He’d sent her to this place. He’d forced her into this world. And in it, she’d found Robert, a man who’d defied every last belief she’d believed about noblemen.

A man who’d treat her as a lady and offer her his name; the same man, who’d defend a common street thief, was a man so wholly worth loving. Her shoulders shook from the force of her tears. For he was deserving of a woman far more worthy than she.

She drew in a last, broken sob, and then dragged her hands down her damp cheeks.

The faint click of the bedroom door sounded in the quiet, and she stiffened.

Her sister called out quietly. “You are leaving, then?”

Helena gave a curt nod, incapable of speech. If she said a single word, she’d collapse into another blubbering mess.

“I don’t want you to go,” Diana said, coming to a stop at her shoulder.

“I have to,” she said on a ragged whisper. She turned to face the young woman. In her sister’s eyes was a new world wariness that came from one who’d been ruined by life. And guilt seized her chest once more. I did this. “I am so sorry.” For everything.

A faint smile played on her bow-shaped lips. “Do you truly believe I’d ever regret stepping into that hell to save you? I love you, Helena.”

Tears welled anew, and Helena smothered a sob with her hand.

Then, in the greatest of reversals, the younger girl drew her into her arms and gave a light squeeze. “Husbands are overrated anyway,” Diana said with a dry humor. “Especially the noblemen type.”

Oh, how I am going to miss you . . .

She was saved from responding by the opening of the door.

The duke’s large form filled the entranceway. This man whom she’d spent her life hating.

Diana hurriedly took a step back. “I will come by before you leave,” she murmured, and rushed from the room.

The Duke of Wilkinson closed the door. Father and daughter stood there, silent, studying one another. Gone was the ever-cheerful style. In its place were tight lines at the corner of his mouth, and a sadness in his eyes.

Another person forever changed by my presence. She swallowed past the swell of regret.

The duke came forward slowly, and as he stopped before her, she braced for his stinging vitriol. “Do you know the day you were born, you did not cry.”

She cocked her head.

The duke’s gaze took on a faraway quality. “I was not there the day Ryker was born. His delivery was long, and your mother and I were told he’d not survived.” Coldness slithered around her insides. What evil that a newborn babe could have been stolen and given to another. He looked at Helena. “I was determined to sit outside your mother’s rooms while she birthed you.” Odd, she’d never given thought to that day, whether there had been joy or sadness or . . . any feelings about her birth. “The moment you entered the world, there was just this absolute silence.”

She bit her lower lip hard. He’d have surely preferred his world that way, given the way she’d ripped it asunder.

“I ran into the room, and you just had this small smile on your lips.”

The vise squeezed all the harder about her heart. His were not the words of a hateful beast or a vengeful duke. But rather, a man. How long had she seen nothing but the Duke of Wilkinson? Only to find he was, and always had been, her father.

“I am so very sorry for all the ways in which I failed you . . .” His voice cracked. “And your brother.” Ryker Black, who’d hated his sire so much, he’d adopted a false surname that divorced himself from either of the parents who’d given him life.

Helena shook her head. “It is not your fault.” Sometimes evil won out over good, as it had with the duchess.

He ran a hand over his balding head. “But you see, Helena. It was my fault. I didn’t choose your mother.” When he at last looked at her, regret bled from the depths of his eyes. “I chose responsibility, and she, and you, Ryker, you all paid the greatest price for my sins. I loved her,” he whispered, and her heart spasmed at the grief which contorted his face.

Unable to witness that emotion there, Helena strolled over to her vanity. “Sometimes love is not enough.” Her gaze caught the folded note and she skimmed her fingertips over the six letters marked on the vellum.

“You are wrong,” he said, with only the optimism he could have, this man who’d failed to see the evil in his wife.

She shot a sad look back. “I’m not.” If she was, she and Robert could be together. That day in the alley had proven the impossibility of them.

Her father fished around the front of his jacket, and withdrew a narrow box. He held a palm out. She started at the unexpectedness of that gesture and looked from him to that small package. He came forward. “Here,” he said with a gruff tenderness.

Wordlessly, she accepted the modest package, and lifted the lid. She froze. Nestled amidst a small pillow of aged satin lay a gold necklace with a ruby rose pendant attached, and a memory whispered forth of a woman who’d worn this very piece. Long ago. For so many years she’d recalled nothing but the despair and horror of living on the streets with that broken woman and Diggory that she’d neatly forgotten all the cherished memories they’d once shared: tending gardens together, playing a pretend game of pirates, battling with imagined swords.