Page 63 of Duke with a Deception
She already knew him. Knew him better than he knew himself, it sometimes seemed. He wanted to resent her for it, but he felt nothing but the aching sense in his chest that he was too late to stop himself from falling completely under her spell.
“I am thinking,” he admitted.
“Do you want to tell me?”
Her hesitant question filled him with self-loathing. It was a miracle she had forgiven him for the way he had reacted to the sight of her in the nursery that night, holding Daphne’s blanket. For confiding only pieces of himself in her whilst she remained so open and giving, so willing to love him when he was the least deserving of her care.
There was a place he could start, he thought. The child. Even if he couldn’t tell her the truth about her memories and the past they had shared, he could give her something she wanted. He had meant to tell her earlier, but he had been so overwhelmed with desire, so filled with emotions he had no wish to study, that he had simply fucked her on the desk in his study instead. And later, there had been dinner and port, and they had kissed for hours in the library. She had read him poems, and then they parted to prepare for bed, and when he’d seen her in her transparent nightgown, her nipples hard and inviting, he had lost all coherent thought.
“If you don’t want to speak of whatever it is that has been weighing on your mind, I understand,” she said tenderly.
And he hated himself anew. Because he wasn’t worthy of this wonderful woman’s empathy. Wasn’t worthy of her in any way. But he was a greedy bastard who was all too content to take her anyway and fight to keep her.
“Miss Emma,” he forced himself to say. “I did want to speak with you concerning her future.”
Verity stiffened in his arms. “Oh?”
“Having her in the household hasn’t proven the disturbance I feared it would.”
He felt the tension draining from Verity at once.
“Do you mean that?”
“I do.” He cleared his throat, still feeling out of his depths, mired in new emotions he had believed himself incapable of feeling. “If you wish for the girl to make her home with us instead of returning her to the orphanage when it is rebuilt, I am amenable.”
How stiff and lordly he sounded, he thought wryly.
Verity didn’t seem to mind.
“You are saying that Emma can stay with us?”
Before he had married Verity, the mere notion would have made him shudder. But no longer.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “If that is your wish, and if the child wishes it as well, then she may stay.”
Verity kissed him again, sudden and hard. “Thank you, my love. You won’t regret it, I promise.”
He didn’t want to risk further conversation, so King rolled her onto her back and made love to her a fourth time, tenderly and slowly. But even as he held her and waited for slumber to claim him afterward, the gnawing of guilt in his gut refused to be banished.
Gray afternoon lightleaked through the lone pair of windows in the portion of the attic that had been reserved for storage. A cool, sharp dampness filled the air. Outside, a fine mist was falling on London. The faint sounds of rattling tack and horses traveling down the road sifted up to King from far below.
An eerie stillness surrounded him, accompanied by the scent of musty wood and the crated remnants of generations of Castelyns. There were trinkets that had been deemed too important to part with, furniture that might once again come into use, paintings no one had wished to sell off or display. Pieces of the past, packed closely together in boxes and beneath coverings. No doubt there was a full familial history tucked into the rafters.
Although he had made use of this town house for years, King had never, not once, paid a visit to this part of the edifice. With good reason, of course. The low ceiling in this portion of the attic rendered it a danger to a man of his height. Beyond that, the rest of the space consisted of servant quarters. The highest level of Castelyn House was not where the duke belonged.
And he knew it.
But King had ventured to this small, cramped space, hidden away behind a small door and largely forgotten, for one reason. He had come alone in search of the wooden crate that had been packed just over a fortnight ago with the nursery remnants he hadn’t been able to face.
He wasn’t certain if he could face them now either.
But he did know that he needed to try.
Crouching, he sifted through the nearest boxes until he found the one he had been searching for. Within, there was a neatly folded coverlet, a doll, a handful of dresses, a bonnet, some swaddling. With trembling hands, he unveiled each piece, his mind winnowing the fragments of his memory.
He had not wanted to be a father. Daphne’s very existence had been the result of his own foolish lack of care. Lucinda had been a famed actress, and he had fallen under her spell, along with half of London. He alone had won her, setting her up as his mistress. Their relationship had been volatile from the start. Lucinda had been wildly jealous with a temperament that had been mercurial at best. She had been as likely to throw an epergne at his head as to welcome him with open arms. She would rage at him one moment, accusing him of taking lovers, and passionately kiss him the next.
He had found her fascinating and terrifying. Her beauty had drawn him to her, along with her unparalleled skill on the stage. She had been one of the finest actresses of their time. But she had also been unpredictable. Six months into their arrangement, they had mutually decided to part ways.
