Page 102 of Duke with a Deception
King waited for the door to close before he turned back to his letter.
Dearest Verity,
Three days have passed since I last heard your voice. Here is another letter I shall never send.
Most nights, I cannot sleep. But when I do, I wake in the night, swearing I heard your voice. I reach for you, and there is nothing but the same emptiness that resides within my heart.
Although I suffer in much-deserved misery, know that I would endure all just to hold you in my arms again, to know what it felt like to be loved by you, even for a small time.
I am, as always, ever yours,
King
He signed it with a flourish,then reread what he had written. He had taken to writing her these fruitless epistles because he had no one to whom he could unburden himself. She was the one person in whom he confided. And now, she was gone.
Ironic, that.
He was at fault, he knew. He was the one who had chased her away with his?—
King’s thoughts stilled as the door to his study flew open with such force that it slammed against the plaster wall and rattled the nearest picture, newly hung at Mrs. Sendall’s insistence, in lieu of the ones he had recently destroyed.
At the threshold stood a livid Duke of Riverdale, fists clenched at his sides and eyes blazing with fury.
“Riverdale,” he drawled. “I do believe you’ve just put a hole in my wall.”
“What the devil have you done to my sister, damn your hide?” his former friend snarled.
“Cease yelling, if you please. I’ve a headache.”
And it wasn’t even from over-imbibing. He hadn’t touched a drop of spirits since Verity had left him. Rather, the thumping in his head was all from lack of sleep and misery.
“I’ll yell if I want,” Riverdale growled, storming into the room and slamming the door a second time at his back. “As for holes, it looks as if the one I made shall match the others.”
It was true that the walls had received some damage, thanks to King’s handiwork on the morning Verity had left him. He didn’t regret a moment of his rampage. It had done little to assuage the agony within him, but there had been an undeniable satisfaction to be found in breaking things so that they resembled the ruin inside him.
“I shall send you the bill for the one you made,” he countered, wondering what Verity had told her brother.
Had she revealed that her memory had returned?
“And I will promptly throw it into the fire and watch it burn,” Riverdale countered, slamming his fists on King’s desk.
The force of his blows made the desk wobble. It had not emerged from King’s wrath unscathed and was only loosely pieced together.
He frowned and swept his letters to the side, turning them upside down so that Riverdale couldn’t read them. “Take care. The desk is in need of repair.”
“Your face will be in need of repair before I am through,” Riverdale sneered.
With a sigh, King stood. “To what do I owe your uninvited presence in my study this morning?”
“Your own actions,” his friend bit out. “Verity sent word to me that she has gone to Riverdale Abbey. She refused to say why or how long she intended to stay, which means you have done something to make her unhappy. And when my sister is unhappy, I am as well.”
So, she hadn’t told him, then.
“I expect she went there because she regained her memory,” he said calmly.
Riverdale’s brows snapped together. “When?”
“The night of the ball.”
