Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“ W hat have you been doing?” Alexander asked.

When Alexander returned to Silverton House that evening, he found Madeleine in the parlor. She wore a paint-splattered apron over her dress, and he cocked his head.

“Painting!” she answered happily. “Attending the exhibit inspired me. I used to paint in Kinsfeld House. Nobody really knew about it, of course. I liked painting whatever I saw out of different windows.”

Alexander paused, taking in the smear of paint along her chin, on her hands, and the apron she wore. Biting back a laugh, he recalled why he wished to speak with her.

“Madeleine,” he began, “I wondered if you would sit with me over tea?”

His wife paused, frowning. “You sound very formal, suddenly. Is something wrong?”

He sighed. “I do not know.”

He had known that his request for her to be patient with him hadn’t been entirely fair. He knew she had questions, and Lady Bastian had not helped matters, but Madeleine had questions of her own, regardless.

He walked over to her and took her hands. “You have been patient with me, and I am very grateful, but now there is something I must speak with you about. It is something I fear you will not understand at first, but if you will hear me out to the fullest then I can explain.”

“Alexander, you are scaring me.”

“I know. I am sorry.” He kissed her forehead. “We shall forgo the tea so I may speak.”

She nodded, pulling him to sit down on a settee. “Speak to me.”

After years of locking up his thoughts, his secrets, his grief and pain, Alexander found himself utterly silent for a moment. Completely, utterly still and thoughtless.

Until soft hands wrapped around his, and his wife’s eyes met his own.

“The walls are hard to bring down,” she whispered, “I know they are. But you are not alone. Whatever it is, I will try to understand. Let me tend to your wounds, Alexander.”

So he tried.

And he began with the least painful secret. “Do you remember the time we saw one another at the Golden Hand? I told you that your husband had debts. Specifically, to the Raven’s Den.”

Madeleine swallowed, and he saw her brows twitch when she realized just what she might need to be understanding of.

“Yes. I was shocked.”

“I believe you called it a place of debauchery, and you asked if I was offended due to it being a favorite haunt of mine.”

“You never did deny or agree,” she said. “But you were offended at my lack of respect for the place.”

“That is because I own the Raven’s Den, Madeleine.”

The silence that followed his confession could have suffocated him. He watched Madeleine’s face turn from confusion, to shock, to anger that she kept composed exceptionally well.

“I have owned it for the past six years, and I placed Mr. Horace Matthews, my witness from our wedding ceremony, in charge as a manager to cover my ownership.”

“You…” She leaned back against the settee’s arm. “You own the place that got Donald wound up into debt?”

“No,” he growled, before reconsidering. “No.” He made his voice softer. “Kinsfeld got himself wound up into debt. Yes, gambling comes at a risk of falling into it as deep as he did, but the Raven’s Den is not responsible for it. If you will give me another moment, I will explain why I own it.”

“What reason could you possibly?—”

“Madeleine,” he pleaded. “Please, have patience with me.”

After a moment, she swallowed and nodded.

“My father was reckless, irresponsible. The ton loved him, for he knew how to spin a smooth word and entice a crowd. He knew how to dangle investments in front of wealthy lords and get their support. However, he had a darker side to him. He was a man of dubious tastes. Gambling, drinking. Women too, I imagine.”

Madeleine’s jaw clenched, likely recognizing the traits.

Alexander carefully continued. “My father associated with dangerous individuals. Rival noblemen looking for fights, and crime lords who were not afraid to get their own hands dirty. But because his affairs became too much to manage, his debts piled up. The debts were not to honorable establishments that could be reasoned with. Once they grew heavier, the enemies he made grew.

“My mother and I, by association, were at risk, because my father could not pay what he owed. Not even one percent of it.” He inhaled sharply. “Madeleine, I told you I was just fifteen years old when my mother died in my arms, but I did not tell you why, or how. I could not. I…”

He drew in another breath, this one slower, more deliberate.

“When my father fell deeper into his destructive hole, my mother and I kept one another sane. She kept me safe, as best she could. She loved music, and she loved to dance around the parlor and her own chambers, and she would comb her own hair before her maids woke her up.”

He smiled without being able to help himself.

“She said she didn’t want to trouble them, but I think she just enjoyed it. She did not love my father. Or, perhaps she did at one point, but I was too young to find out properly. I am sure it was a loveless marriage—so for my mother to die the way she did… due to a man who did not even love her, when another man may have been able to give her that…”

He shook his head, his mouth tight.

“What happened, Alexander?”

Madeleine’s gentle question brought him back from spiraling.

He took a moment before continuing. “My father brokered a deal that went wrong. Very wrong. He did not uphold the bargain, and he thought he could swindle some money without the consequences catching up to him. But the consequences did catch up—only, not to him.”

Madeleine’s face was pale, her hands tight around his. Any anger from his earlier confession had softened into empathy as she listened to his grief.

“One of my father’s associates—a gaming hell owner whom my father had promised investment to and tried to reap the benefits before he paid up—sent a message that he would not stand for betrayal in business. I heard a commotion in the drawing room, and raced downstairs. The place was empty. All that was left were the bloodstains, and… my mother, dying on the floor.”

Madeleine gasped.

“And your father?” she asked, her voice tight with emotion.

“He was out. At his favorite gentleman’s club.” The flat tone was full of anger, of resentment. “I hated him. I do not think I hated him more than I did in that moment.”

“Alexander,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”

“When he returned, I pinned him to the wall and I made him look at his wife, and what they had done. I demanded he seek revenge for the woman he had sworn to protect. But he was a coward. He refused. That night, I saw him cry for the only time in my life, and I was the constant reminder of his mistake. His guilt, manifested.

“He sent me away to Eton, and then I went on to Cambridge, where I met John. A man who spoke of his sister so lovingly it was hard not to feel something with how he spoke about you, Madeleine. When I was twenty and five, I received a missive that my father was dead, that drank himself into a ditch and died there. I returned to Silverton, and I rebuilt this duchy.”

His voice turned harder now, fierce. “I dragged it out of the ground, I cleared every debt in my father’s name, and once I had revived the legacy I would protect, I sought out the men who had killed my mother.”

He noticed Madeleine tensing up.

“I wanted to kill them. To soak the ground with their blood, as they had with my mother’s. I forced them to leave the country. Afterwards, I sought out my father’s associate. The one who had sent the message.”

Alexander laughed humorlessly, shrugging.

“I tore his reputation to pieces. I spun rumors, awful lies, wove in the names of those I had forced to run. I made sure that man had nothing left, not even a penny to cling onto, not one glimmer of hope.”

Madeleine drew in a breath sharply.

“See, there are worse ends than death, Madeleine, and that is forcing somebody to stay alive to see the ruin of their life. Their own downfall. And I made sure that man knew when I acquired his gaming hell.”

“His gaming hell?” Madeleine asked.

“I renamed it the Raven’s Den, for a raven often perched on my mother’s gravestone. I made sure no dealings such as my father’s betrayal took place. No more violence, or murders. I placed Horace Matthews as the manager, and… well, you know the rest.”

Madeleine’s face had gone pale at the story. She clenched his hands so tightly it almost hurt.

“That night… the night you came home bloodied and hurt…”

“I told you I hated to be reduced to a common thug,” Alexander answered.

“There was a fight at the Raven’s Den and I got involved. I disliked it. I can ruin a man without my fists, there is more intelligence in that.”

He shook his head, clearing the memories away, for as he spoke of his mother, he swore he felt her blood coat his skin.

“So now you know. I will understand if you cannot forgive me for keeping this from you. I understand your feelings about gambling hells. A gambling man ruined my life, as one did yours.”

“But we have both prevailed, have we not?” she whispered to him. “We do not deserve blame or guilt. That is not ours to bear. I am so sorry, Alexander. I cannot imagine how any of that must have felt.”

“Except you do. In a way.” He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I am not expecting forgiveness. You blame the gambling hells for Donald’s death, I know.”

“I have done,” she admitted. “But you are right. A part of me is still looking for ways to grant him empathy. Perhaps he deserves it, perhaps he does not. But the places he frequented are his own responsibility, his own choice.”

Alexander nodded. “I do everything in my power to remove brawlers, ban those who bare weapons in the establishment, and I ensure a fair and non-violent collecting process for debts. If I find out anybody has been physically threatened, they are dealt with. I strive for fairness and safety. I strive to help those who cannot get out of debt easily, before it gets too dangerous.”

Madeleine’s expression softened as she cupped his face.

“You have me feeling more and more adoration for you with each day, Alexander.”

He turned to kiss her palm. “And I for you, my wife.”