Chapter 18

18

The next morning, Dorian inhaled deeply of the damp earthy scents as Patience and he rattled along in the carriage through the countryside on the way to visit his tenants. Trees were dusted with new leaves. Primroses and daffodils dotted the low hedgerows. Birdsong filled the air.

He didn't remember the last time he'd actually looked at the spring landscape and enjoyed it, but next to Patience, everything felt beautiful and full of life. Even the slight pain from his cuts didn't bother him.

Patience's delicate fingertips traced the bud of a bluebell he'd picked for her before they got into the carriage.

Lucky bluebell.

"This will be the one task of a duchess that I will truly enjoy," she said with a tender smile as she stared dreamily at the countryside passing by. "Seeing the tenants, talking to them. Helping them."

Dorian thought with a pang of the very first rule she'd broken and how surprisingly well she took the punishment. Feeling her bare bottom, her growing wetness under his hand was an unsurpassed pleasure…until now. Seeing her overjoyed like this was even sweeter.

"That is one thing we can agree on," he said. "Papa never bothered with his duties to the tenants. Growing up, I always thought it was a shame. When I became duke, I did my best to make sure the steward was on top of repairs, solving problems, providing help whenever the tenants needed it. But I haven't visited them for months now. I should have, as should any good landlord."

She beamed at him, and he felt the urge to smile back. No one had made him feel like smiling in… God, he didn't remember how long. No one but her.

"Well, now you have me to help you," she said. "Do you usually organize the May Day?"

"No."

"That's what we should do! Would they enjoy it, do you think?"

"I'm sure they would."

"Marvelous!" Her eyes glimmered with excitement. "With the mild weather, wildflowers will be in bloom—perfect for weaving into garlands. And we can set up outdoor games and… Oh! Wouldn't it be great to have a maypole? Children would adore the ribbons!"

He watched sunlight play across her golden tresses. Such a generous spirit, so eager to bring joy to others.

I'd like to please you more.

Warmth swelled in his chest, cracking the ice encasing his heart.

He'd give her ten May Days if only it would bring a smile to her lips like that.

"Yes," he said. "Maypole. Ribbons. Children."

Yet dread clawed at his heart. Memories of Papa surged like a tidal wave—the sneer curling his lip as he berated a tenant short on rent, the whip cracking against a stable boy's back… Dorian gritted his teeth.

He had wanted Dorian to become a duke in his own image.

He refused to become that image, to let his father win.

And yet, the rage living within him every day of his life was Papa's creation.

Their carriage halted before a tumbledown cottage on the edge of the estate. An elderly woman, face lined and weathered, stepped out with two grandchildren ages roughly six and eight. Her eyes crinkled at the corners upon spotting them.

"Your Grace." She bobbed a curtsy. "What an unexpected delight."

"Mrs. Batten," said Dorian as he helped Patience get down. "This is my wife, the Duchess of Rath."

The Battens had always had a flock of sheep, and Bramble had been a lamb from one of their ewes.

The old lady looked at Patience with warmth in her face and curtsied again with a slight grimace of pain. "You are welcome, Your Grace," she said.

Patience went to the old woman and presented a basket of steaming blackberry pies, golden crusts glinting.

"This is for you. From his grace's kitchen."

Mrs. Batten clutched it close, eyes shining. Then she peered up at Dorian and smiled. "Bless you, Your Grace. You're a far kinder man than your father ever was. We're lucky to have you."

Dorian wrestled his features into a rigid smile even as nausea churned. If only she knew the blood staining my hands. The life I took. The family I destroyed. He clenched his fists behind his back until his knuckles ached.

As Patience knelt to exclaim over the giggling children, Mrs. Batten leaned in and said to Dorian, "You take good care of your duchess now, y'hear? You were a lovely little boy, and you can be a loving husband, not a brute like your papa was." Her gaze bore into him, unflinching.

Dorian swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. "Um," he managed hoarsely.

"Do you know what he did?" asked Mrs. Batten, addressing Patience. "As a boy, he found out I grew medicinal herbs and used them for remedies. Not a week after his papa's death he brings me books on herbs from the Mediterranean, and France, and even Constantinople, and pouches with seeds of rare herbs he bought at some apothecary in London."

Dorian felt his face heat. "It was the least I could do."

She leaned towards Patience. "Cinchona bark helped one of my other grandchildren as he had a fever. Your husband may have saved the boy."

The sight of tenderness and respect in Patience's face only made him crumble inside. God knew he didn't deserve it.

"I owed you much more than that," he croaked.

"You did not owe me anything," said Mrs. Batten with a soft smile. "You rescued that wee poor lamb. It was nae your fault what the old duke did. I hold no grudge, and I hope you could forgive yourself, too."

They said their goodbyes, and as the carriage trundled on, Dorian couldn't escape the old woman's words echoing in his mind. Patience, unlike half an hour ago, sat quietly beside him, her brow furrowed. The silence stretched between them, taut as a bowstring.

"Is everything all right?" Dorian finally asked.

Patience hesitated, twisting her gloved fingers in her lap. "Mrs. Batten mentioned… She said she was glad I have a kind husband. Unlike your father." Her azure eyes met his, searching. "What did she mean?"

His breath caught in his throat. Memories assailed him—his father's thunderous rage, his sister's muffled sobs. He gripped the carriage seat, the leather creaking beneath his fingers.

"My father," he began haltingly, "was a hard man. He disliked any hint of softness, of emotion. He wanted to mold me into a cold, unfeeling duke." His jaw clenched. "He was cruel, to me and to Chastity. I did my best to protect her, but…" His throat tightened and he shook his head. "Forgive me, I don't wish to speak of it further."

Patience laid a gentle hand on his arm, her touch soothing even through the layers of fabric. "That must have been hard for you," she murmured.

Dorian stared at her. Her compassion melted his heart. He ached to share with her, to tell her more. But he couldn't.

Tenderly, he took her small hand in both of his as a fierce protectiveness overwhelmed him, a desperate longing to shield her from any further pain. He could feel her gentle skin with the bare skin of his left hand. His right hand clad in the glove tingled, aching to feel her touch. There she was, surrounded by him, with his secrets hidden under thick leather, ugly and painful.

If only he could erase the hurts of her past, to cherish and protect her as she deserved…

"What happened to Mrs. Batten's lamb?" asked Patience softly. "If you wish to talk about that."

His usual response—closing up, getting angry before he could tear himself open and be vulnerable—made his throat ache. But the tenderness in her blue eyes pulled him past that painful guard.

"The Battens had sheep on their farm for generations," he said. "Mama disappeared from my life as Papa had sent her away to a distant estate and forbade any contact. I missed her. I was terrified of him. I didn't know what I was feeling—the hurt, the pain in my soul."

"You must have been grieving the loss of your mama," said Patience, and the truth of her words struck him with a devastating clarity. "She left, but you needed someone to love and to love you. Someone to protect you, to be on your side."

It was like she could see straight through into his soul, put words to the feelings that had ruled him for years. Explain things he couldn't.

Would she be able to explain the moment he had challenged her brother to a duel? Or the moment his finger had found the trigger and pulled?

"I suppose you're right," he said, his mangled fist tightening. "I found a lamb from one of their ewes. Somehow it had escaped and had fallen into a pit in the woods. I took it home, to my room, and named it Bramble. I cared for it until it recovered, which is when I went to Mrs. Batten to return it. Seeing my tears, she told me I could keep it. You've seen how kind she is. I wanted to keep Bramble more than anything in the entire world. It was the first time since Mama left that I felt better, when I held the little lamb. But even at my young age, I knew losing an animal was a great deal for tenants like the Battens, so I offered her a vase from Rath Hall as payment, but she refused and said I could keep the little thing as long as I kept it healthy and safe."

Patience's eyes watered. She squeezed his left hand and smiled. "Mrs. Batten is so good-hearted."

He nodded. "Unfortunately, Papa discovered my pet. It wasn't like I could hide Bramble in my room forever. I suppose our previous housekeeper got tired of having the maids clean sheep dung from the Aubusson rugs in my chamber. Papa was furious. A future duke nursing a pet lamb was completely laughable."

"What happened?"

"He killed it. Took my very own fencing sword and?— "

His throat closed around the words once again, but it was her pale face that stopped him from telling of the gruesome scene, the horror of seeing yet another thing he loved taken away by his papa.

"No…" She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

He nodded.

"Is that why you feel this rage…?" she wondered. "I suppose you must have felt quite helpless then."

He nodded once again. How could she see right through him? Yet again putting words to the explosion of feelings that had ruled him his whole life? Was it her basket exercise that had taught her this skill or simply her intuitive heart and incredible kindness? Lucien and Chastity had both seen what happened to Bramble, but he had never told either of them how he felt.

Strangely, naming the feelings took away their power, putting them outside of his body and allowing him to reclaim his strength.

Once again, he wondered what this was woman doing to him.

Was she healing him, when all he'd ever done was wound her…and her family?

"Yes," he said. "You're right, I felt helpless, and the one thing I could do was lash out. Destroy before I could be destroyed. I cut Papa's favorite portrait to ribbons."

He was lost in her eyes. No one had ever looked at him like she did then. He felt understood and accepted, known.

But would she understand every ugly thing he'd ever done…including what he did to John? He truly didn't deserve her.

"Lucien and Chastity witnessed everything," he said .

"Is that why you have such a strong bond with Lucien?" she asked.

"Yes. He stayed in Rath Hall for months while we were growing up. His parents, dare I say, have been as poisonous to him as my papa was to me and Chastity."

"How did you become friends with the rest? You seven dukes are quite a band."

The hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his lips at the thought of his brotherhood.

"I can't tell you everything. Above all, we keep each other's secrets. But what I can tell you is that Pryde became a friend after Oxford. Enveigh… Pryde was indebted to him, and Enveigh found himself in a bad situation because of another man's wife. We helped to save him from a duel and a scandal."

"Men and your code of honor," she chuckled. "What about the rest? Whatever you can say without betraying your secrets."

"Lucien knew Eccess from Elysium. Let's just say they both like to overindulge in their celebrations. Eccess once drove a carriage while very drunk, which led to a bad accident. It would have ruined him completely if Lucien hadn't asked us to help. Irevrence likes to make bad jokes and doesn't care about the consequences. After having told one in the wrong company, against the wrong high-ranking official, he would have landed in prison if we hadn't helped. And finally, Fortyne's acute business sense sometimes does not consider the legality of certain enterprises. He almost got caught. By then, there were six of us, and each of us helped using our own strengths."

"You have a strong bond with all of them," she said.

"We knew we had something special. Seven men as damaged as we are in our own ways… It was forever. No one would understand the extent of the way our souls are co rrupted. Inside our group, everything is allowed. There's no judgment. But besides that, we started to help each other with investments, business, protecting each other's interests against threats. That was how the Seven Dukes of Sin was born."

Patience's gaze shimmered with curiosity. "Quite a group, I daresay."

"They're like the brothers I never had," he said. "Especially Lucien. I may not always see eye to eye with all of them, but I know we will never betray each other. Our loyalty runs deeper than personal conflicts or difference in interests. If anything happened to me, I know they would all protect and take care of Chastity…and, of course, you."

The carriage stopped too soon, and Dorian withdrew his hands from hers. They were at Cohen's house. The older man, whom Dorian had helped with a fence repair a month or so earlier, waited outside, his lined face brightening at the sight of Dorian.

After Patience presented him with the basket, he invited them inside. Over weak tea in chipped cups, the man turned to Patience, his eyes wet. "I can't thank ye enough, Yer Grace. After my Mary passed last winter, there are more things and less hands. My daughter has her hands full with the wee one. Ye're a right angel, ye are."

Patience ducked her head, color blooming in her cheeks. "It's not just me. It's the duke, too. And it's the least we can do, Cohen. Truly."

Cohen turned to Dorian, his gnarled fingers tightening around his cup. "We're right grateful to have a caring duke now, Yer Grace. After yer father's cruelty…'tis a blessed change, it is. And thank ye again for helping me repair the fence a few sennights ago. I couldna' have done it on my own."

Patience beamed at Dorian, her eyes alight with pride and affection. But Dorian could muster only a weak twitch of his lips in return, nausea roiling in his gut like a living thing. If they knew the man he truly was, the sins he'd committed…they would recoil in horror and revulsion.

He didn't deserve their gratitude, their admiration. And he certainly didn't deserve Patience's nurturing and attention. Sooner or later, she would learn the truth…and he would lose her forever.

Outside the cottage, Patience chattered about the May Day festival with Cohen as they walked arm in arm down the sun-dappled path. "It was such joy! I was six, and my family was still welcome to participate in events like that. I remember the maypole, the dancing, the flowers… My sisters and I spun around that maypole. I think that must have been the happiest memory in my childhood. I can hardly wait to bring the same joy here!"

Dorian watched her animated face, the way her eyes sparkled with anticipation. Something twisted in his chest sharply. Her enthusiasm, her joy…it reminded him of all he had stolen from her when he'd killed her brother. The weight of his guilt pressed down on him.

He wanted to feel light and carefree, like her. He could feel the glimpses of that lightness in the surrounding landscape, in the flowers that peeked through fresh grass, in the blue sky. And he could feel it in the sparkle of her blue eyes every time she smiled at him.

An insane thought came. An impossible thought, and yet, so seductive.

What if he told her? What if she knew?

In that moment, Dorian allowed himself to believe. To hope, even if only for a heartbeat, that perhaps…perhaps there was still a chance for redemption. A chance to conquer the shadows that haunted him .

"…and I thought we could perhaps have a special tent set up for the children's games," Patience continued, oblivious to his inner turmoil. "What do you think?"

But deep in his heart, he knew the truth. She would never accept him if she knew the truth. And he was not courageous enough to risk losing her.