Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

I t had not been the sort of confession that Diana had expected, but she gave Colin a moment to collect his thoughts before he continued.

"You told me he was a good man," she said softly. "Everything that a duke needed to be."

"That is how everyone saw him. Everyone but myself. That is how he wanted it to be."

"That is why you will not tolerate a bully, isn't it?"

He simply nodded. "When I learned of your father's treatment of yourself and your sister, I felt personally attached to it. I shall never know what truly happened to you, but it was similar for me. You see, my father saw his children in the same way as yours. If they were not the heir, they were worthless, and I was not the heir. I was the spare, the extra son that could do his part should the time come."

"But he was not loving to you?"

"Not at all. I suppose he might have been if he had thought for a moment that my brother would not become the Duke, but my brother was in perfect health all of his life, and so the issue never arose."

"So what did you do? I do not know what the younger brothers of dukes are expected to do."

"Go to war," he sighed.

"But you are in the nobility. You are not some common soldier."

"I was the son of a man in the nobility. Those are two vastly different things, and it meant that I had none of the responsibilities that another gentleman would. And so, from the age of four and ten, I was told that I would become a soldier, as it was the only way to bring any form of honor to my family."

"But that could not be further from the truth."

"My father did not think so. He decided that as I would not be head of the household, I needed to fulfill another role, and that would be on the frontline."

"But you did not wish to, is that it?" she asked. "Because I certainly cannot see you as a soldier. It is not in your nature."

He reached out to her, as if to take her hand, but he seemed to think better of it before he touched her.

"I never wanted to do anything of the sort," he confessed. "It infuriated my father, but it simply is not something I care about. My interests, my passions, lay in academia. Ever since I was a boy, all I wished to do was read. I wished to learn everything about the world, everything that there was to know, and become a scholar. I could have devoted my entire life to it, and never become a duke at all, and been so endlessly happy."

"But you were sent to war."

"As is the expectation of a second-born son."

"And your father was happy for you to go?" she gasped. "I understand that I am not a mother and that we may never have children, but I cannot imagine looking at a child that I raised and forcing them to risk their life."

"Well, it is as I told you. My father was not a kind man to me. He disliked that I was passionate about learning, hated it even. He told me that a man's worth was based on what he had done for king and country, not what he had read in a book."

"He could not have been more wrong about that."

"It is no matter regardless because he told me that I was to do military service as was expected of me, and when I said no, he… well, when he saw me in the library one night, he gave me this, and so I had no other choice."

He lifted his shirt to show a scar that reached across his back.

"He—he beat you?" she whispered.

"He hit me with a whip," he explained, his voice quiet. "It was the last time I ever set foot in this room."

Suddenly, it all made sense. It had not simply been a room that he had not wanted to enter, it was a room that had caused him to be beaten so much that he had been left scarred.

"So it is as I said," he sighed. "I had to go. There was no other choice."

"No choice but to risk your life?"

"I was not the heir. I did not matter. It was better for everyone that I left, and so I did. I left everything and everyone I had ever known behind and went to war. It gave me something to do, and I was able to travel at least."

"You need not see the good in something that was bad," Diana sighed, but he simply shrugged.

"I try to see the best in situations, and when it comes to that one, well, there is not much good to say about it. I learned to hide the weakness in me, to turn people away with a sneer, and to stand up for myself, as I knew that nobody else ever would. Then when my father died, my brother got everything that he had always wanted, and I never went to the funeral."

"Did you like your brother, at least?"

"I may have, under different circumstances, but in our position, it was not particularly the done thing to show any form of affection. He enjoyed being the favorite and the only one of any importance. It was all he had cared about, and so protecting me was not something that he ever did."

"Then it is a good thing that you can do it for yourself now."

"Do you not think me cruel for not attending my father's funeral?"

"Why would I? I highly doubt that I shall attend my own father's for much the same reason. You do not owe peace to someone who never allowed you to have any for yourself."

"I suppose that I thought it was a cruel action, and in a way I liked it. After all, he had expected me to die in the war every bit as much as I had, but I did not, and he passed away shortly after my return. I thought that, at last, I could pursue studies of some kind. That is where it all became murky."

Diana blinked at him.

"When my brother took over the title and the estate, he went to London to settle a few matters. I went to stay with him, and that is where the accident happened. To this day, I do not know what happened. One moment, he was telling me about some lady he had ‘conquered,' and the next thing that I knew he was tumbling down the staircase."

Diana's hand flew to her mouth. "So you mean that… that you saw it?"

"I had thought it some cruel joke at first. I thought that he would sit up, laughing at the shock on my face, and then I would appear to be the fool. I was laughing myself, trying to make him give up the joke and get the teasing over and done with, and that was when a maid saw us. She did not see it the way that I did. She rushed to him and began screaming for help. I followed after her, and when I realized that there had been an accident, there was nothing that could be done. He was already gone."

"That sounds harrowing. I cannot believe that you went through such an ordeal without being driven mad."

"In truth, it was the aftermath that was maddening. I should have been grieving, not only the loss of my brother but the sudden change in my life. Just as I thought I would be escaping the threat of war, I was thrust into another role that I did not want. Then, along with all of that, I had the entirety of the ton in the complete and utter belief that I had done it, that I had killed my own brother in order to take the dukedom for myself."

"And I suppose that as a duke, it is unwise to tell people that you did not wish to be a duke in the first place."

"No, although it was tempting. Instead, I played my part and attended gatherings and was an upstanding citizen physically, although I cannot say that I was a joy to be around."

"You are certainly known for being… unwelcoming," Diana said gently, thinking back to the whisperings that Samantha had heard about him.

"And now you know that is not who I am," he sighed. "But I thought that was the best way to be—cold and uncaring and aloof. If people feared me, they would leave me alone, and I could do all of the things I wished to do. However, when I tried to go into that library, all that I could hear was my father."

"What do you mean?"

"He used to hate that room. He would stand over me while I was in it, threatening to?—"

He stopped short. Diana looked up at him, but he seemed uneasy about what he had to say.

"He would threaten to burn it down."

Diana had hated fires since the accident. It had taken her a long time to use candles and lamps, even when she was no longer a child, because she knew what could happen if one was not careful.

"Did he truly hate the idea of you learning that much?"

"He seemed to hate everything I did. I wanted more than anything to go in there and read and do all of the things that I had been denied for years, but something about that room and all of the things in it made it impossible, so I locked it and ensured that staff did not enter it. I left that part of myself behind, promising myself that I would shut myself off and never allow anyone else to see that side of me. Then I met you."

Diana did not know what to say. She did not know what she had done to change him, save for the fact that she had cleaned the room and he was now sitting in it.

"I saw you and Samantha," he explained. "I saw that the two of you had so much love for each other, and how in spite of everything that you have been through, you cared for your sister, even trying to find a way to care for her if she would rather read and never take a husband. I thought about that often, and how I wished I could have had someone like you. Somewhere along the way, I suppose I became glad that I had you. Maybe—maybe one day I can stop feeling so guilty for wanting something for myself."

With that, the man that Diana had come to know hunched over as if he were a boy. He was quiet and fragile, and she did not know what to do besides hold him and whisper to him that everything would be alright.

And so that is precisely what she did.

With tears in her eyes, she reached out to hold his cheek, stroking it with her thumb. She felt him crumble into her, letting out a breath that he must have been holding for a long time.

"Listen to me, Colin," she said firmly but gently, "I have had my fair share of times where I have seen my sister hunched over pages, reading them over and over, even if she can never become an academic, even if she might never change the world with what she is doing. That is not to say that I have ever once thought that she should stop. Do you know why that is?"

The Duke shook his head softly.

"It brings her joy. I want my sister to be happy, and I want the same for you. If all that your heart desires is to be locked away with your nose in a book for hours every day, then so be it. Learn everything that this world has to offer you, and I will be there with you throughout."

"Why?"

Because the man that you truly are is the man that I am falling for.

She quickly shook the thought from her mind.

"Because the man that you truly are is the gentleman that I wish to spend my life with, not some shell of a man who does exactly what is required of him and nothing more."

He leaned his head into her hand more, and as he did so, he tumbled closer to her so that they were mere centimeters from each other. This was not new to them, of course. They had kissed the same night that they met, but now was different. This was not some spark of rebellion, a chance to do everything that she was not allowed to do.

This time, she wanted him, and it would ruin everything if he knew. Even so, she willed him to close the gap. She wanted him to do it, to place his lips on hers as he did before, and give her what she had been denying that she wanted. She was craving him, and the heat that she could feel from him only intensified her longing.

But then the heat was gone, and the night air from the open window was cold against her skin. She opened her eyes, and Colin had pulled away from her completely. He was not looking at her, instead looking past her to the doorway.

"It has been a long day," he remarked.

"Yes," she agreed. "Perhaps we should retire to bed?"

She meant her own room, of course, but Colin seemed to take it as permission to escape more than anything. He rushed into the hallway without so much as looking at her.

"Very well," he said quickly. "Good night, Diana."

She blinked, and he was gone. She did not know what to think, but one thing was for sure: she was not going to chase him. Instead, she dimmed the lamp and went to her room alone, having never been so confused in her life.

That was the reason she gave for her pounding heart, at least.