Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

" Y our Grace!" the butler exclaimed upon her arrival.

"I am here to see my father."

"He is… Well, he is in his study, but he is not expecting company at this moment."

"I do not care," she snapped before sighing. "My apologies. This is not your fault. I do, however, require a word with him. Do you suppose you can make that possible?"

"I can certainly try for you," he noted before leaving.

It felt strange to be in the house again. She had sworn to herself that she would never again set foot in it, but here she was. Everything felt smaller than before, perhaps due to the grandness of her new home (especially now that she had redecorated) or perhaps simply because she had outgrown it. Everything was exactly as it was before, and in truth, Samantha had never truly felt part of the home, but now, she truly felt like an outsider, a visitor.

Whilst the butler spoke with her father, she took the opportunity to wander the halls. When she came to her old room, she wondered whether or not to open the door. She knew it was for the best that she left it alone, but something willed her to open it. With a sigh, she cracked it open, only to immediately wish she had not.

It had changed. Completely. The walls were dark, and the bed was a completely different one to before. Her dresser was gone, and any sign that she had ever been inside of the room had been erased. She closed the door again, only to see that her father was standing there.

"It is a nice change, isn't it?" he asked, a wicked grin on his face. "Adam certainly thinks so, but then again, he is the one that designed it."

"That room was mine," she whispered.

"This house is not yours," he sighed, as if she were a petulant child of no more than five. "I do not know how many times a lady must hear things before she can understand them, but I have told you enough. This is my house, soon to be your brother's. It does not matter what you want here anymore."

He should have hurt Samantha's feelings, but when he began coughing, all that she could do was pity him. He was a frail old man, and she wondered why she had not seen that before.

"It never mattered anyway," Samantha grumbled. "I never mattered."

"Ah, so there are some things that you are capable of understanding. Now, why are you here?"

"I require a word with you."

"Is this not it? Did you not want to complain about your room?"

"It is more than the room."

"Very well," he groaned. "We can go to my study, then. At least then, whilst you talk, I can sit down."

"Because you are unwell?" Samantha asked, thinking of his cough.

"It is a common cold and nothing more," he explained as they walked. "Not that you would know nor your sister for that matter. Truly there is no pleasing some people."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you would think that after one's father secured one a duke as a match, they would be a little more grateful. Instead, I have been left to rot here."

"You have a son."

"It is not the job of a son to care for his father. It is the job of a daughter. You should have visited by now and noticed, or at least, you might have if you were any kind of good daughter."

"Well, you secured a duke for Diana," Samantha noted, "but you never had a hand in my match. Perhaps we could blame it on that?"

Had she accused him outright, he might have denied it, but she knew her father. If he could make it seem as though it was something to be proud of, he would claim it to be his own work in a heartbeat.

"As usual, the self-proclaimed intelligent child is incorrect," he chuckled as they entered the study.

"It is not self-proclaimed."

"Your sister does not count, either. If you look good, then she can claim your victories as her own."

"As she was the one to raise me, yes."

"That does not signify. I am the one that did the part that mattered. I found you a duke for a suitor, and when your sister stole him away, I found you another."

"And how, pray tell, did you do that?"

"Is it not obvious, Samantha? Why would he have married you if not for my threats? He was quite insufferable, but he was a man of honor. Drowshire told me as much himself."

"So it is true?"

"Of course, it is. Would I lie to you?"

But he laughed again, showing her that she was not meant to respond. His laugh was punctuated by another cough, a nastier one this time, but he laughed once more as if nothing had happened.

"Samantha, you might not know this, but if something is worth doing, then in my eyes I might as well try. It was not easy blackmailing a possible business partner, but you? It was one of the easiest things I have ever done."

"So you did that to me, your own daughter. How you believe yourself to be a man escapes me."

"Men have to make difficult decisions sometimes. It does not make us evil. Your choice was the duke or a friend of mine that is thrice your age. It was no question who would be beneficial to me, not to mention to you, and so I did what I had to do. I know that you have been ungrateful all of your life, but perhaps if you simply listened to me instead of finding things to be angry with me for, you would be happier."

"You do not wish for my happiness. If you did, then you would not have forced me into a marriage at all, only to pretend that I was never here the moment that I left."

"Again, that was for my son," he sighed, coughing again. "If all you wish to do here is chastise me for giving you a better life, then it is best that you go."

"That is what is easy for you, isn't it?" she snapped. "It is better for you to forget what you did to my sister and me and to begin again with your perfect son and prove to the ton that you were capable of it all along, but you simply did not want to."

"At last, you understand! I simply did not want to care for you. You were nothing but a burden, always demanding more from me after your mother died, as if I could do anything to fix that. I did everything for you, Samantha. I allowed you to study even if it was a foolish endeavor to begin with, I found you two dukes, I kept your secret tryst with the one you married a secret, and what do I get in return? You showing up at my door to complain further."

"You did not keep any secret for my sake. You kept it for your own because you could never allow your name to be tarnished when your precious son was to arrive soon. Then again, you knew you had to protect your name because if Adam knew you had taken me to parties, then he would know that you were alive, and we couldn't have had that."

Again, she had proven herself right because he turned scarlet. She swore that she could see a vein standing out on his forehead, and as she remarked that, he lunged towards her.

Samantha raised her hands to her face as she had done more times than she dared to count, but the hit never came.

There was an almighty amount of noise coming from in front of her, however. As she looked down, she saw Graham. He had her father on the ground, hitting him harder than her father ever had hit her.

Protecting her, just as he promised he would.

"Graham!" she exclaimed. "I —"

"Not right now," he shouted, pinning her father to the floor.

"This is how you treat the elderly?" her father croaked out. "I can see where you got that behavior from."

"That is quite the comment from a man who feels the need to beat young ladies. What is it? Are you too dim to be able to use words?"

"What sort of son-in-law are you?"

"One that protects his wife over some insignificant earl. How dare you treat her that way?"

"Enough!" Adam shouted, entering the room.

"You have no part in this," Graham replied. "You have simply sauntered in to play the part of this man's son. You do not care about him."

"Perhaps not, but this is pointless nonetheless."

"It is not pointless. If it shows him that what he did to his daughters has come back to get him, then it is not pointless."

"But it is. Now, unless you feel better about yourself by beating a dying man, it might be for the best that you stop."

Graham froze. Samantha froze. They looked at each other, and at last, Samantha found her words.

"What does he mean, Father?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself since he cares so little about me after all that I did for him."

"All that you have ever done for me is lie," Adam groaned. "If you expect me to think highly of that, then you are a fool. Now, are you going to tell her, or shall I be the man out of the two of us?"

"Very well, I shall speak once this heathen releases me."

Graham continued to hold him against the floor.

"Let him go, Graham," Samantha told him, and he obliged.

The Earl sat up, holding his head and then coughing once again. Samantha had suspected that it was more than a cold, but it had not been the important thing to ask about at the time.

"It is the truth," he confessed, "and I have known for a while now. You may have thought that everything that I did was for Adam, but in truth, it was all because I knew I did not have long left. Samantha, if I did not have you married off, then it would have been on Adam's shoulders. He is barely even a man yet, and so I had to do something quickly."

"We would have managed fine," Samantha said gently, suddenly washed over with sympathy.

It all made much more sense. The urgency, the sudden need to have his affairs in order, the fact that he did not drink so often. He was dying, and he knew it, and he had to act quickly as well as buy himself enough time to see it all come to fruition.

Samantha hated her father, loathed him entirely, and yet when she looked at him sitting on the ground, she could not help but pity him. He was no longer the father that had tormented and abused her for years but an old man that did not have much time left.

Graham was not as sympathetic.

"I do not care," he thundered. "Come on, Samantha, you have said what you needed to say, yes?"

"Graham, he is unwell."

"Again, I do not care. You will have to excuse me, but I struggle to find any sympathy for the man that treated you so terribly. Even the child that he cared about has received nothing but lies."

"But —"

"He is right," Adam said gently. "Go home. I shall take care of this."

"You will not touch me," their father yelled. "Some son you are. I have done everything for you, everything, and you turn your back on me for her?"

"She is my sister. If I am to be any good at this, I shall need the influence of two duchesses with me. That is what you meant when you told me to make powerful allies, is it not?"

The Earl seemed to be at a complete loss for words. Before he could answer, Graham took Samantha and guided her out of the room.

"We will talk about this when we are home," he said quietly yet firmly.

"There is nothing to discuss."

"There is, and you know that there is."

"Wait!" Adam called out to them, running towards them.

"What is it, Adam?" Samantha asked.

"I wanted to apologize. I did not mean to intrude on what the two of you felt you had to do. In all honesty, I completely understand why you both feel the way that you do."

"You did nothing wrong," Graham said kindly. "I thank you for bringing me here."

"And Samantha, I hope that we can arrange some time with Diana soon. I also hope that you are right and that she has even the smallest amount of interest in getting to know me."

"I will do what I can, but she might not be so easily appeased."

"And if she is not, then that is also completely fine. I know that I have done so much harm simply by existing, and I regret that more than you could ever know."

"You are not to blame for your own existence," Samantha said gently. "I will speak with you soon. First, I must discuss all of this with Diana. I cannot imagine what she will think of all of this."

"No," Graham corrected her, "first you must come home so that you can rest."

Samantha felt cold, for she did not know if he truly wanted her to rest or if that was his way of covering the fact that she was going to receive some harsh words when they returned home.

Regardless, she followed him out of the household and into the carriage. She pressed herself as far away from him as she could and focused on what was outside rather than what was inside. She did not want to look at him incorrectly for fear of angering him, so she did not look at him at all. That had to be the right thing to do, had it not?

Walking inside their home, she thought it might not have been, for he stood in the doorway and did not follow.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It is as I said," he replied bluntly. "You need your rest. We can discuss this tomorrow."

"I do not want to discuss it tomorrow. I shall not be able to sleep if we have not discussed whatever it is that you believe we must."

"Do you truly not know what I wish to talk to you about?"

She knew that it was likely her disappearance, but if she pretended not to, then it was more likely that he would tell her himself.

"Not at all," she lied.

"Very well, then," he sighed. "We can do this right now."