Chapter 28
“Take care of her, Raph.”
Raph’s eyes opened long before dawn broke the horizon. He lay still, his chest rising and falling beneath the sheets after hearing the distant echo of his sister’s voice. In his left shoulder, the dull ache thrummed with the weight of an old memory.
A strange yet familiar lightness rested on his right shoulder. The relief of Camelia’s closeness caught him off guard.
He sat up slowly, his fingers curling into the sheets. His injured shoulder was stiff but quiet. He pressed his good hand flat against his chest, feeling the steady pulse beneath.
After gently rolling Camelia away, he crossed to the window overlooking the gardens. The heavy velvet curtain resisted before he drew it aside.
He lingered there, exhaling into the hush.
There was a new emptiness in his chest that was tender and raw.
He pressed his palm to his heart as if reassuring himself that something at least still belonged to him.
A heavy burden had lifted off him, yet he still felt caged by the secrets that remained.
His sister’s face flickered at the edges of his vision, and he was grateful that some things remained untouched. The duel, the bullet lodged deep in his shoulder, the scar that bound him to silence, all led back to her.
I’m not that boy anymore.
Still, he kept the old defenses.
A soft sound drifted from the bed.
“Raph?”
Raph turned away from the window and raked a hand through his dark hair. “I’m here,” he murmured.
“What’s wrong?” Camelia sat up quickly, worry etched across her delicate features.
“I was just thinking.”
“Come here.” She beckoned to him like a siren out at sea, and he listened to her.
He crossed the floor until he reached her, gathering her in his arms. She curled around him, fitting perfectly.
“Thank you for yesterday.” Her voice was soft and almost shy.
Raph turned his head on the pillow, one eyebrow arched. “What exactly are you thanking me for, Duchess? You’ll have to be specific. Yesterday was… thorough.”
A flush crept onto her cheeks, but she didn’t look away. “For making love to me in ways I did not imagine possible,” she said, the words steady despite the color in her face. “And for staying afterward. For holding me. For not leaving the bed the moment it was over.”
He studied her for a moment, something unreadable flickering in her eyes.
“I believe you asked me to stay,” he said.
“Still, you could have rolled over, stared at the canopy, and reminded me it was only duty. But you didn’t.”
Raph exhaled through his nose. “I’m not always a complete bastard, Camelia.”
“Only on Tuesdays,” she teased, then grew serious again. “Truly, Raph. When you stayed… when you let me fall asleep against your chest, I felt—” She paused, searching for the right word. “Safe.”
“Safe?” he repeated, his voice rougher than he had intended.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Safe. Wanted. Not just… well, a duty.”
Raph felt a sharp pang in his chest.
I should tell her the whole truth.
But the promise silenced him, again.
“And thank you for telling me about your progress with Pamela and speaking to her about her mother.” Her fingers gently stroked his chest. “Your honesty… it matters more than you realize. I do not wish to pry so I will not ask you to tell me about her mother either.”
Raph’s gaze rose slowly to meet hers. Storm clouds gathered in his eyes, all the thoughts he had left unspoken. “It was necessary to speak of her.” But he said no more.
“What were you thinking about earlier on?” Camelia asked softly, tracing his chiseled chest with the tip of her finger.
“My sister.” His voice cracked.
Camelia froze and searched his expression. “You have never spoken much of your sister. ”
Raph hesitated. The hard edge of his control wavered, and he lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “I’ve been thinking about her a lot recently.”
“I’m sorry, do you miss her?”
“Yes, I always miss her. But… it’s like a part of her is always around.”
“I understand. I felt the same about my mother, too.”
“I knew you’d understand.” Raph questioned why he felt like he was betraying Josephine.
“What was she like?” she asked.
“Josephine? Well, she was very much the same as Pamela. They shared the same talents, the same eyes, and the same laughter. Even their silence is similar.”
Camelia stilled against him.
“Are you all right, Camelia?” He rubbed her arms.
“Yes, but—” She stopped abruptly, and her brow furrowed in thought.
“What is it that troubles you?” Raph prompted.
“Are there any other secrets you’re hiding from me?” she asked quietly.
His jaw clenched, and so did his heart. “Nothing more than you ought to know. Well, not yet, at least.”
Camelia’s breath caught, and Raph feared that understanding dawned on her.
“Raph…when did Josephine die?”
The silence that followed was thick. At last, he released a breath, brittle and measured. “My sister died sixteen years ago.”
The words settled between them like winter frost. Camelia’s knuckles whitened as she gripped the sheets and slowly pushed herself up. Raph knew that she was beginning to put the puzzle pieces together.
“Camelia—”
“What… what are you saying, Raph?” She wrapped the bedsheet around her and stood nervously at the edge of the bed.
The coldness of the space between them enveloped him.
“I did not lie to you. I simply had to protect Pamela from the truth.”
“But what is the truth?” Camelia’s voice was thick with sad curiosity. “Just a few carefully chosen crumbs here and there is not enough for me anymore. Allow me to carry your burdens with you, for once.”
Raph’s jaw flexed. “Camelia—”
“Please, Raph.” She reached out to his clenched fist and looked up at him with eyes filled with unshed tears. “I am not just the Duchess of Brentmere. I am not Pamela’s riding instructor, or a title you wear to silence the ton. I am your wife.”
Raph turned his gaze to hers and saw the fiery defiance he had grown to love and adore.
“I stood before God and swore to love you in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, in every shadowed corner of your soul. That vow was not a courtesy. It was a promise carved into my bones. Your pain is my pain. Your fear is my fear. Your fight is my fight. Let me carry it with you, Raph. Let me be the home you come back to when the world tries to break you.” A single tear slid down her cheek, but her gaze never wavered from his.
A sudden, treacherous warmth unfurled behind Raph’s ribs, soft and golden and terrifyingly alive. It spread like spilled honey, loosening the iron bands he had worn around his heart for sixteen years, whispering that he could lay down the weight, that he could simply let himself be held.
For one dizzying heartbeat, he almost surrendered to it. But instinct slammed the gates shut, and he crushed the feeling beneath the heel of long discipline, jaw tightening, shoulders squaring, as if tenderness itself were an enemy to be repelled.
“I told you what matters,” he growled and pulled his hand away.
“Raph—”
“I made a promise,” he snapped, ignoring the pain in her eyes as he climbed off the bed and gathered his clothes and senses.
“A promise to whom?” Camelia asked, more tears rolling down her flushed cheeks.
“To Josephine.”
“You promised her that you’ll keep the truth from her daughter?”
“I promised to protect her daughter.” His anger flared as he yanked on his trousers. “You will not utter a word to Pamela about this.”
The warning was clear.
“Pamela needs to know the truth from you, and only you. I will not say a word to her, but she deserves to know who her real parents are.”
Raph’s gaze sharpened. “That knowledge would only wound her. Revealing that Montague abandoned Josephine, that he fathered her—” He stopped, the weight of a thousand rules and the promises he had made to his sister pressing down on his shoulders.
“I protected Pamela for sixteen years by keeping such truths buried.”
“But she sees herself as a burden already, Raph,” Camelia argued. “She needs to know the truth. That she’s your niece. Descended from Josephine. Your truth will give her roots..” Conviction threaded through every word. “The lies you’ve been feeding her for God knows how long has to end, Raph.”
“I had to do whatever I could to protect her.”
“She believes that she killed her mother by being born. She believes that she’s the reason you can’t celebrate her birthday. This is not protection. This is hurting you and Pamela, and I cannot bear to witness it anymore.”
Raph’s back stiffened. “Camelia, you are overstepping. You were brought here to instruct Pamela. But all you did was meddle in her past and mine. She was right; you are not her mother, and you have no right to dictate her future.”
Camelia opened her mouth, then closed it. Heat crept up her neck as she stared down at the floor.
Raph inclined his head, acknowledging the impasse. “It seems as though this matter requires some patience. We will discuss it again when our tempers have cooled.”
He turned with deliberate steps, daring not look back at her crumbling face. He closed her chamber door with a soft click. The scent of her skin still clung to his shirt as he stalked down the corridor, resisting the urge to run back to her.
“Your Grace!” Raph’s butler’s voice called, followed by hurried footsteps.
He appeared from around a corner with a silver tray in hand and a single letter sealed with black wax resting atop it.
“Forgive the hour. It was delivered by express messenger. The man insisted it be delivered to you at once.”
Raph took the letter, recognizing the seal instantly. An ornate M entwined with a serpent. His blood turned to ice as he broke the wax and read Lord Montague’s letter.
Old friend,
You once stopped me from collecting your father-in-law’s debt. Heroic. Unfortunately for you, I am no longer inclined to let that insult rest.
I want the sum paid. In full. By the last day of the month.