Chapter 28 #2
Not a cold, cutting sound. But a real, startled laugh that escaped before she could contain it. She even pressed a gloved hand to her mouth, as if shocked at herself.
“Mother,” he said slowly.
She lowered her hand, her eyes bright. “I despise that man,” she admitted. “He has been insufferable in drawing rooms for years. I am delighted someone finally knocked him to the ground.”
Victor could only stare at her.
His mother, who had always been composed, who had always maintained decorum, who had always encouraged restraint, had just confessed to enjoying the sight of her son behaving precisely as gossip had always suggested he might.
The world, he thought, had tilted entirely on its axis.
Dorothea’s amusement faded, but a trace of warmth remained in her eyes. “You think that because you struck him, you have become your father?” She shook her head. “That is not how it works.”
“You told me he would have done the same,” Victor reminded her. “You said he would have struck Fenwick.”
“I said he might have,” she corrected. “For very different reasons. Your father would have defended his house from insult. You defended that girl from harm.”
Victor’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair. “He raised his hand to me, to you, to the servants. I have spent my entire life determined to break that chain. I do not want even a fragment of his temper in me.”
Dorothea’s gaze softened in a way that startled him more than her laughter had. “You are not a chain, Victor. You are a man who grew up in a house ruled by fear. That is not your fault. It is not your legacy, unless you choose to make it so.”
“He raised me as he was raised,” Victor muttered. “With cold, with canes, with endless lessons.”
“Yes,” Dorothea said quietly. “He believed that was the only way to forge a duke. He was wrong. I knew it. But I did not dare say so.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed on her. “You allowed it. You watched.”
Her flinch was almost imperceptible. “I watched and hated myself for it. I was his wife, not his equal. I knew I could not oppose him in front of you; he might have redoubled his efforts with you. He might have turned his attention on me more often. I chose the path I knew, which was silence. It was cowardice.”
Victor frowned. “I never saw him hurt you.”
“He did not use his fists on me,” Dorothea explained. “He used his words. His neglect. His coldness. He punished me by refusing to speak for days. By controlling every movement, every expense, every social call. Bruises fade. That sort of control seeps into the bones.”
She stared into the fire for a moment, the orange light tracing the faint lines at the corners of her eyes.
“I saw Cordelia at several gatherings,” she added. “Lady Gwendoline’s mother. She wore veils of fashion and powder. She also wore sleeves too long for the weather and gloves too often. There were shadows on her arms and shoulders that no amount of silk could hide from a careful eye. I suspected.”
Victor’s stomach twisted.
“But I could not intervene,” Dorothea went on.
“A duchess cannot barge into another woman’s house and demand that her husband treat her better.
Society does not work that way, and your father would never have allowed it.
So, I smiled and asked after her children and pretended not to see.
That is what we are taught to do, Victor. Pretend not to see.”
He felt ill. “You think Father would have hit Fenwick for striking his wife?”
“I think your father would have hit any man who impugned his property,” Dorothea replied. “He would have defended his name, not hers. That is the difference. You did not defend the Greystone coat of arms tonight. You defended a girl who has very little power and very few allies.”
Victor let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding. “You speak as if you approve.”
“I do.” Dorothea nodded. “You are right to hate the way your father treated you. You are right to refuse to repeat it. That does not mean you must never raise your hand in anger. It means you must choose carefully where to direct that anger.”
Victor looked at her. “This is why I never wanted to marry. I did not trust myself.”
“I know,” she sighed. “I knew years ago. You would not articulate it, but I saw the fear. You thought that if you took a wife, you might one day look at her and see an outlet for your father’s temper. So you chose not to have a wife at all.”
He swallowed. His mother had laid him bare with an ease that both comforted and unsettled him.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now,” she said, “that choice is gone. You have fallen in love. You cannot put that back in whatever box you kept your other impulses locked inside. It has already escaped.”
He almost smiled. “You speak of it as if it were a scandalous dog.”
“It is untidy,” she acknowledged. “It ruins carpets. It chews on furniture. It also curls at your feet when you are cold. Make your peace with the mess.”
He shook his head.
Dorothea rose. “I do not approve of Lady Gwendoline as a duchess,” she repeated. “Her family is a mire. Her reputation is tarnished. Her stepfather is hateful. But none of that matters. You told me it was none of my business, and for once, you are correct.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“You are not your father, Victor. You never were. I failed you when you were a boy. I did not stop him. I let fear rule me. I cannot undo that. However, what I can do now is stand between you and his ghost. If you begin to walk his path, I will warn you. Loudly.”
He blinked. “You would?”
“I am old enough not to fear a duke any longer.” She shrugged. “Even one I buried and one I bore.”
A faint smile tugged at his lips. “That is almost comforting.”
“It should be,” she said. “Now, get some rest. You have a call to make tomorrow.”
Victor did not ask how she knew. She always knew.
She paused at the door. “I am sorry,” she said quietly, without turning. “For not stopping him. For leaving you alone with him in those cold rooms. You deserved better.”
Then she left.
The study felt very still after her departure. The fire burned low, embers glowing like coals in the grate. The brandy remained mostly untouched.
Victor sat there for a few minutes, staring at nothing. Then something white caught his eye. A scrap of paper, half hidden near the hearth, where it must have fallen during the chaos. Crumpled, but intact.
He stood, crossed the rug, and stooped to pick it up.
Gwen’s hand. He recognized the shape of the letters even through the creases.
The letter she had tried to hide in his desk.
The letter she had begged him not to read in her presence.
His heart sped up as he smoothed it carefully between his fingers. Her words waited there, pressed into the page.
And then he began to read.