Chapter 19
Peter couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to breathe. His chest felt as if it had been nearly crushed.
Apparently, he had been unconscious for hours. He’d broken a rib. It was damned painful, but that was all.
He was safe. He was fine. And his heart was broken because he knew what he had to do, and it was the most brutal thing he had ever done or ever would do.
He had tried standing still. He had tried not running.
He had tried to stop escaping from his father’s shadow, but he could not, because his father’s shadow was never-ending.
He didn’t blame the boy, whose name was Joseph, for wanting to kill him.
How could he? He’d seen the ramifications of his father’s choices.
He knew the lives that some of the children that his father had left behind had had when he found them. And so this one, who had not been taken care of, this one that he had not found, bore such hatred in his heart that he had tried to kill his own brother, or at least harm him.
He hadn’t let the boy be imprisoned. How could he?
He needed care. And so he’d had Joseph released into his custody, and the boy was going to live by the sea in a cottage with one of his most trusted men to look after him.
Peter would put together a plan to help the boy heal, because that’s what he needed more than anything.
Some might not understand, but he’d been a victim and nearly twisted with hate because of his own father. So he couldn’t hate Jospeh, but it had made one thing very, very clear.
Peter couldn’t marry Ruby. He couldn’t marry anyone, because he would not take the chance that someone he loved might get caught up in his father’s doings again. There was really only one thing to do.
He had forced himself up from the bed, bathed, gotten dressed, and had sent for her. Ruby had tried to visit him several times already, but he had turned her away without seeing her, claiming that he was too injured to receive anyone, but he knew that was the coward’s way.
It was tempting to just simply never see her again, to go to Europe, to go to the Americas, to pretend as if he had never met her. But, of course, that would also be a breach of promise. He needed to convince her to leave him, to never look back, because he couldn’t risk hurting her anymore.
He couldn’t let anyone close to him get hurt.
So when the door to his study opened and she slipped through, racing to him, throwing her arms about him, he did not embrace her back.
It was the most painful thing he had ever done in his entire life, far more painful than the broken rib, far more painful than his childhood and the cruelty that his father had thrown at him.
Indeed, he would have welcomed the physical objects his father had thrown at him, the things that his father had done to him mentally, physically, emotionally.
Anything would be better than having to do this to his Ruby.
“Oh, I am so grateful that you are well enough,” she gushed almost frantically, “to go to the church soon. And I am so relieved. Oh, Peter, I do love you. I love you,” she cried as she held him tighter. “I thought for certain you’d been taken from me.”
And then she paused, realizing he had not held her back.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured. “Something happened to your arms too?” she teased. “The Duke of Windbourne told me that your rib was broken. Oh dear, what have I done?”
Ruby jolted back, horrified. She pressed her hands to her cheeks, somehow nervous. A state he’d never seen her in.
She swallowed. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He hated that she assumed that she had hurt him when it was he who was about to hurt her.
“No, Ruby,” he said gently, “I have not been hurt, but I’ve allowed you to visit me today because I have something to tell you.”
“What?” she asked, her voice shaking slightly, as if she sensed the danger. “Do you think we should choose St. Margaret’s over St. Paul’s?” she sallied, her face brave.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak. She was so hopeful. So beautiful. So kind. But he forced himself to growl, “You mustn’t marry me.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You mustn’t marry me,” he said more firmly. “I cannot have it. Of course, if you insist on marrying me, I will. I will not be in breach of promise, but I will not have you anywhere near me.”
“What?” She sucked in her breath, shaking her head, which caused her thick blonde curls to dance on her shoulders. “Forgive me. I know I am repeating myself, but you make no sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense,” he replied steadily, almost coldly, for that was the only way he was going to get through this.
If he could distance himself somehow. Something he had learned to do as a child in order to survive.
“If that young man tried to kill me, though he did not succeed, someone else may. And I cannot have you getting caught up in all of that.”
“You cannot predict the future,” she countered swiftly. “You cannot know that anyone will ever try to hurt you again.”
“And nor can I know that they won’t,” he said calmly.
She winced. “You cannot live your life like that.”
“Yes, I can, because I love you.”
A pained laugh tumbled past her lips and her face took on a dark look, one that belied the sunny color of her summer day gown. “You love me, and you’re sending me away?”
“Yes,” he said. “I love you, and I’m sending you away.”
“This is what you’ve always done,” she whispered as a pained understanding crossed her features.
“What?” he bit out.
She laughed again, no amusement to that bitter sound. “Now, it’s your turn to say that. Run,” she said. “You don’t stand still. You can’t stay in one place. How long do you keep friends?”
He looked away. He had made friends at school. But she was right. He had not kept them in his life. He was always making new acquaintances after wearing out his welcome with his old ones.
“Not long,” he admitted, “I suppose.”
“And so you can’t keep me? You must find a way to leave me too?”
He wanted to roar that it wasn’t true. But if it helped her to think this was why he couldn’t have her? Then so be it. Whatever it took to keep her safe.
“No,” he said. “I can’t keep you. You’re right. And now, I think it is best if you go.” He drew himself up and prepared himself to be without mercy. It was the only thing that worked. “I want you to go.”
She looked to the door, but she did not move a foot.
“Will you insist that we marry?” he demanded.
Blinking, she looked off behind his shoulder, pain transforming her face. Then she met his gaze, her own turning razor sharp with clarity.
“I could never do that to anyone,” she said. “Let alone myself. I just witnessed the pain of my own parents’ destructive marriage. I have no desire to be witness to another one, especially if it is my own.”
A look of pure dismay twisted her features, as if everything she had ever believed in was being ripped out of her and stomped on before her.
How he wished he could spare her that.
Tears shone in her eyes, but she did not shed them. “And I certainly cannot raise children with a man who would cast out the woman he loves like this.”
She drew herself up as if she was ready to pivot on her heel and sashay proudly out of his life, but then something happened, and she sucked in a ragged breath. “Please, Peter, don’t do this. Please don’t. We have such a wonderful chance.”
His jaw tightened. “Ruby, now I know I cannot ever have children.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because anything could happen to them,” he gritted. Couldn’t she see that after what had happened with Joseph? “They could be targeted. My father has ruined everything.”
“You say that,” she returned fiercely, “but he doesn’t have to have ruined everything.”
“He has.”
“You are trying to protect me and children you don’t even have from a future that has not yet occurred,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, folding a hand behind his back, savoring the sudden pain in his rib.
“Not as sorry as I am,” she replied. And then, much to his shock—and he tried to convince himself that it was to his relief—she turned on her heel and left.
Left him.
Them.
It was as it needed to be. Still, it hurt so much that he reached up, found his broken rib, and pressed until an agonized cry ripped out of his lips. And it still didn’t even touch the pain that her departure caused him.
He had done the right thing.
Truly, he had done the right thing.
So why did he feel as if he was standing in the fires of hell in the center of his study, a study which he had completely remodeled after the death of his father so he would not have to remember the way he had been forced to stand by the fire as a small boy and endure his father throwing his leftover dinner, or the grapes he liked to feast on at night, whilst he downed decanter after decanter of wine.
Yes, he had thrown those grapes at him as if he was some sort of circus act.
And his father had shouted, “Stand up straighter, boy. Stand up straighter. I didn’t raise a sniveling little worm. ”
Maybe his life had been born into hell, and he would die in it too, and it was something that he simply could not escape. And he certainly couldn’t allow anyone else to have to live in that hell with him.
In that moment, he was glad Ruby wouldn’t be trapped in it. She’d understood she couldn’t stay with him. She clearly did. She understood that if they did marry, it would be hell.
“What the damnation just happened?”
He blinked. “Oh God, not you.”
The Duke of Windbourne strode into the room.
“Yes, it’s me. I do love to make an entrance.
Why is she storming off? I wanted to show you two a few drawings that I’ve had done up of the horse that I think would be best suited for the wedding present.
But she wouldn’t even say hello to me as she raced out.
Did you make her cry? She looked like she was crying.
Do I need to break another of your ribs? ”
“There will be no wedding,” Peter said flatly, rather wishing Windbourne would break another of his ribs.
“No wedding,” the Duke of Windbourne echoed. “Bloody hell. Am I going to have to marry her?”
“Yes, I think so,” Peter replied, even as he felt sick at the very thought. At least Windbourne could protect her.
“I’m not going to marry her,” the Duke of Windbourne drawled. “I never was. I never wanted to.”
“What?” he bit out.
Windbourne rolled his eyes. “She’s yours, man.
She always has been. Since the moment you two met.
Or so Rivers said. Now, I wasn’t there when you two met, but everyone can see it.
Rivers insisted you two were a wonderful match when he invited me to box.
I think I nearly gave the man apoplexy when he found out I had called upon her.
But I thought perhaps if I put a little pressure on you, then you’d act, and you did. ”
“Why did you do that?” he demanded.
Windbourne shrugged. “Why not? It was fun. And I like to see people fall in love and have happy endings. There’s so few of them.”
Peter laughed bitterly. “So if you understand that there are so few happy endings, why are you trying to shove me into one that you know I cannot have?”
The duke shook his dark head. “You haven’t traveled enough.”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
The duke looked to the windows, his whole stance growing distant as he folded his hands behind his back, stretching the fabric of his grey morning coat.
“I’ve gone around the world, and I’ve seen much.
I’ve seen real suffering and pain, and I’ve seen people killed and ships go down and battles and entire peoples threatened with being wiped out.
I’ve seen people crushed by conquerors. Our silly little problems here?
They’re nothing.” Windbourne looked back, haunted by a graveyard of brutal experiences.
“But I will tell you this: If you let her go, you are a greater fool than any I have ever met. But worse, you’re cruel.
You’re cruel and you belong with all those conquerors, all those people who don’t care who they grind out. ”
Then Windbourne narrowed his eyes, lifted his chin, and challenged, “Do you know who you’re really like?”
He flinched. “Who?”
“I’ll tell you who you’re really like,” the duke said unrelentingly. “The man I’ve heard about. The man you loathe. Your father. Because you’re willing to hurt anyone to protect yourself.”
Peter sucked in a sharp breath. “I ought to kill you now, but I owe you a debt for taking care of me and for helping with Joseph. But what you say is not true. I am nothing like him.”
“Then show me,” the duke dared. “Go get the woman you love and never let her go. Protect her if you have to, but never let her go. Otherwise, no matter how you dress it up? The only person you are protecting is yourself.”
And with that, the Duke of Windbourne stormed out of the room and Peter was left standing there, not knowing what to do next, except that was a lie. He did know what he needed to do.
He needed to never be like the man he hated above all else.