Chapter 7
He was not hiding.
Samuel Whitworth, the Duke of Sutton, was working.
All right, he was hiding… somewhat.
He’d rather turn over his title than admit as much. The world after all had certain expectations of him. And he had an image. And said image, under no circumstances, did not include the Duke of Sutton, in possession of one of the oldest titles, eight properties, and hundreds upon hundreds of acres, doing anything so plebian as… hiding.
In his own home, no less.
Seated at his desk, Samuel examined immaculate column after immaculate column. Such was the problem with the standards he’d held himself to over the years: There wasn’t even a single error in his accounting to serve as a damned distraction.
And a distraction was what he needed… always at this time of the season. This particular year, however, the need was even greater.
Samuel made to toss down his pen.
You will one day be a duke. Hold your pen like one. Hold yourself like one… at all times.
His late father’s brusque command ringing in his head, Samuel returned his pen to the crystal inkwell. That tray, centered on his desk, was perfectly framed by the floor-to-ceiling windows directly across from his desk.
This space over the years had proved to be one of his favorite places to be. At this vantage point within the Whitworth Palace, he was afforded a clear view of the expansive countryside. Situated upon the highest point of the property, his office overlooked rolling hills and thick forests, grounds that were blanketed in snow.
Now, this space looked out on the scene of the greatest mistake he’d made and the deepest regrets he carried—and would carry until he drew his last breath.
Closing his eyes, Samuel let the memory in.
“You summoned me, Father?”
“Your brother is struggling again, Lawrence. It is riding.” This time. There was nothing Sheldon didn’t struggle with. Why could nothing be easy for the boy? “One of the boys at Eton beat him badly in a race. Humiliated him for it.” No one would mock his son. Any of them. The world would see them as the best… because they were. Even Sheldon with his struggles.
“But, Father…” Samuel glanced up from his work at the boy standing on the other side of his desk. With his build, strong jaw, and golden hair, he was a blend of both Samuel and Caroline. “I’ve not finished my reading. Can Heath not race him?”
“Heath’s tried unsuccessfully to motivate him.” Lawrence would be gentler with the boy. Gentler when Samuel himself could not be. Hadn’t ever been. “You can finish after you help your brother. Go race.”
Samuel forced his eyes open, staring blankly at the windows now lightly frosted.
Go race.
With that command, Samuel had glanced down and returned to his work, Lawrence forgotten.
Had his son sought to protest after that? Had he lingered? Samuel had dismissed him so quickly outright that he’d failed to miss the precious last details before his oldest son had done his bidding and gone off… to do a job that should have been Samuel’s.
There was a light rap at his door. “En—” The command hadn’t fully left his mouth before the panel swung wide, and his wife swept in.
His wife, the hostess of the house party, who by her appearance here had gone and left their guests unattended. Oh, bloody hell. This was indeed bad.
Caroline stalked over. “Well?” she demanded.
“I’ll be along shortly to join the parlor games.”
Narrowing her eyes, she pressed her palms on the edge of his desk and leaned down. “Is that what you think this is about?” she countered, a warning in her tone.
That absolute strength had made him fall in love with her as a young man.
It had both inspired and impressed.
Now it terrified.
Bloody impressive.
“Are you smiling, Samuel Whitworth?”
“I’d never dare dream of it,” he said, smoothing his lips into an even line.
“Your display thus far? Has not been friendly.”
Samuel scoffed. “I don’t know what you mean.” He grabbed his pen from the inkwell and tapped the tip against the edge, setting the crystal to tinkling.
“No,” his wife said, as if speaking to a stubborn child. “I don’t believe you do. Friend-ly.” She enunciated each of those two syllables. “Smiling. Happy. Kind. How you have been to our new daughter-in-law and our son?” She slapped her gloved palms on his desk. “That was not even polite, Samuel.”
This slip of a woman, more than a foot shorter than his own height and slender as a wisp, managed to make him feel small.
Or mayhap you’ve made yourself feel small.
Samuel’s ears went hot… with something unpleasant—shame.
Oh, it wasn’t a foreign sentiment. It was, however, a sentiment he’d masked the world from seeing. He’d done such a convincing job, he’d even managed to convince himself. Most times.
“Well?” Caroline persisted. “What do you have to say for yourself, Samuel Sheldon Constantine?”
“I treated them no different than any other of your guests,” he mumbled. Caroline, his wife, was the only person who could make him mutter, mumble, or blush.
“Precisely, Samuel,” she said, her voice as chilled as the winter grounds below.
“I’ll…” He struggled within himself and then tried again. “I’ll…”
“Try?” she supplied for him.
“Precisely.” Jumping to his feet, Samuel waved his hand at the air. “I’ll try.”
Her lovely golden brows dipped. “That is incorrect.”
What? “But that was your answer, Caroline,” he whined. How in blazes could it have been the wrong reply?
“Because you will do better than try.” Ah, so he’d stepped into a trap. She stalked around the desk, and he retreated from that advance. “You will be kind to them. You will speak to Martha and Graham, and you’ll do it all with a smile on your face.” Samuel’s legs knocked into the French walnut corner library, rattling the ledgers neatly lining the shelf. “Are we clear, dear husband?” she asked in deathly quiet tones, even as she had to go on tiptoe to hold his gaze.
How did he say to this woman who owned his heart that he didn’t know how to be what he needed to be in this regard? He’d always sought to be the man she deserved. They’d been matched by their parents when she’d been a babe, and he’d once seen her only as a duty… an obligation, and then she turned out to be a woman so much greater than the man he could or ever would be. Where their children were concerned, he’d always failed her. Worse, he’d failed his children. “We are… clear.”
Her lips softened into the alluring smile that always enthralled him. “Splendid, Samuel.” Caroline ran her palms over his immaculate lapels, smoothing them. “That makes me very happy.”
Samuel leaned down to claim her mouth in a kiss.
She turned her head, so that his lips missed their mark and found another. “Uh-uh, Your Grace. I’m still angry with you.”
“You’re certain?” He kissed the soft shell of her ear, rousing a breathless laugh.
“Quite certain,” she said, less convincing than she’d been moments ago. Nonetheless, she stepped out of his arms. “Mayhap if we did not have a house full of guests no doubt wondering after me, I might consider your roguish advances.”
“Might consider?” he whispered, reaching for her once more.
Caroline swatted at his hand. “Do behave,” she said without inflection, the desire and tenderness in her pretty blue eyes belying that order.
Samuel sighed. “Oh, very well.” He stared regretfully after her retreating figure, her hips lightly swaying in pale silver skirts that molded her body, her waist not as trim as it had been when she’d made her Come Out and her hips wider, but tenfold more beautiful with every passing year. “Caroline?” he called when she reached the door.
His wife cast a glance back.
“I love you, dearest,” he said gruffly.
Her lips trembled. “I love you, too, Samuel.” She blew a kiss from her fingertips, and Samuel made a show of catching it and pressing it to his heart. “Now, make it right with Martha and Graham, Samuel.”
With that, she left.
Make it right. What in hell did that even mean? His damaged relationship with his youngest son went back to when Graham had been a young boy taking reading lessons, and the damned instructor, after noting Graham’s inability to focus, had raised questions about a history of familial madness. Samuel had sacked the bastard and sought to find others who could teach his son, seeking to protect him from that dangerous charge leveled against him.
Or were you more worried about how it would reflect on you?
Shame brought his eyes closed.
For, at this point in his life, at nearly sixty years, he acknowledged that it had been… a bit of both—a need to protect his name, but also to protect his son.
When it should have only ever been about Graham.
Laughter reached his ears, juxtaposing his tortured musings. Drawn to the clear, unfettered mirth, he wandered to the window.
Squinting, he searched the grounds below for the owners of that merriment and found the pair. Graham… and his wife, Martha. Playing like children on the terrace. An interloper watching their joy, Samuel at the same time could not look away from it.
Were their guests to see the couple, they would be scandalized.
And a scandal was something he never tolerated.
Another peal of laughter echoed from below.
The sound sprang him into movement, and with a quickened pace, he started down toward the cacophony of noise.