It Had to be the Duke - Christi Caldwell Page 0,33
I was introduced to was cold enough to not have romantic expectations of me. She could have what she wished—my title and wealth. I could have children, like I longed for.” He grimaced. More the fool was he.
“You were wrong?”
“So very wrong,” Geoffrey murmured.
They looked at the blonde ice princess framed beside his younger self in that portrait. “She despised me. The only thing she desired was my title and my wealth. She took lovers frequently, and instead of being hurt, I took that as permission to continue my roguish existence.” He cleared his throat. “I… didn’t want anything to do with emotional connections. I believed there was only one person for us, and…” Geoffrey twisted his clasped hands together. “I don’t know if that’s true, Wesley,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if my heart could have belonged to another. I… suspect had I not been a coward and had I allowed myself to open my heart again, I could have had the relationship with your mother that she deserved.”
His son said nothing for a long while, and then he spoke. “I know something of that.” There was a reticence to his son’s speech, as if he warred with himself over making any manner of admission that bonded them in some way. “About loving and not being suitable enough. I never believed you, a duke, would ever know anything about it, however.”
“I do,” he murmured. “Very much so.”
They fell quiet, both looking at the portrait of Geoffrey’s younger self and the late duchess, and Geoffrey wanted his son to continue speaking, to continue sharing those details about himself and his life so that he could learn more about him. Because he wanted to. When no further information was forthcoming, Geoffrey let his arms fall to his sides. “Is… she the reason you came and sought…” Help. A man as proud as his son had proven to be, in rejecting the highest military rank Geoffrey’s money could buy, would always balk at that word. “Is that why you sought me out?” he asked instead.
Wesley hesitated and then gave a curt nod.
“If she loves you, as you deserve, she wouldn’t expect you to change.”
“I’m not looking for paternal guidance now,” Wesley said tightly. “The time for that has passed.”
“We shall not think of it as paternal guidance. Rather, consider it what it is. Words from one man who loved and lost, to another man who I suspect also knows something of it.”
Wesley looked at him with stricken eyes. “It’s not her fault.”
Just as it hadn’t been Lydia’s. “I am not saying that it is,” Geoffrey murmured placatingly. And yet, neither had Lydia sought to rush Geoffrey off to war. Neither had she attempted to make him into something he wasn’t.
His son, however, appeared compelled to defend the young woman anyway. “Her father is a merchant, a successful, wealthy fellow with an eye on raising his—and their—ranks.”
“And he seeks to do so through marrying his daughter off.”
Wesley nodded. “A miner isn’t ever going to be a man worthy of her.”
It was a tale as old as the British kingdom. Wealthy, powerful, prestigious families always aspiring and seeking more wealth, power, and prestige. “A good man, however, is, and I’ve learned in just a handful of times speaking to you that you are a proud man, but not too proud to make decisions that will help you, and that despite being born into a Society where people are born into their posts, you see a way to grow outside the life you’ve lived in Cheadle.”
“She reminded me that my father is a duke,” Wesley said gruffly. “And that if I had a profession that could be looked upon with honor, her father could not refuse my suit.”
Geoffrey didn’t know the young woman one way or the other to judge her motives in urging Wesley to come and advance himself and improve his life, but he could say that he was grateful to her for bringing the younger man here.
“And will she wait for you while you are off risking life and limb for a profession her father could look upon with honor?”
Wesley slanted a harsh stare on him. “You would fault her for encouraging me to come here and seek this favor?”
Geoffrey carefully weighed his response, knowing the wrong one would send the proud man running and that he’d never see him or hear from him again. “I could never. Whatever it is that brought you into my life, I am glad and