Millicent’s attraction to his title and not to him.
My damnable pride, he thought darkly.
Redmond walked over to the crackling fire in the hearth and braced one hand on the marble mantel. His thoughts raced wildly until they jerked to a halt. He turned around to face the exposed couple. Thomas had his arm around the girl’s shoulders, and tears streamed down her face.
“You want Thomas?” he finally asked. Each word cost him much to even speak. A world-weary sorrow began to leach into his anger, eating away at him until he felt nothing at all. He was as hollow as the old dead trees in the woods beyond his estate.
Millicent nodded, the girlish hope in her gaze only deepening the emptiness inside him. She’d never looked at him that way, with hope.
“Then I give you my blessing. I will contact my solicitor tomorrow. We will have to demand an annulment which won’t be easy. But know this—once this is settled, neither of you must return here ever again.” He couldn’t bear to see them, even his beloved brother. The pain would be too great. To annul a marriage meant he’d never consummated his love for his wife, but he had. Everything was built upon more lies now.
Thomas’s lips parted as though he wished to speak, but then he seemed to reconsider and answered with a nod.
“Thank you, Redmond… I…,” Millicent started, but her words died as Redmond stared at her.
“Don’t,” he warned before she could say another word. Redmond stalked from the room. He could not stand to listen to her thank him for letting her break his heart.
He didn’t go back to bed. There would be no sleeping now. He headed to his study and sat in the moonlit room as he retrieved a bottle of scotch from his liquor tray by his desk. He didn’t bother with the glasses. He simply drank from the bottle until his stomach revolted and he choked on the liquid. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared out the tall bay window overlooking the road that led to the cliffs. The sea would be harsh this time of year, the fall winds giving way to icy winter. He could simply go, walk out into the night and head to the cliffs. No one would see. No one would stop him. No one would care.
Thomas would become the Duke of Frostmore, and all would be well. Thomas had always been the favorite, the more handsome, more charming, more likable brother. He’d heard the whispers all his life: Why couldn’t Thomas have been born the first son? Even his own parents had preferred Thomas. Redmond was quiet, intense, gruff at times, and not everyone understood him. Now it had cost him what little happiness he had carved out for himself.
Why had he ever thought Millicent would choose him when Thomas was at his side? From the moment he’d met the girl, her laughs had been for Thomas, her smiles, even her cries of passion. Redmond had never stood a chance.
Because I wanted to be loved, fool that I am.
He stared out at the cliffs a long time before he made a decision. A divorced man would have few options—no decent woman would ever be enticed by his title to become a second duchess after such a scandal broke. There was only one way to end this. He rose from his chair and grasped the bottle of scotch, taking another long, burning swallow.
“I never wished to be a bloody duke anyway,” he muttered as he walked unsteadily out the door of Frostmore, his ancestral home. “Good riddance.”
He stumbled a little but kept walking toward the cliffs until he could hear the crashing sound of the waves. There was nothing more beautiful or haunting than the sea when she was angry. Rain lashed his face and blinded his eyes to all but the lightning splitting the skies overhead. He moved numbly across the cold grass until he felt the rocky ledge was beneath his feet, and he wavered at the edge, his breath coming fast and his head spinning from grief and alcohol. All he wanted in that moment was for it to be over, to lose himself in the dark violence of the sea below. Then he took that final step toward the craggy abyss…
Chapter 1
Faversham, England - Seven Years Later
The bedchamber in Thursley Manor was dark except for a few lit oil lamps. The wind whistled clearly through the cracks in the mortar